
Apple TV, Apple TV, Apple TV, and Apple TV+ - uptown
https://dcurt.is/apple-tv-all-the-way-down
======
sgentle
Okay, I think I've got this figured out. Can someone check my working?

[https://imgur.com/a/GVdsG7r](https://imgur.com/a/GVdsG7r)

Color key:

    
    
        Green: Apple set-top box
        Yellow: App for Apple set-top box
        Orange: App for other Apple devices
        Red: App for third-party devices
        Yellow/Orange/Red stripe: App generally across all platforms
        Violet: Integrated external subscription content
        Blue: Apple subscription content
        Violet/Blue stripe: Content generally
        Rainbow stripe: Apple TV

~~~
nabla9
See also:

Apple TV (disambiguation)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_TV_(disambiguation)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_TV_\(disambiguation\))

Original programming for Apple TV+ seems to be very good.

First three episodes for the "For All Mankind" (scifi) are good so are the
three episodes for "See". The "The Morning Show" seems to be very good
although I'm not in the target audience.

~~~
matwood
> First three episodes for the "For All Mankind" (scifi) are good so are the
> three episodes for "See". The "The Morning Show" seems to be very good
> although I'm not in the target audience.

Which is funny because many critics/reviewers have panned all the new shows.
I've only watched TMS so far and found it intriguing.

~~~
nabla9
It's funny, but I get a feeling that the shows are seamless match for Apple
products (not in the bad way). It seems like like they are targeting premium
users with their programming.

------
andrewstuart
Remember when .NET came out? _Everything_ was .NET. As a result, no-one really
had any idea what .NET actually was. Eventually we figured out it was
"Microsoft's Java".

Windows also went through a phase in which seemingly everything was Windows.

~~~
sk5t
Microsoft has gone through some pretty dark times w.r.t. naming stuff. Up
there with "Windows" everything and absurdities like ".net Passport" was their
unslakable thirst for "Active." ActiveX, Active Server Pages, Active Data
Objects.

However, none of it holds a candle to IBM's mania for making everything
"Websphere."

~~~
Pxtl
Dark times are still happening. Right now they're renaming everything Azure
regardless of whether it's part of their cloud offerings.

Also, Live was another Microsoft naming phase.

For me, the canary in the coal mine of ms naming is their messenger. Msn
messenger, live messenger, Skype, Skype for business, Teams... I assume the
next iteration will be named Azure Teams.

~~~
ulfw
I give you msn and live messenger.

All the other ones are literally different products each. I expect different
products to have different names.

Why there were so many messenger products is a different question. Anyone from
Google wanna jump in and explain this one? ;)

~~~
giancarlostoro
My best guess is Skype was much more profitable than MSN. But Microsoft took
the best features of Skype and removed them and the quality got diminished
probably in order to monkeypatch Lync into Skype as well as MSN at the time.

After like 2013 I never used Skype again. Now everyone I know either uses
Discord or Slack. Teams was at least the right direction for business focus
but it seems they shoulda QAd it much more. I dont hear much positive about
Teams.

------
whoopdedo
"There are only two hard problems in Computer Science: cache invalidation and
naming things." (Phil Karlton)

Amusing that along with this, there are two articles about caches on the front
page of HN right now.

~~~
vvanders
There's also the unspoken third one which is off by one errors.

~~~
yunruse
Like they said, the two hard problems.

~~~
jeegsy
ISWYDT

------
Apocryphon
_This article is about the media player. For the streaming service, see Apple
TV+. For the media player app from Apple, see Apple TV (software). For other
uses, see Apple TV (disambiguation)._

------
randomstring
What? No mention of the Apple TV remote, the Apple TV Siri remote, the Apple
TV remote app, or the iOS Apple TV remote app shortcut feature on iOS?

