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Apple Products 2021: 'Meh' 3 of 2021

7 points by Amorymeltzer 5y ago

theklr 5y ago
How many of these writers with these posts jumped in tech in the peak of the smartphone revolution? Or graphics cards? Cause it doesn’t seem that many get how the “revolutions” work. It’s waves of change due to the prolonged periods of “water-torture” incremental upgrades. We’re now only looking back at the insane jumps we got and not the years of Blackberries, Palms, and Windows Phones that laid a lot of groundwork. Learn about the neural processing that’s baked in M1 to future proof it to truly be a decade long device. Learn about the underpinnings of watchOS in series 7 and while you may not see it if you’re not active in the spaces, tennis, karate and some forms of dance are now recognized from your wrist. Sure, there not attention grabbers but that’s not “meh.”
tptacek 5y ago
I read Apple TV takes like this all the time and I have a hard time getting my head around them, because the "smart TV" features on most televisions are just atrocious; I would gladly pay $200 just to have a reasonable remote control app. In the era before set-top boxes like these, people paid this kind of money literally just for remote controls. With the Apple TV I've got every conceivable streaming service and a pretty solid jukebox interface to Apple Music. Seems pretty good? The Apple TV isn't amazing or anything, but it works. For the role it plays in my TV setup, it's not real money; it's below my threshold of price sensitivity.
- cloudengineer94 5y ago
  From a LG and Samsung user completely agree. Plus Dolby Vision and 4K actually works in my Disney+.. Since in my PS5 and Samsung QLED doesn’t for some reason
  - kyriakos 5y ago
    Samsung qled does not support dolby vision
- kevindong 5y ago
  I fully agree. I cannot stress how much I appreciate how Apple TV is the only mainstream video hardware that is completely ad free. Yes it's pricey (in comparison to other video streaming hardware), but Apple doesn't try to monetize the end user and for that I will pay Apple their $179 to avoid being showered with ads by smart TV OSes, Roku, Google TV, Amazon Fire devices, etc.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  If you compare Apple TV to what it could be, or what you might have expected out of Apple given their reputation, it's pretty meh. If you compare it to a typical smart TV, it's pretty okay, because a typical smart TV is designed by a distracted child and shipped without testing and any customer bug reports are sent directly to an incinerator. But that shouldn't be the bar.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    I honestly don't know what more I could realistically ask of my Apple TV. It's got device-wide search over all the services/apps I have installed. It plays all the music in my Apple Music account and keeps playlists synced. It does Airplay and Screen Mirroring from all my devices. It has a rock solid phone remote app. There's really only so much I need my TV to do; I don't immediately see what else Apple TV could do without trying to build a half-assed PS5 or Xbox One. It's a weird thing, to me, to be jaded about. There's a lot to be said for just getting the job done and getting out of my way.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      I think the comparison to the game consoles is the problem, because it isn't one. But if it's just Apple's version of a Chromecast then why does it cost five times as much?
      - tptacek 5y ago
        Extremely good remote (both the physical remote and the apps), several HD movies worth of disk space, gigabit ethernet. You can probably get all of that from a Roku device that costs half as much as the Apple TV, and if price is most of what you care about, you should do that. My point is that ~$200 is basically below the noise floor for this kind of component; you're going to use it every time you use the TV, or, for that matter, play music in your living room. It earns its keep.
