I’m a big fan of the previous Apple TV (3rd generation). It’s by far my preferred device for Netflix and streaming video, as the remote control means it’s quicker and easier than faffing around with a smartphone, as with the Chromecast. As good as the product is, there’s always been one thing missing: an app store so that you can download new apps and customise the experience. This year, that’s exactly what you’re getting with the brand-new 4th generation Apple TV.
Build quality, hardware and size
I really liked the small square old Apple TV and so, evidently, did Apple, with the company keeping the same rough design as before. The new model has the same footprint (98mm square), but the new hardware inside means that the box is now a little taller at 35mm vs 23mm. It’s not so much bigger that you’ll struggle to put it anywhere and I’ve found that the box will sit neatly underneath a TV without getting in the way. It’s brilliantly made, with a reassuringly heavy feel to it that gives the Apple TV a feeling of ruggedness.
Twiddle the box round and at the back you’ll find all of the ports that you could need including power, HDMI, 10/100Mbit/s Ethernet and a USB-C service port. Gone is the Optical Audio output, which might irk the owners of some older soundbars. The HDMI port is only a 1.4 model, so there's no support for Ultra HD 4K. For some people that's going to be a real problem, but Apple decided that 1080p is the right compromise between quality and the internet bandwidth required to stream video. I have to agree and, given the dearth of Ultra HD content, you're currently not missing out on much. That's not to say that I wouldn't like to see a 4K Apple TV in the future, but I can understand why Apple didn't feel the need to make this its first Ultra HD streamer.
Inside there’s 802.11ac Wi-Fi, which will prove more than fast enough to stream any videos over your home network or the internet, particularly if you’ve got a matching 802.11ac Wi-Fi router running on the 5GHz band.
An A8 processor, which powers the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, has been used, providing a lot more power for games and apps than the previous generation device, plus there's a choice of 32GB or 64GB of storage for your apps. I’d say that 32GB will do the job, unless you're keen on playing a lot of games on the device.
Setup
The new Apple TV runs tvOS. It shares some code with iOS, but this operating system has been written from the ground-up to support a big-screen interface, controlled via a remote. One of its best new features is the easy set-up: once you’ve plugged in the power cable and hooked up the Apple TV to your TV via HDMI (buy any cheap cable, as expensive HDMI cables make no difference), just hold your iOS 9 iPhone near to the Apple TV when prompted and your iCloud account and wireless network settings are automatically transferred to the Apple TV. You’ll be prompted to confirm everything from your phone, for security, but you otherwise don’t have to do anything. If you don’t have an iPhone, you can manually step through a wizard and enter all of your details manually.
Interface and remote control
The new Apple TV has an interface that will be familiar to anyone that’s used a previous generation Apple TV. Apps are still laid out in a grid on the screen, but there are some noticeable differences to both the way that you use the system and how apps work. First, you’ll notice that your home screen looks a little bare, as Apple no longer repopulates it with pre-installed apps. Instead, you get the basic range of Apple apps (iTunes movies, iTunes TV shows, Music, App Store and Photos), with the rest of the home page yours to fill from the app store (more on that later). This time around, you can move your apps where you want; with the old Apple TV, the top row of apps was locked to hold the default Apple ones.
In line with Apple's design updates across its other operating systems, tvOS has a cleaner, flatter look than before. It’s the little things that really make it stand out. First, as you move between icons, they slowly tilt and turn, giving you that little bit of visual feedback that you’re doing something. Next, app developers can choose to populate the top of the screen with information from their app, such as newly-added shows on Netflix. Previously, the top of the screen was reserved for Apple to use for showing you films, TV shows and music from its apps.
Interacting with the Apple TV is entirely through the new Siri remotes. The old Apple TV remote was one of my favourites, as it was so simple; this time around, Apple has improved it, adding a trackpad, a couple of extra buttons and Siri voice control. It’s also added an integrated battery, charged via the Lightning port underneath; a charge will last months, so it’s not a device that you have to plug in regularly.
First, the trackpad makes zooming around the interface a lot easier and quicker than having to click the cursor buttons from before. Velocity is taken into account, too, so a quick swipe will move you faster through a list than a slow swipe. Once you’ve seen something you like, a quick click on the touchpad selects the item. Next, the touchpad makes it easier to fast-forward or rewind through content: with most sources you get a scrub bar at the bottom of the screen and you use the trackpad to skip to the point in time that you want. My only reservation about the system is that it’s easy to brush against the trackpad when you pick it up, inadvertently skipping through your content as you go.
My one complaint about the new remote and OS is that entering anything using the on-screen keyboard is a real chore: all of the characters are spread out over a single line, making it a pain to type anything quickly. The old style keyboard, arranged in a grid was much easier to use. This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if the Remote app for iOS worked with the new Apple TV, letting you use your phone’s on-screen keyboard, but it doesn’t; it looks like this app will get refreshed for the new Apple TV, but it’s not available yet.
