Jason Snell: Why does the Apple TV still exist?
Jason Snell: Why does the Apple TV still exist?

A long-time Apple columnist weighs the reasons for the Apple TVs continued existence, contemplates a future without it, and speculates on where Apple might take it next. John Sherrod Feb 12·3 min read

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

I use the Apple TV every day. It’s attached to my living room TV. And while I’ve complained about how little Apple seems to be focused on updating and improving the device, I’d never seriously considered that the Apple TV box as we’ve come to know it might not be long for this world. But after listening to a discussion of the issue on the February 8 episode of John Gruber and Ben Thompson’s podcast Dithering and spending a weekend away at a friend’s vacation rental house, I think I’ve changed my mind. I don’t know where the Apple TV hardware is going, but it can’t stand still. It either needs to evolve into something else, or die. And it might need to die anyway.

Snell’s piece is worth your time, particularly if you’re a big fan of Apple’s little black box like I am. I’ve long said that the Apple TV’s biggest competition isn’t other streaming boxes from Roku, Amazon, and others. It’s the smart TV in your living room. And as Snell points out Apple has helped the competition by bringing the Apple TV app and AirPlay to big-brand smart TVs. In light of that he lists several reasons why you might still choose to buy an Apple TV. In addition to his list I’d add three others:

Add Smarts to Old TVs

While you may well have a smart TV from Samsung or LG that has built-in AirPlay and Apple TV, chances are most of you reading this have one or more older non-smart TVs in your house. Or you at least have a smart TV that is too old to have these features from Apple. (Mostly limited to 2018 and newer TVs.) An Apple TV is an inexpensive way to add an app platform to your older TV as long as your TV has an HDMI input.

Keep Your Smart TV Smart

Historically, TV manufacturers give you a limited window in which they’ll provide you with meaningful software updates. Part of this is probably due to the fact that they put cheap hardware in them. But Apple will give you new tvOS updates every year and your tvOS apps will receive regular updates, regardless of what TV they’re plugged into.

Education and Enterprise

Because Apple TVs are a relatively inexpensive way to get screen sharing into a classroom or conference room, they’re commonly found in school and business settings. And you can use MDM software to manage a fleet of Apple TVs all from a single computer.

Like Snell, I do think it’s possible that Apple will finally tire of its “hobby” and discontinue the Apple TV. Though like him I think that’s unlikely. Snell speculates that Apple might beef up the Apple TV in the direction of a gaming console and I’ve written about what I’d like to see Apple do to take that very step. Regardless, the Apple TV is way past due for a hardware update, and I hope we get some big Apple TV news from Apple in 2021.

See also: Two ways Apple can improve the Apple TV experience
['John Sherrod']
['TV', 'Apple TV', 'Apple', 'Technology', 'Tech']