A large % of their revenue comes from app store/services and they have incentives to lock you into the ecosystem, sell you digital shit and take a cut off of everything.

I saw an ad for apple gaming service in my iphone system settings recently !

That's not to say that Google isn't worse but let's not pretend Apple is some saint here or that their incentives are perfectly aligned with the users. Hardware growth has peaked, they will be forced to milk you on services to keep growing revenue.

Personally I'm looking forward to Steam Deck, if that gets annoying with SteamOS - it's a PC built for Linux, there's going to be something available.

> I don't pretend that Apple is saintly, but their profit model is currently to make money through premium prices on premium products

Is this statement based on anything other than Apple marketing materials, perhaps a meaningful qualification from an independent third party? I worry this falsehood is being repeated so much it has become "truth".

Great tip! I'd been using a custom launcher, but with this, I might not have to.

It never occurred to me that that's why all the macOS utilities cost money. (I mean not literally all but way more basic stuff than you'd ever think to pay for on Windows or Android). I did figure Apple encouraged it because of their massive cut off the revenue but i forgot they charge devs to publish in the first place.

I like the idea, but these KODI-based devices far too limited, they essentially only serve as media players for local content. For example, streaming Youtube is difficult and a poor experience relative using VacuumTube on desktop Linux. It's even harder to get a browser to work to stream from websites like Pluto and Flixer, especially if you want an adblocker. I haven't found a better option than an upscaled Linux DE on a mini-PC so far (however, see KDE Plasma Bigscreen).

Also, you can buy a more capable used ThinkCenter micro for less money, so the value proposition isn't exactly great.

Of course that's a viable option, but likely uses far more electricity in a year and unless you're going the high seas, unlikely to always get a better 4k HDR resolution from streaming services.

I have the same setup and have never looked back. My kids can control the TV now via the browser instead of asking me to fiddle with a smartphone, and I can easily block e.g. YouTube via the hosts file. The ability to have multiple streaming services open in different tabs and reading online reviews all on the same screen is also vastly superior to any UX offered by e.g. Chromecast or similar devices.

I used to use a NUC with a K400 as well (and a Logitech Harmony (RIP)), and the Apple TV is a way better experience.

The Apple TV remote is way more useable, and HDMI CEC just works™, which never ever was true with the NUC. I really like the client-server model - the Apple TV is my dumb front end for Plex, Steam Link, and so on. It also is well supported by every streaming service.

All of the Apple TV apps are designed with a UI for a TV and remote, not a user sitting two feet from a computer with a keyboard and mouse, and are way easier to use sitting on a sofa then a keyboard + browser combo.

I could fiddle with the NUC and make it work, but it was not family friendly. In general, the "it just works" factor is extremely high, which I could not say for the NUC.

If Apple ever goes evil, I'll just switch to whatever the best solution is when that happens (maybe a rooted Android TV device?). It's not like I'm marrying it. An Apple TV is $150. I've gotten 4 years out of my current one. The cost is negligible.

As I've gotten older, I've really come to value the "it just works" factor. I don't have time or energy for fiddly stuff anymore. After I put in the time to set something up, I want it to be rock solid. To each their own though.

> and use a wireless keyboard with integrated touchpad to control it.

Which wireless keyboard do you use? I've pretty much exact same setup - TV + Linux Mint + Logitech K400+. I'm just looking to see if there are better options for K400+

can't wait for valve to release the new controller with touchpads. Should be more compact than a keyboard and paired with some voice recognition would make the need for keyboard almost obsolete for smarttv usecase

It works well. I have a throwaway pseudonym dedicated to my appleTV and we use the login so infrequently that we always have to look it up.

The only time we ever interface with apple is to install a new app on the AppleTV and that is very rare.

The appletv is not connected to any other apple products or services.

I'm not any more in the ecosystem than an Apple ID and airpods, and it is just fine. The directional spatial audio with the airpods is cool, but we also use other BT headphones with it. I use the ATV almost exclusively for Jellyfin/Infuse.

HDMI Ethernet Channel fizzled out and no devices ever supported it.

Because intentionally non-smart TVs are an increasingly niche, and thus expensive market, and not a categorical upgrade from simply not connecting a smart TV to the internet, while benefitting from the manufacturer subsidy from advertisers.