        piva00 5y ago
- drcongo 5y ago
  My parents have a Samsung "smart" TV and it's hilariously bad - everything from the abysmal interface, the appalling control mechanisms right down to the input lag. Half the apps they want to watch stuff on aren't available on their TV because it's 3 years old. I bought them an Apple TV for xmas (mainly so they can watch Ted Lasso) and they were blown away - even at the simple fact that the home screen keeps track of what you're watching and new episodes show up there automatically. It's lightyears ahead of any "smart" TV I've ever seen.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    I just bought a big TCL TV, which has a built-in Roku interface, and the fucking remote control app shows me upsell ads. Its sole function on the TV now is to add an extra clicky step to get to my Apple TV interface. I can't believe how bad it is. And Roku specializes in building these kinds of interfaces. You could tell me that some other standalone Roku device was good, but I'd be inclined to disbelieve you after coming into contact with this iteration of it.
    - kevinmchugh 5y ago
      There's a setting on my TCL Roku to change the start-up behavior. By default it opens the Roku home screen, but you can configure it to open a specific input, or the last used. Settings > System > Power On It doesn't allow you to pick an app to open by default, which I think is a big miss.
jb1991 5y ago
I might go so far as to consider this article a bit meh as well.
hughrr 5y ago
They’re incremental upgrades. Why does everyone complain about this? If they let them rot for 5 years everyone would complain too. I bought a series 7 watch because my series 5 AppleCare ran out, not because it was gloriously a million times better. But it turned out to be much better!
- tptacek 5y ago
  Given the new M1 Macbooks, this has been one of the best Apple product years of the last decade for me. My confidence in the ecosystem has kind of never been stronger.
  - hughrr 5y ago
    Yes same here. I have an M1 mini and M1 MBA sitting here. Best computers I have ever owned.
  - xiphias2 5y ago
    For me too, I am considering switching to iPhone Pro Max, but it's so bulky, I wish it would have stayed thin.
    - hughrr 5y ago
      I didn't notice how big my 13 pro (not max) was until I got my old 6s out. But quite frankly after taking some photos with it, I don't care now. Quick snap at London Bridge station: https://imgur.com/ykYyOh1 https://imgur.com/ykYyOh1
- soneil 5y ago
  I like that the apple watch really doesn't really beg for upgrades. I usually upgrade my phone on a two year cycle. The current cycle is the first time I've skipped that, because I'm not doing anywhere enough to justify it. But pretty much as soon as vacations become a thing again, I'll use it as an excuse to justify This Years Camera. That's an expensive habit. I don't want my watch to turn into another. I ran the series0 until it stopped getting updates, now I have the 4, and when it stops getting updates I'll upgrade. 5 years feels about right. It's enough that the cost is amortised and the upgrade is notable. It's not so fast that I feel like I'm being milked. (Yes, I realise "go easy on him, he just bought a laptop" probably isn't Apple's business plan for the watch. Just saying .. I'm not complaining. This is a comfortable cadence.)
easton 5y ago
> That's not the iPad Pro's fault, my carrier has refused to support 5G on the iPad Shoot, my iPhone can't even use 5G because I have an "incompatible" plan. AT&T wants everyone to move to 5G devices, but seems to make it such a pain in the butt ($5 more per line at least, even if the other devices aren't 5G capable) that I don't see most adopting it until they force people to change plans regardless. LTE is fast-ish anyway.