Extra buttons on the remote might sound like things have become more complicated, but they all serve a useful purpose. Volume buttons mean you can adjust the sound without reaching for your TV’s remote; the Menu button skips back a step and takes you to the top of lists, such as back to the top of the Netflix interface; the Home button takes you back to the home screen instantly and, with a double-tap opens up the task switcher. This latter function is one of the best things about the new Apple TV, letting you switch between apps quickly without having to find their icons on the home screen.
Siri
Then, there’s the Siri microphone button, which lets you use your voice to control the TV, making this one of the best ways to interact with a media streamer ever. The most obvious way to use it is to search for content, with a universal search engine looking across supported apps. At the moment that includes iTunes (movies and TV) and Netflix, although Music support is coming and it’s possible that other services will be added into the mix.
Even as it stands, being able to search across multiple services is very powerful. Search for ‘Star Trek’ for example, and you’ll find that Star Trek into Darkness is available in both iTunes and Netflix. If you have Netflix installed, watching it on that will be the default option. You can even filter results. If you say, “show me all the James Bond films” and then “just the Sean Connery ones” you’ll get a filtered list of all of the relevant films.
You can also search for options of what to watch, such as “show me great kids films” or “show me all of the best Steven Spielberg films” and Siri, powered by Rotten Tomatoes and iTunes ratings, will bring you back the best-rated films that match your search. I found Siri extremely accurate, easy to use and it saves a lot of time compared to using the in-app search and the on-screen keyboard.
Siri doesn’t stop there and you can use it to interact with what you’re watching, too. For example, if you miss a bit of dialogue, you can say, “what did he/she say” and the Apple TV will jump back and switch on subtitles for that chunk of action.
Siri can do all of the same stuff that the phone version can, too, so you can ask it what the weather’s like, current stock prices and the current football scores. All of the information pops up in a window that takes up one-third of the bottom of the screen, so you can get your information without interrupting what you’re doing. All of the dialogue boxes can be made full-screen so you can view more information, pausing whatever you’re currently watching.
The one thing that Siri doesn’t do, which the phone/tablet version does, is talk to you. Some people might miss that, but given how Siri is being used, I feel that it’s much more appropriate for it to be silenced and for the results to be displayed on-screen, which you’ll be focussed on.
Apple movies and TV
Apple movies and TV is built-into the new Apple TV, and it’s one of the best services that Expert Reviews has ever reviewed. As well as a large catalogue of the latest films and TV shows for rent and purchase, it has some of the best image quality in the business, coming close to Blu-ray in our tests. Even better, you can watch anything that you’ve bought or rented from any of your other Apple devices as well. If you’ve mostly got Apple devices and want to buy content online, this is the best way to do it. Apple supports Dolby Digital soundtracks, where available, so you can plug the Apple TV into a surround-sound system for more immersive sound.
Apple Music
Music is available, too, although, as I noted previously, it’s not integrated into Siri yet. Even so, if you’re an Apple Music subscriber you’ve got access to thousands of tracks and all of your playlists. It's hear that only having an HDMI output is a serious downside, as you can't easily hook the box up to your Hi-Fi. through your TV speakers though, or using a soundbar or AV Receiver, it can easily become a brilliant way of listening to your favourite tracks. I wouldn't be surprised if rival apps, such as Spotify, became available, giving you yet more choices of what to listen to.
Photos
Apple TV integrates into your iCloud Photo Library. If you’ve uploaded all of your photos into the service via your iPhone or Mac, you’ve got all of your photos available there on the big TV. To me, this is one of the best uses of the Apple TV, as it gives you a simple and reliable way to browse through all of your photos, and sitting around the TV is a nicer way of looking at things than crowding around a laptop.
App Store
The big change with the Apple TV is the addition of the App store. It’s a fairly straightforward job for developers to convert iOS content into tvOS apps, but interfaces have to be redesigned to work with a remote and large-screen interface. For that reason, app developers have a choice about how to charge across multiple devices: some will give you the Apple TV and iOS apps for one price; others will charge you separately for both. It’s a fair system, as some apps could take significant development time to port properly to the TV.
The app store’s easy to browse and works largely like the iOS versions. There are fewer apps at the moment and some big names missing (no iPlayer, for example), but the number’s growing all of the time and Apple has so much clout that I strongly believe that it will have the best app store, far outstripping Roku and Android TV, which is used in the Nexus Player.
The best thing about having an app store is that the Apple TV will evolve over time, giving you access to different types of content; it also opens up the door for the system to be used in a different way, introducing new types of apps from gaming to shopping.
AirPlay
Just because there’s no app for a service, doesn’t mean that you can’t use the Apple TV, as it still supports AirPlay. This lets you beam content from your iPhone, iPad or Mac to your big-screen TV from supported apps. At the moment this means that you can watch BBC iPlayer and Amazon Prime Instant Video via your phone/tablet. I’d prefer full apps for both of these devices, but in the meantime AirPlay gives you additional options.