The physical Apple remotes are so terrible, I've stopped using Apple TV (all
of them). The Apple remote app is better, but is useless for when you need to
hit pause, as your phone has gone to sleep.

~~~
js2
The awful remote is tolerable with one of these cases:

[https://www.amazon.com/Fintie-Protective-Case-Apple-
Remote/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Fintie-Protective-Case-Apple-
Remote/dp/B01K6LO5SK)

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I'm not sure it solves the main problem which is scrolling on the remote is
almost unusable.

They would have been better sticking with the remote that came with the early
versions.

~~~
2rsf
what do you mean by scrolling being unusable ? it's not a mouse wheel with
steady scroll rate but something similar to flicking a finger.

It's not great for long lists but it's far from being terrible, also part of
the problem lies on the UI design for example having too long lists

~~~
tonyedgecombe
It is terrible, it regularly fails to scroll or scrolls too far.

~~~
2rsf
cannot reproduce on my machine

------
js2
Also, the Apple TV Movies app has a wish list which doesn't sync with
anything.

And, sometimes when you search for a movie using Siri on Apple TV it opens in
Movies where you can add it to your wish list, but sometimes it opens in the
TV app where you can't. To avoid this, you have to go into Movies, then use
Search, then use your voice to fill in the title, then it will come up in
Movies where you can add it to the wish list.

And don't even get me started on having different Apple IDs that you need to
use for iCloud and iTunes because btw, you can't merge Apple IDs. And if one
of your Apple IDs is from the .mac/.me era, you can't change its primary email
address.

But other than that it's great.

------
Austin_Conlon
Apple needs to have the marketing people who come up with California-based
macOS names sort this out. If they solved the cat naming crisis then surely
they can clean up this mess.

~~~
D-Coder
They solved the cat-naming crisis? I missed that memo!

~~~
sah2ed
The first 9 release names of OSX (v10.0 - v10.8) were based on cat names after
which they switched to Mavericks for v10.10:

\- Cheetah

\- Puma

\- Jaguar

\- Panther

\- Tiger

\- Leopard

\- Snow Leopard

\- Lion

\- Mountain Lion

\- Mavericks _

------
tolmasky
The best is that you can buy the Apple TV in _two_ sizes! 32 GB and 64 GB. Why
you ask? Can the bigger one store more stuff? No, everything’s in the cloud!
So what’s it for exactly? Who knows! But it’ll cost you an extra $20 and won’t
even come in a different color like the “Pro” keyboards and mice. For a fun
exercise go ask an Apple store employee this.

~~~
jc__denton
Additional app storage and the ability to store/download media in apps that
support it.

~~~
dvdbloc
How many apps will I have to install to run out of space on my 32GB Apple TV?
Curious how many people this has actually happened to...

~~~
zuppy
Now, with Apple Arcade, it is very easy to run out of space. It made no sense
at the beginning, though.

------
jasoneckert
I'm never one to jump on the new product bandwagon. I think I'll wait until
the Apple TV++ comes out.

Plus, it'll probably be object-oriented.

~~~
adrianmonk
It's also possible the next models will be Apple TVe, Apple TVc, and Apple
TVgs.

~~~
partomniscient
Not to be confused with the also upcoming Apple iTV.

------
nneonneo
Netflix refers to a company, an app, a third-party app on some Smart TVs, and
a subscription service, but people don’t generally get confused. Consistent
branding isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

That said, Apple’s support for third-party Smart TV apps is actually quite
unusual IMHO; this really reduces their usual control over quality and
experience.

~~~
sigwinch28
Is it really inconsistent branding, though?

To me, every one of these Netflixes is the same: the Netflix on my phone,
tablet, TV, games console, and the website are all the _same product_.

For Apple TV, however, the exact same name is used to refer to multiple
different products and experiences: the device, the app on the device, the app
on different devices, and many of these experiences differ significantly.

~~~
pwinnski
Ultimately, it seems like there are two different Apple TV products, but not
more than that.

There's the device, and there's the app/service. The difference from Netflix
is that Netflix doesn't sell hardware also called Netflix.

