Just buy an Apple TV, and then whatever TV you like.

I just got one today.

It's so much better than the "Smart" Samsung TV it is plugged into that it's not even funny.

The remote control has touch. I can use my phone to type text input. It's fast. It's elegant and slick. It has no ads. It has options that I care about. It doesn't waste my time with options I don't care about.

The Samsung TV on the other hand was a flagship model. Top of the line. Best of the best. Just a few years ago.

Now? It is unusable. It is beyond slow. Two to three second response time. Text input is just torture. Netflix crashes. YouTube mangles HDR in some weird way that makes people look like they were drawn by a kid with crayons.

It's shocking to me that you can pay thousands of dollars to Samsung and have them destroy your investment with "updates", whereas you can pay a few hundred dollars to Apple and have a slick product that improves over time.

What I don't understand is the executives at other companies. Companies that aren't the #1 biggest in the world. How do they not get it!? Just copy Apple! Stop fucking over your customers, and maybe they'll give you more money! I know I give Apple more money every year!

It's not that hard. It really isn't.

Yes, and my 2019 model recently started showing this:

>Support for the Ambient mode Headlines Service is scheduled to end on September 30, 2020. We thank you for using the service and we look forward to providing an improved alternative in the near future

I'm not going to buy a new TV every year. "Smart" features that are discontinued after ~1 year are worse than worthless, it's just clutter in the menus at this point.

Also crazy are hardcoded "Netflix", "Rakuten" and "Amazon" buttons on the Samsung remote, you just know that they will stop working at some point.

Those extra buttons are requirement by those companies, to integrate those services in the TV.

Now you could argue as to whether you want Netflix preinstalled on your TV, but while most smart features of smart TVs are useless, having Netflix is useful for many users.

I'm not sure that's the case, rather I think that companies pay to have their apps featured on the remote, not the other way round.

I have large and central Netflix and Youtube buttons on a Sony remote.

One of my old TVs' remote has the Sony Vue button on it. That didn't age well

There is one thing Apple TV has so backwards that I can't even.

Text input.

All the letters lined alphabetically with only left-right movement allowed. Takes ages to input anything. Also no corrections allowed. I actually exit appleTV and use the built in TV apps for when I need youtube and the like, because their input mechanism is not insane.

I know there is a remote app for iPhones, but you do provide an actual remote, make it work ffs.

Just FYI the remote app is baked into iOS. Whenever there's text input on the AppleTV the iPhone will show a notification in the drawer that can be used for text input. It's very convenient and works well.

Good thing to point out and the Remote app is worlds better than the hardware remote, but...not everyone that buys an AppleTV owns an iPhone. When I watch TV, I want to leave my phone on the desk. But most of all, Apple can make the fucking remote UI work properly rather than rely on me having a $400 device lying around. Especially if Apple is going to make me use that crap piece of hardware they call a "remote".

Roku has this as well, at least with their Android app

I assume they made the letters one row because of how sensitive the touch pad is on the remote. For example, when picking a show on Netflix I constantly go down a row when I am just trying to go right on a column. I assume keeping the letters on one axis is a not so great work around.

Just FYI, there's an option to adjust the sensitivity of the remote.

(Even so, what you describe still happens on occasion for me, but it helps)

Very strangely enough, the original 2D keyboard still exists in the OS. If you have one of those old silver Apple remotes from the Apple TV 1/2/3, clicking anywhere replaces the crappy long keyboard with the nicer grid one. Very bizarre Easter egg

Ehhh, I don't agree. Like at all.

If they had a 2D text input they wouldn't be able to do momentum in swiping as well as horizontal (side effect of the horrible remote), but more importantly, the primary text input on Apple TV is voice, in the moment just hold the Siri button. It takes in letters over voice too. Worlds faster than any other input on tv. No wonder they prioritized on it.

> Also no corrections allowed.

The last glyph in the row of letters is the delete key.

Use voice dictation. It works remarkably well for entering text

Except it doesn't. Maybe it works in English speaking countries watching only English titles. But in the other 90% of the bi-lingual world it doesn't. Set it to non-English (e.g. Dutch) and you cannot dictate English titles, or the other way around. Very annoying and frustrating.

Try entering something like 'Les Misérables' or "into to Kubernetes"

> "into to Kubernetes"

That could be a movie about absurdity and meaninglessness of life...

Does the first one work when a French person pronounces it?

Although inconvenient, it does let you dictate individual letters. Which is almost as fast as tap-typing on a phone.

Well, thanks for the suggestion, I didn't know it was an option.

But what if I need to input a language that's not supported or I just don't want to yell at my TV to search a video?

Then my iPhone pops up a "Keyboard Input" notification with a text input that I can type from the phone without unlocking it.