7 points by Amorymeltzer 5y ago

How many of these writers with these posts jumped in tech in the peak of the smartphone revolution? Or graphics cards? Cause it doesn’t seem that many get how the “revolutions” work. It’s waves of change due to the prolonged periods of “water-torture” incremental upgrades. We’re now only looking back at the insane jumps we got and not the years of Blackberries, Palms, and Windows Phones that laid a lot of groundwork. Learn about the neural processing that’s baked in M1 to future proof it to truly be a decade long device. Learn about the underpinnings of watchOS in series 7 and while you may not see it if you’re not active in the spaces, tennis, karate and some forms of dance are now recognized from your wrist. Sure, there not attention grabbers but that’s not “meh.”

tptacek 5y ago

I read Apple TV takes like this all the time and I have a hard time getting my head around them, because the "smart TV" features on most televisions are just atrocious; I would gladly pay $200 just to have a reasonable remote control app. In the era before set-top boxes like these, people paid this kind of money literally just for remote controls. With the Apple TV I've got every conceivable streaming service and a pretty solid jukebox interface to Apple Music. Seems pretty good? The Apple TV isn't amazing or anything, but it works. For the role it plays in my TV setup, it's not real money; it's below my threshold of price sensitivity.

cloudengineer94 5y ago
From a LG and Samsung user completely agree. Plus Dolby Vision and 4K actually works in my Disney+.. Since in my PS5 and Samsung QLED doesn’t for some reason
- kyriakos 5y ago
  Samsung qled does not support dolby vision
kevindong 5y ago
I fully agree. I cannot stress how much I appreciate how Apple TV is the only mainstream video hardware that is completely ad free. Yes it's pricey (in comparison to other video streaming hardware), but Apple doesn't try to monetize the end user and for that I will pay Apple their $179 to avoid being showered with ads by smart TV OSes, Roku, Google TV, Amazon Fire devices, etc.
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
If you compare Apple TV to what it could be, or what you might have expected out of Apple given their reputation, it's pretty meh. If you compare it to a typical smart TV, it's pretty okay, because a typical smart TV is designed by a distracted child and shipped without testing and any customer bug reports are sent directly to an incinerator. But that shouldn't be the bar.
- tptacek 5y ago
  I honestly don't know what more I could realistically ask of my Apple TV. It's got device-wide search over all the services/apps I have installed. It plays all the music in my Apple Music account and keeps playlists synced. It does Airplay and Screen Mirroring from all my devices. It has a rock solid phone remote app. There's really only so much I need my TV to do; I don't immediately see what else Apple TV could do without trying to build a half-assed PS5 or Xbox One. It's a weird thing, to me, to be jaded about. There's a lot to be said for just getting the job done and getting out of my way.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    I think the comparison to the game consoles is the problem, because it isn't one. But if it's just Apple's version of a Chromecast then why does it cost five times as much?
    - tptacek 5y ago
      Extremely good remote (both the physical remote and the apps), several HD movies worth of disk space, gigabit ethernet. You can probably get all of that from a Roku device that costs half as much as the Apple TV, and if price is most of what you care about, you should do that. My point is that ~$200 is basically below the noise floor for this kind of component; you're going to use it every time you use the TV, or, for that matter, play music in your living room. It earns its keep.
      - piva00 5y ago
drcongo 5y ago
My parents have a Samsung "smart" TV and it's hilariously bad - everything from the abysmal interface, the appalling control mechanisms right down to the input lag. Half the apps they want to watch stuff on aren't available on their TV because it's 3 years old. I bought them an Apple TV for xmas (mainly so they can watch Ted Lasso) and they were blown away - even at the simple fact that the home screen keeps track of what you're watching and new episodes show up there automatically. It's lightyears ahead of any "smart" TV I've ever seen.
- tptacek 5y ago
  I just bought a big TCL TV, which has a built-in Roku interface, and the fucking remote control app shows me upsell ads. Its sole function on the TV now is to add an extra clicky step to get to my Apple TV interface. I can't believe how bad it is. And Roku specializes in building these kinds of interfaces. You could tell me that some other standalone Roku device was good, but I'd be inclined to disbelieve you after coming into contact with this iteration of it.
  - kevinmchugh 5y ago
    There's a setting on my TCL Roku to change the start-up behavior. By default it opens the Roku home screen, but you can configure it to open a specific input, or the last used. Settings > System > Power On It doesn't allow you to pick an app to open by default, which I think is a big miss.

jb1991 5y ago

I might go so far as to consider this article a bit meh as well.

hughrr 5y ago

They’re incremental upgrades. Why does everyone complain about this? If they let them rot for 5 years everyone would complain too. I bought a series 7 watch because my series 5 AppleCare ran out, not because it was gloriously a million times better. But it turned out to be much better!

tptacek 5y ago
Given the new M1 Macbooks, this has been one of the best Apple product years of the last decade for me. My confidence in the ecosystem has kind of never been stronger.
- hughrr 5y ago
  Yes same here. I have an M1 mini and M1 MBA sitting here. Best computers I have ever owned.
- xiphias2 5y ago
  For me too, I am considering switching to iPhone Pro Max, but it's so bulky, I wish it would have stayed thin.
  - hughrr 5y ago
    I didn't notice how big my 13 pro (not max) was until I got my old 6s out. But quite frankly after taking some photos with it, I don't care now. Quick snap at London Bridge station: https://imgur.com/ykYyOh1 https://imgur.com/ykYyOh1
soneil 5y ago
I like that the apple watch really doesn't really beg for upgrades. I usually upgrade my phone on a two year cycle. The current cycle is the first time I've skipped that, because I'm not doing anywhere enough to justify it. But pretty much as soon as vacations become a thing again, I'll use it as an excuse to justify This Years Camera. That's an expensive habit. I don't want my watch to turn into another. I ran the series0 until it stopped getting updates, now I have the 4, and when it stops getting updates I'll upgrade. 5 years feels about right. It's enough that the cost is amortised and the upgrade is notable. It's not so fast that I feel like I'm being milked. (Yes, I realise "go easy on him, he just bought a laptop" probably isn't Apple's business plan for the watch. Just saying .. I'm not complaining. This is a comfortable cadence.)

easton 5y ago

> That's not the iPad Pro's fault, my carrier has refused to support 5G on the iPad Shoot, my iPhone can't even use 5G because I have an "incompatible" plan. AT&T wants everyone to move to 5G devices, but seems to make it such a pain in the butt ($5 more per line at least, even if the other devices aren't 5G capable) that I don't see most adopting it until they force people to change plans regardless. LTE is fast-ish anyway.