Anyone Use Apple TV? Benefits?
 

I finally installed my Apple TV unit (only took a year) and I was very surprised to find that there is a fee for virtually anything you want to watch. Just about everything stated "7 day free trial, then $4.99 of $10.99 or $12.99 per month".

Am I doing something wrong or was I completely duped with this very expensive unit and now endless fees? I'm ok with paying for a couple of services like NetFlix but I got off the grid for a reason and I'm not going back to huge monthly fees.

I think you misunderstood. I've had an ATV for years. I have all of my DVDs and BDs ripped and can stream those to the ATV any time for free. I have Netflix that I pay for. I occasionally get a free month of Hulu and cancel after the month. We have one other service that we subscribe to that's a few bucks a month.

I think there are some things that you can get that are free, but not a bunch. Every channel except for over the air broadcast channels costs something to subscribe to. When you have cable, the cable company pays some amount for every cable channel that is in your subscription. Therefore if you want any cable channel or want to stream just about anything, there's going to be a cost associated with that (the equipment and bandwidth to stream stuff is not free).

It sounds like you just didn't understand what you were getting.

Stuff that I know is free, Pluto TV and Locast.

Stuff that I think is free, Crackle, Tubi and Popcornflix.

I don't think I've ever actually watched any of these. I got them when I got my current ATV which was probably at least 5 years ago.

Even if you want to watch NBC via their app, you have to pay.

You can think of Apple TV is being like a Computer or PC. It's the hardware that the stuff runs on, but you still have to pay for Internet service, and you've got to buy photoshop and MS Office and ....

If you have Amazon Prime, then there's a bunch of movies and shows that you can watch. Of course, you are paying for Prime too.

TV shows will have commercials to support them, or the customer with paying fees. For some reason all those actors and production staff like to get paid.

Apple TV is great if you have a iPad or iPhone. There is no free lunch.

Well, you can watch PBS over the air.

The Apple TV is great if you have movies or photos on your phone and you want to show them to more than one person at a time. Everyone just loves watching home movies and vacation photos.

Isn't that why you keep posting the pics of your car in the Corkscrew and in Key West?

(I keed, I keed. :p)

Apple TV is a content aggregator.

Do you need one to do that?

No.

You can roll a Raspberry PI Kodi unit, $40.00 for the hardware and setup is cake.

What you are missing is the unified experience across offerings.

By adhering to Apples design standards for UI and function it makes the experience as consistent and seamless as it can get.

ROKU is also an aggregator but IMHO not as tight an experience as Apple TV.

You are paying for form and function and that does have value although some don't agree with the value proposition and that's fine, they have other options.

Ok, thanks for the explanations. It makes sense now. I guess I thought that when I paid $150 for the apple cube, I was paying a premium over the other devices but the offset would be programing. I guess I will pick a few services and subscribe and ultimately be happy.

My primary reason for getting this in the first place was that I put in a smart projector and it gets youtube but does not get netflix. I thought the apple TV would solve this. I'll get used to it and stop complaining. I will say that it seems like the picture quality on the Apple TV is superb.

You are connecting to a projector, but for some people who have a Vizio smart tv, the benefit is added privacy. I read somewhere that Vizio made more in profits from selling user data than actual hardware sales.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1624386464.jpg

I have eleventy zillion pictures of my 911 after 26 years. This is a new favorite. Downtown OKC in the background.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1624386604.JPG

Here it is in northern Maine, at Acadia National Park.

I get to bore my Pelican friends with my vacation photos since I can't invite ya to my living room! ;)

far, far better than pics of the family at Thanksgiving dinner, in front of a stuffed moose or polar bear, at the airport, etc...

And if I had pics of myself driving anything (or hell, riding along) in the corkscrew, I'd probably post them every chance that I got.

And you might consider other sources, some cell phone providers provide free Disney+. Some internet providers provide add on, my AT&at Giga plan adds HBO Max. I also am a Amazon Prime member so Prime Movies app lets me watch the free stuff, etc.

And I agree it’s a quality video and great consolidator, it’s the only device I use on all my TVs. Like many I’ve ripped all my movies, I have Plex and friends that share media, I used to pay for Netflix and DirectTV Now which was streaming cable provider. Having the AppleTV allows for a single remote, multiple services in a single user interface for you TV. Way better than all those people that are consistently grabbing different remotes, trying to switch to multiple inputs on their TV for different devices. There are lots of ad based apps that can give you some services if you don’t mind dealing with that, otherwise consider some of the services and consolidate to one or a few and have that single interface. Oh and if you have multiple, having them all sync apps and layout is another icing on the single ecosystem.


CTopher

side note- the new remote that recently came out for the Apple TV unit is a big improvement over the previous black "wafer"