~~~
sigwinch28
The author seems to be getting at that point: these two "Apple TV"s are more
than two products.

Assuming for a moment that the hardware devices can be a single product, the
apps just cannot be: each of them has wildly different behaviour on different
apple devices, with different features, and different functionality depending
on the presence of 3rd party apps.

As an end user I found this confusing at first, frustrating when I understood
what was going on, and now I just don't use the Apple TV apps, even on my
Apple TV.

~~~
pwinnski
I guess this is subjective, but I don't see the behaviors as "wildly"
different.

In all cases, the Apple TV app is where you go to access the Apple TV+ service
and as much other available content and video services as can possibly be
presented to you on the given platform. The fact that this is different
depending on your device and subscriptions is a little bit weird, but it
doesn't change _that_ much, at least for me.

------
SiVal
Next up is Apple TVX. "It's called 'tee-five-ten'. Yes, that's what it's
called. Say it that way. Because we said so."

------
snarkypixel
Here's my take on it: I bought an Apple TV and It Just Works. Movies,
subtitle, adding a few key apps like Netflix and Youtube. It's the same name
because it's the same whole experience.

~~~
sxcurry
Exactly. Now I feel a bit bad because I'm not confused at all - it just all
works.

~~~
kkarakk
It all works juuuuust until it doesn't and you have to upgrade to the next
tier. I assume the experience will be like the one i had with netflix, where
once i had a 4k tv i realized i HAD to upgrade my account and internet
bandwidth coz otherwise stuff would look blurry and buffer(for kids who can't
tell why stuff doesn't look as good as on the neighbors device)

Obviously not a problem for people who can just buy all the extras but if
you're budgeting then it does get quite nasty and lead you to the media server
route

~~~
pwinnski
Bad assumption. Apple TV+ has only one price, no tiers of service like
Netflix.

~~~
kkarakk
yet

------
jfroma
I find naming and details as confusing with Amazon Prime, Amazon Video and
FireTV.

Maybe it is not as problematic when you are in the US, but in my country
Amazon Prime works in all devices (android, ios, pc, etc) except in the
FireTV, other services like netflix, spotify and youtube works very well on
FireTV. Note that this is clearly stated in the documentation and faqs, it is
a product targeted to a few countries only.

------
tiredwired
Reminds me of the time I tried to decide which Microsoft Surface I should buy.

~~~
jvm_
Or when you want to buy a used one and want to check the value.

------
Razengan
I love the occasional topic like this that makes HN let out its inner Reddit.

------
myrandomcomment
Highly recommend MrMC ([https://mrmc.tv](https://mrmc.tv)) for the AppleTV. It
is a Kodi port and allows you to mount NFS/SMB again. I switched from a PC
w/Kodi to AppleTV on all the TV sets. MrMC for the local music and videos,
Amazon Prime, Netflix, SiriusXM, iPlayer. Done. No moving parts, simple. I do
not plug in the SmartTVs or use their apps as I do not not need my info shared
with the world...

------
caublestone
What’s pretty brilliant is that you could remove the word Apple and it would
look exactly like what Tv is. Essentially Apple has replaced TV with AppleTV.
And with that Apple is trying to become a monopoly on what was formally a
relatively distributed system.

------
tapsboy
The mostly same problems plague Amazon Fire TV and Amazon Prime, Prime
Channels, Prime Video for purchase, Prime video included in prime account,
Prime App on different platforms, SSO with TV Network Apps. Looks like Apple
is trying to catch up with mess.