Of course, if you don't have your phone nearby it might suck but let's be realistic, how often you don't have your phone close by when watching TV?

P.S.: Yes, I know, if you are an Android user there is no way out and Apple sucks for that, not defending them at all.

This is a company supposedly famous for great user interfaces and usability. Why not try to live up to it?

There are actually many times I don't have my phone with me while watching TV. I carry it with me everywhere all day, but I try to keep it on the table most of the time when at home.

Apple TV has bluetooth, so if this is really an issue for you, why not get a dedicated TV keyboard?

Why can't they just fix their user interface? Nobody in the world I have talked to thinks this is the best choice of interfaces.

I don't need a dedicated TV keyboard. As I said, I work around it by using the TV apps, but it's annoying, and the most annoying part is that it's probably annoying on purpose to get people more on their phone.

I doubt it's annoying on purpose to get more people on the phone. I could be wrong about that, but that's not usually the way Apple's particular kind of hubris tends to manifest. There's almost certainly people at the company -- and it only takes one or two in the right places -- who like the current UI for text selection, and would probably explain why they think so. Now, they may literally be the same people who think the Apple TV remote is good in the first place, so I want to make it clear I'm not saying they're right. :)

And, Apple should be better at UI design than this. They were once, and not that long ago, but I think the UI team they've had for the last, oh, let's say seven or eight years -- going back semi-arbitrarily to iOS 7, but steadily infecting all other platforms -- have prioritized aesthetics over usability.

I don't think it is on purpose to get people on their phone. Most people just don't use the keyboard much, I would guess. I never do, except for signing up for new apps.

So I would agree with their design decision: make an elegant remote, use voice dictation for search and the like, if you need a keyboard, use your iPhone, and if you are not happy with that, get a dedicated keyboard. If you are not happy with THAT, well ...

I am spending way more energy on this thread than is healthy :D

But I can understand where you're coming from, I am just very frustrated that this user-interface-design-genius trillion dollar company can not change the input mechanism of one of their most used product from the:

a b c d e [f] g h i j k etc... Backspace

model with only <-> movement and no way to make an input correction other than backspace, to something like:

  a b  c  d  Backspace
  e f [g] h  forward 
  i j  k  l  backward
  m n  o  p

Which is the way almost all other TV-centered apps I use function and works much better.

Yeah, I get your point now.

If you have an iPhone, you should get a prompt to enter text on your phone when you’re in an Apple TV search field.

> It has no ads.

I have a bunch of aTVs, and while they’re the best boxes I’ve used, there’s definitely some ads baked in, and in prominent placements.

- The TV app started out as a directory + recommendation engine for services you had “connected” to the app; it’s turned into a series of pitches for Apple TV+ and Apple’s “Channels” feature. These placements are below-the-fold, but the default behavior has the “TV” button on the remote bring up that app (although you can change this to display the home screen). - In the top banner, the TV & Music apps will (by default) auto-play trailers and music videos (on mute). You can disable that behavior for the TV app, and it’ll revert to displaying your watch queue.

You can turn those off in the System Prefs (at least the above-the-fold ones). It's glorious!

I am not a fan of that remote control at all. I constantly sit on it, skipping through shows; and I don't get the purpose of the touchpad vs a d-pad.

No one uses the trackpad on their playstation controllers, why did apple run with the same idea?

I'm a big fan of the Roku boxes.

If I recall correctly, Roku boxes frequently scan the network for other devices. I keep mine on a VLAN that only allows communication out to the net.

Can you block or revert the updates? Set it back to factory defaults?

That doesn't seem like an acceptable solution. The ads weren't there when I bought the TV.

I found the support article from Sony on this:

https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00225587

If this is a TV that is used by very young children, ads with blood splatter as shown in their example seem pretty tasteless.

Google's page on the introduction of ads has the same thing - an ad for Sesame Street followed up with the ad containing blood splatter.

https://blog.google/products/android-tv/find-new-faves-faste...

> Q3: Can I remove these suggestions?

> A3: No, the suggestions cannot be removed.

I keep hoping someone will file a class action over this. These dumbfuck ads just appeared one day on my Bravia X900E, about a year after purchase. I didn't opt in to this and I wouldn't have bought the damn thing if this "feature" existed at the time. Sign me up for the class!

> Subscriptions in a snap makes it easier for you to watch a must-see show from an app that you haven't subscribed to.

Honestly, that's the thing I hate most about the Fire Stick, and why I don't use it's discovery feature at all... I don't want to see promotions for 4,000 services I don't subscribe to. Sure, if I search for a specific show, I don't mind results from those services ... but as general adverts for shows? No thank you.

I have ads on my Apple TV, don't you? Some movie trailers running in the background that I really don't want to see. And every time I miss-swipe somehow the Apple TV remote in an application, I get to that "home" screen watching another movie trailer :|

There are two ways to disable this:

- Remove the “TV” app from the top bar. - You can change the behavior from the “Settings” app to show your “TV” app’s watch queue instead of trailers.

