I thought for years that the idea of spending the money on an AppleTV was not going to be worth it and used Chromecast for years. I was a dedicated Android user for something like 8 or 9 years. I made the switch to iPhone and the AppleTV along with it at one point when I rebuilt my entertainment center and love how it gets the fuck out of your way. Not to mention their UI has absolutely nothing going on. Just your app, a way to find your video, and playback controls.
This isn’t an ad for the AppleTV, but rather just pointing out that having a dedicated device with a simple remote not flooded with 17 layers of UI and ads makes for a great user experience. Google just doesn’t seem to get this and I’d probably still be a dedicated user if they got their act together. Too late now.
Not sure how you had your Chromecast set up but I have the 4K version on one TV and the Nvidia Shield on another. The apps I want are favorited and sit right in the center of the screen. I turn it on with my remote and select the app to launch it. I’m not sure it could be any simpler.
One of the biggest differences for me was that all the apps under the AppleTV are built on the same SDK. There are just a couple services out there that don’t use it, and they stand out like a sore thumb. I found Android space to be way more disjointed overall.
You’re describing the Chromecast with Google TV. The vanilla Chromecast dongle has no app support; all you can do is cast your media from your phone and hope it works out.
It was novel when it came out, but they stopped making any serious improvements years ago, to the point now where YouTube casting is hot garbage that drives you insane if you want to view more than a couple videos in a row. I have constant problems with all of my cast devices with maintaining connection to the dongle, with media playback, you name it.
I thought for years that the idea of spending the money on an AppleTV was not going to be worth it and used Chromecast for years. I was a dedicated Android user for something like 8 or 9 years. I made the switch to iPhone and the AppleTV along with it at one point when I rebuilt my entertainment center and love how it gets the fuck out of your way. Not to mention their UI has absolutely nothing going on. Just your app, a way to find your video, and playback controls.
This isn’t an ad for the AppleTV, but rather just pointing out that having a dedicated device with a simple remote not flooded with 17 layers of UI and ads makes for a great user experience. Google just doesn’t seem to get this and I’d probably still be a dedicated user if they got their act together. Too late now.
Not sure how you had your Chromecast set up but I have the 4K version on one TV and the Nvidia Shield on another. The apps I want are favorited and sit right in the center of the screen. I turn it on with my remote and select the app to launch it. I’m not sure it could be any simpler.
One of the biggest differences for me was that all the apps under the AppleTV are built on the same SDK. There are just a couple services out there that don’t use it, and they stand out like a sore thumb. I found Android space to be way more disjointed overall.
You’re describing the Chromecast with Google TV. The vanilla Chromecast dongle has no app support; all you can do is cast your media from your phone and hope it works out.
It was novel when it came out, but they stopped making any serious improvements years ago, to the point now where YouTube casting is hot garbage that drives you insane if you want to view more than a couple videos in a row. I have constant problems with all of my cast devices with maintaining connection to the dongle, with media playback, you name it.
I use a Shield also and modded a completely different launcher onto it.