With Google, I don't even know where to start. Messaging is not the only
product line they messed up. Play Movies offering the same thing as Youtube
Movies and Google Play Music - Youtube Music (you can buy, you can subscribe).
Adding podcasts to Google Play Music, then removing it for a standalone app.
However if you download the podcasts from the standalone app, they show up as
Albums in Google Play music (on Android)

------
maz1b
For a company with a relatively smaller product line, Apple sure is not the
best at naming things. How does something like this happen?

~~~
reaperducer
Maybe someone at Apple got the Sony WH-1000XM3 Noise Cancelling Headphones
instead of the MDR-ZX110NC Noise Cancelling Headphones for Christmas, and this
is some kind of a backlash into over-simplification.

------
gremlinsinc
What i find confusing... is I use the subscription service from Roku (trial).
I kind of like that new Morning Show show, and then I wanted to see what else
they had to offer on their streaming service but everything is mixed w/ 3rd
party crap that's like $2/episode or something.

I just want free stuff/included stuff. I login to prime/netflix I know where
to go to get all the included stuff. on Apple+ via Roku it's confusing as
fuck. I think it's meant to be so I dish out cash to watch stuff. But that's
not going to happen, instead I'll get pissed off and get rid of the service.

~~~
Mindwipe
There's literally only four shows included, so it's barely worth having a
category.

(There actually is a category, well hidden, on the Mac/Apple TV hardware
version of the app, but I'm not familiar with the Roku UI.)

------
larusso
Ahhh Apple iPhoneOS became iOS (Because of the iPad and appleTV 2) iOS for the
appleTV became tvOS. OSX became macOS iOS for iPad became iPadOS I wait with
glee when they rename iOS back to iPhoneOS.

~~~
saagarjha
iPod Touch still runs iOS.

~~~
larusso
Right. So a rename to iPodOs is due ;)

------
yaur
Missing from this article is "Channels" which is a third-party app that runs
on Apple TV that lets you stream and record from a local network tuner.

------
zedgerman
Maybe it’s still a hobby 10 years later?

------
qzervaas
One thing to note (not that it necessarily clears things up all that much):

In the March 2019 Apple TV+ announcement event, Apple renamed the non-4K Apple
TV hardware from "Apple TV" to "Apple TV HD".

So the hardware options are now "Apple TV HD" and "Apple TV 4K".

------
lilyball
Funny, I don't see an "Apple TV" app on my iPhone, I just see "TV".

~~~
playpause
Same with Wallet, Watch, Maps - they seem to omit the ’Apple’ in app titles
used on the devices, and occasionally in marketing copy on a second mention.

------
kccqzy
At least when Apple TV first came out in 2007 the messaging and branding was
very clear. It was just the hardware device. The software that looked like an
Apple TV interface on a Mac was called Front Row.

------
coudron
WWDC 2020: "We're excited to announce Apple TVs+"

~~~
dceddia
Soon to be joined by Apple TVs+ Pro! *

* one or more pros not included

~~~
pca184
Jinx! :)

------
DonHopkins
The original Apple TV, circa 1979:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiWE-aO-
cyU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiWE-aO-cyU)

------
fitzroy
2021: Apple TV+ Pro

~~~
Papirola
2022: Apple TV#

------
netfl0
This made my day.

------
anticensor
Apple TV: Far Seer's Edition

------
Papirola
I thought it was just me :/

------
mc3
Glad he cleared that one up.

------
notadoc
Apple seems to have lost their focus, and that is reflecting all over their
product line.

------
jacquesl
Apple TV is also a dumpster fire.

------
buildbuildbuild
Apple TV+ has its flaws. So did Netflix on day one.

~~~
sb057
But this isn't a critique of Apple TV; this is a critique of Apple TV.

~~~
HeWhoLurksLate
Right. Let me see if I got this right- Apple TV is on first, Apple TV is on
second, Apple TV is on third, and AppleTV+ is pitching.

------
shadowmore
Sounds about par for the course for post-Jobs Apple.

~~~
chooseaname
It's been 8 years. People can't honestly still be holding on to this, can
they?

~~~
theklr
People love their idols. Elvis is only fading because his base is.

~~~
briandear
Elvis isn’t really fading; he is the #2 dead artist by annual revenue. Michael
Jackson is number 1 — he had about 2 billion streams last year.