Why would someone buy a car with a stereo? Why would someone buy something like jeans with a zipper?

I see this claim posted a lot, and not a single person has ever provided evidence of it happening with any TV brand I've ever heard of.

You're suggesting that my TV would connect to a random open WiFi, it sounds far fetched

I looked at the git page for sponsor block TV, but it’s super confusing. It’s talking about installing python and docker. You can’t do that stuff on an Apple TV right??

It won't be long before products like this just get cellular modems built in.

There already are on Sony TVs. My roommate is always connecting it when I’m away and I have to factory reset it and go through the dark pattern to use it without WiFi.

how so? describe an example please.

For me: I want something that will always work with minimal effort and is easy to use for the family.

I've farted around with every HTPC software from MythTV on and I'm over it. I'll happily pay the premium for an AppleTV that will handle almost everything in hardware.

Not user friendly and required dedicated hardware (TV tuners). Governing bodies also couldn't agree on HTPC standards, like Play4Sure, causing even more confusion. Plex and Sonarr/Radar are gaining some steam though.

They're great but my friends get confused when they're staying and I'm not there. Not having a normal remote throws people. Getting a remote to work perfectly and usefully in Linux isn't all that simple. Plus it's not at all easy for it to manage external inputs -- a smart TV can just switch to the ps5 with a button, how would i do that from my Linux htpc keyboard?

Don't get me wrong, I'm never giving up my ublock-YouTube plus steam plus Plex Linux htpc but there's plenty of reasons they're not super practical.

Also doesn't Netflix still throttle to 720p on PCs?

The specs and quality of the panel, backlighting (if applicable), and image processing. These days, the few "dumb" TVs that are still sold are either cheap and bad or are designed for signage use and aren't well suited for TV/movies/games relative to their mass-market smart cousins.

A smart TV used as a dumb TV alongside a quality streaming box (Apple TV or Nvidia Shield TV) or console gets you the best overall experience.

There's a variety of reasons, but many of us don't want any of the "smartness" and all of the stupidity that comes with "Smart TV's" these days, but don't really have comparable "dumb" options at similar or cheaper price points. The Telemetry (ACR), unremovable copilot app getting added to LG TV's, or all the Ad's Samsung are cramming into their "smart" garbage are three prime examples, but certainly not the only reasons I hate smart TV's (or really any device marketed as "smart") these days.

Most importantly though, can you even get non-smart TV's these days that aren't super budget items? To my knowledge that's pretty much not a thing anymore (yes there are presentation displays and large format monitors, but that gets into the weeds fast about feature/panel/spec differences, not to mention price differences)

You get a much cheaper TV. The folks who manufacture the TV expect to make a certain amount of revenue from your data, so they price this into the cost of the TV. This saves you from having to spend more money on a commercial display that often has a worse panel.

One answer is that all you wanted was bright, sixty inch monitor for your living room, into which you could plug your HDMI sources, but all you could get (subject to various other constraints: price, quality, availability, non-smart features you do care about, ...) was a smart TV, whose "smart" features you explicitly don't want.

You don't have to use every feature of something for it to make sense. I have a "dumb" TV. It has built-in speakers, but I don't use those. Volume is set to minimum. My streaming box connects to decent bookshelf speakers.

The best (in terms of image quality) consumer displays on the market right now are OLED TVs from LG and Samsung. But they’re also “Smart” TVs.

I keep mine disconnected and use an external media box (AppleTV 4K).

Well, there's little choice for TVs without smart features these days. Especially if you're wanting certain quality and other features.

I don't use the Smart features and instead use a $30 Amazon Fire TV stick (for streaming services) and a Raspberry Pi (for torrents).

This has the major advantage that if the streaming hardware is ever obsoleted for any reason (ie, Netflix decides my TV is too old to support a compression codec they want to switch to), I only have to buy a new media player for $30 and not a whole new TV.

The point is I don’t want my TV, my refrigerator, my toaster, my dishwasher, or my washing machine to be “smart” or to have any AI or internet connectivity.

These all have a very simple job to do, and there’s absolutely zero value-add to the smart edge software nonsense.

It's more that they don't sell dumb TVs anymore, so you have to simulate it yourself by preventing Internet access.