You can’t disable the Music app videos, though.

I can agree that the ads are dependent on the apps in your top bar. I hve Plex, Prime, Netflix, Disney, & YouTube in mine and I don't see any ads.

No. I don't use the "TV" app though, so that may be the difference.

Unless you mean trailers for whatever the cursor is on, inside of an app like Netflix? If so, some of those can be disabled, but I actually like them—they're "ads" for content that I already have access to but may not have known about otherwise.

As mentioned at the end of the original article, you can disable the apple TV recommendations.

No, I don't have those. Maybe they can be disabled? I don't recall disabling them.

Well, try to buy a high end non-smart TV. Near impossible

Just don't connect it to the internet.

Also great solution for cheap subsidized TVs where they are banking on your connecting to your network so only charge $100.

Plug in an apple TV and you are set.

> Plug in an apple TV and you are set.

https://tidbits.com/2020/01/16/why-is-the-apple-tv-constantl...

Those "ads" are not nearly as intrusive as the ones being displayed in the article, second I have found them to be mostly useful in that I've found a couple new shows because of those "ads".

Disabling them is also fairly easy, and if you don't use the TV app, they go away entirely.

> Just don't connect it to the internet.

Smart TV manufacturers are relying on the ongoing revenue from their software side nowadays, so they’ll usually mandate setting up an internet connection as part of the device setup process, and then only give you the option to change networks instead of disabling it outright.

If you’re tech savvy, you can take measures against this, but it’s not going to be simple for most folks.

You also have to worry about ethernet-over-HDMI unintentionally exposing the TV to the wider internet.

How "usually" is this, actually? I bought an LG TV about a year ago, and it did not force me to connect to the Internet. I just turned it on, skipped the crap, and it works fine over HDMI.

Can confirm that both Samsung and LG cheap LCD panels (~$400) that I got this year do not force a network setup and work without it.

I set up a TCL Roku TV in 2019 for my parents; it presented no option to skip connecting to WiFi.

During guided setup, it will scan for wireless networks, but one option is always "I do not want to connect" where the TV continues in unconnected mode.

If anyone else is dealing with this you can try temporarily setting up a new SSID (on your phone or existing network) and then getting rid of it after setup is finished.

If a TV doesn't work without internet, I'll just return it and let them know it's not working.

Maybe not an economical choice but you can buy digital signage displays. They are typically more expensive but are built for maximum durability and don't include consumer features like streaming.

I bought an LG OLED Wallpaper signage display; it wasn't cheap, or easy to get, but it makes a fantastic TV, with no "apps" or "ads", just one HDMI input for an Apple TV (which I run through a Denon HEOS A/V receiver). 1080p, not 4K, but I'm 55 and couldn't see those pixels from 10 feet anyway ツ It doesn't have CEC, but it does wake on signal. Well worth the cost and trouble.

A lot of them have RJ45 and RS232 ports and you can send commands through them to make some DIY CEC. You'd need to do some hacking and I don't know if they have public APIs, but it's possible.

Where can you buy these?

They're not hard to find. Just search for "signage display". They sell on Amazon, Newegg, B&H, CDW. There's a lot of niche manufacturers, but LG and Samsung are probably the two biggest producers. One other warning, these are frequently built with sturdy casing and can be heavy and they typically sell without any mounting hardware although they can accept any VESA stand.

Apparently according to other comments a lot of TVs still do ACR on content received by the apple TV (or any hdmi signal) so we still need dumb tvs...

Disable the TV's network connection. Or if you really need it connected, decline as many of the ToS & privacy agreements as possible

That's my current setup. TV with the network connection disabled running Apple TV.

So, buy a device that has ads to avoid a device that has ads?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208511

Or my preference is a Chromecast, whatever TV you like. Then you don't have to deal with Apple's UX or Google's. At that point your phone is the remote.

I tried that, but didn't like how the Chromecast phoned home all the time to make sure I was authorized to play the phone was also authorized to be played on a TV. I was surprised that some apps specifically disallowed this.

I ended up with an AppleTV. So far, if it plays on my phone, it will play on the TV, too.

And (this important) never hook the TV with Android up to a network connection. Only the Apple TV can get to the internet.

I bought a Sony Android TV in June. I refused to connect it to the internet and I skipped past the Android setup screens.

I plugged in my Apple TV instead.

Every now and then the Android TV pops up when I turn the TV on and asks me to complete the set up. I always tell it to fuck off.

So far, no ads. It'll stay that way till the TV eventually dies - without ever connecting to the internet.

My Sony TV from 2014 has ads in the TV Guide that gets content from the Internet.