Now, whether it won't nag you to connect with pop ups is a different question.

The ability to own a TV at all, since even the cheaper sets now have this nonsense built right in. Loosely I think the idea is to subsidize the cost of the hardware with the marketing deals, but I don't actually know.

It's often much cheaper than an equivalent "dumb" or commercial tv screen

Mine's in the living room hooked up to a gaming PC, and I don't watch TV/movies.

> What’s the point in having smart TV without internet access?

The difficulty in finding an affordable TV without smart functionality alone means that you're most likely buying a smart TV.

I yet again bought a Samsung smart tv (despite having sworn never to do so again..) and I'm never letting it connect to the internet after what happened to the last one.

The difficulty of buying a dumb TV.

An Apple TV 4k: https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-4k/

It will just work. You will maybe get an ad or two from Apple, rarely, about Apple services, but it's very rare and easy to ignore.

Otherwise you only get ads if your service(Netflix, etc) delivers ads.

Apple won't share your data with anyone, and generally does a fairly decent job(compared to other giant tech companies) of not collecting much.

Geotargeting. I live in a semi rural area. My town has 1.1% of kids who are classified as ESL. There’s a much larger town near us that has 32% ESL and 70+% of Hispanic descent.

We get podcast and very infrequent YouTube ads in Spanish. So does everyone else we’ve talked to. When you use IP address databases it almost always says our IP addresses are in the other town.

I haven't seen an actual experiment that replicates anecdotal evidence but this discussion comes to mind

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42580659

from memory, the logical explanation is that by connecting to the same wifi the new tracked profile is being used. For example, the grand parent could have been learning Spanish, their profile gets picked up.

Another explanation is observation bias. Spanish ads were shown previously, but were ignored. Now you're on the lookout for them, so they're more noticeable.

SCTE-35 might be a better way to get rid of the commercials (normally SCTE-35 is intended for adding commercials rather than removing them), but only if that data is available (in my experience, sometimes it is, but not always). It might be even more better to just avoid recording the commercials (therefore saving disk space, and saing network bandwidth if using internet for downloading them), or to automatically skip past commercials when playing back a recording (instead of replacing them with something else). If using HLS, then you might use the #EXT-X-CUE-OUT command to detect commercial breaks, and avoid downloading them (although there is sometimes problems with audio/video desynchronization when converting to DVD format, and I don't know if that is because the commercial breaks are not recorded or for some other reason).

hulu's live tv feature uses commercial detection to stop you from from fast-forwarding through commercials in recordings

Every 4K film I watch seems glossy and slick... it looks more plastic-y than in the cinema. I find it very distracting and unnatural.

Thanks, if at least one other person agrees I can say I'm not going crazy around here.

It's gotta be me, or my eyes. I've never watched a film and said, "Oh that transfer looks beautiful," but I have watched many and said, "Damn that transfer sucks." I remember buying some Criterion films in the early 2000's and was thoroughly disappointed (but back then transfers sucked so....)

But take LoTR for example: I have a friend with a 60-something inch TV and watched the 4K DVD and then watched the streaming at home on my 50something inch and I'll be damned if I can tell A from B. Maybe I need to put them side-by-side some day!

So I'm gonna go with, "I'm old, Bob."

they don’t by default. If you turn on “Match Content” it will make the refresh rate match the video FPS

Most people have not been paying much attention, and while I do remember some reporting of this on other tech news sites at the time, it was (understandably) mainly ignored by the mainstream media.

I don't expect the manufacturers to change.

I do expect people to change though.

How is it that it's been well known that smart TVs will show ads and spy on you for over 10 years, and yet people are still connecting their TVs to their WiFi rather than get a separate dedicated streaming device?

I just don't get it. How are people still surprised to find their TV is spying and will show ads?

You also need to block outgoing UDP traffic to port 53 in your router, in case the IoT devices fall back to a preconfigured resolver. And even that doesn't 100% work because they can use DNS over HTTPS.

Best to just airgap the device.

Your computer? I use a small HTPC with Linux, but whatever works for you. LibreELEC might be a good choice depending on the content you're streaming.

Apple TV

And it used to reset to "on" after random firmware updates.

Would you prefer there to be no setting os disable it?