Netflix
Netflix is one of the big names, available from day one in the app store. As I mentioned before, it’s fully integrated into the universal search and recognises Siri commands. This app is significantly different to the one that shipped with the old Apple TV, and the new one follows the Netflix design as used on Smart TVs, games consoles and the like.
It’s certainly more modern looking, but the I like the way that the old app let you browse for content via genre; the new one only occasionally suggest genres, based on Netflix recommendations. For everything else, you need to use the search facility. Now, the Netflix search is a bit of a pain to use, given that you have to use the on-screen keyboard, but that’s where the beauty of the Siri search steps in.
Netflix works with the remote’s new buttons, too: tap the menu button to go back or, if you’re in the middle of a list, to jump back to the top of the interface to use the Search feature and to change profiles.
US Netflix
Switching to US Netflix gives you lots of extra content to watch, and the good news is that you can quickly and easily do so using the Smart DNS systems - see the best way to watch American Netflix for more information.
It’s important to point out two issues though. First, if you change regions you have to log out of your Netflix account and then log back in again (using the on-screen keyboard, I’m afraid). Secondly, putting your Netflix account into US mode, doesn’t do the same thing with Siri search, so it may return titles that you can’t currently watch. Obviously, using American Netflix isn’t something supported by Apple or Netflix, so I’m not blaming the Apple TV for working in this way: it’s been designed to operate properly in one country and hacking it do something else can change or break key features.
Plex and DLNA media streaming
Plex is one of the first developers out of the door with its local media streaming app. You need to have a Plex server on your network (see, how to use Plex), but one’s easy to set up and you can even use some models of NAS device. One of the big benefits of Plex is that the server can transcode video on the fly to play on the Apple TV, which has limited format support for videos, with h.264 videos the main format.
If you don’t want to use Plex, then you’ll need a separate DLNA server on your network and you’ll have to have all of your content in a format that the Apple TV supports. Then, you can use AirPlay to stream from a DLNA server. I don’t think it will be long before the App Store has a DLNA media player app.
Catch-up TV
Catch-up TV is looking a bit bare at the moment, with none of the terrestrial services supported via dedicated apps. However, iPlayer and All 4 support AirPlay natively through an app; ITV Player supports AirPlay mirroring (unlike with the other players, this means you have to leave your phone or tablet’s screen turned on). There’s no support from Demand Five at all. The BBC is developing its own Apple TV app and we hope that the other services will do the same thing, too. BT Sport also supports AirPlay, so you can beam games to your TV easily.
Now TV
Built into the previous Apple TV, the Sky Now TV app has just been released into the app store. If you don’t want a Sky subscription, this is the best way to get some of the UK’s best content, from the latest movies to brand-new TV shows (Game of Thrones launches exclusively on Sky Atlantic, and Now TV is the cheapest way to get it).
Games
Games is a brand-new category for the Apple TV, with some popular titles from the iPhone, such as Lumino City and Crossy Road, making the jump to the big screen. The big difference with using the Apple TV, rather than a touch screen, is how you control what’s going on. With some games, such as Lumina City, it’s a matter of using the trackpad to move an on-screen cursor, rather than tapping where you want the character to move. It works well and makes some titles feel like an old point-and-click adventure game - and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Games that need more direct control, such as racing and flight sim games, can use the remote’s built-in accelerometer for steering. It adds a new dimension to the games and the remote’s pretty responsive. You can also use the remote to play Wii-style games, such as swinging the remote to swing your character’s on-screen bat. To make sure you don’t throw the remote when doing this, you can buy the wrist strap, which plugs into the Lightning port and is held in place by a couple of teeth. Apple had to redesign the Lightning port for this purpose, so the wrist strap only works with the remote, not other devices (I’m not sure why you’d want this anyway).
In addition, you can pair a Bluetooth games controller to the Apple TV and use that to play games ‘properly’ or even indulge in a bit of two-player action with some titles: Crossy Road has been updated so that two of you can play at the same time.
Games can take up a lot of space, but designers can cleverly set it to only download parts of the game that are required now. For example, as you move into level 2 of a game, level 1 can be deleted, while level 3 is downloaded ready to go. It helps manage resources and ensure that you don’t fill your Apple TV up.
The Apple TV isn’t going to compete against the Xbox One or PS4 in terms of graphical quality or the latest titles, but it offers a different experience and we'll see different and cheaper games released that do something different to what you get on a dedicated console. As such, the Apple TV has the capability to make games a family event, with everyone gathering around the TV to solve a puzzle, for example.
Conclusion
After the rather good but, AirPlay aside, quite inflexible previous-gen Apple TV, Apple has pulled out all of the stops for this model. Adding an App Store makes a huge difference and will ensure that the product can evolve quickly, with new services coming onlin faster. Admittedly, the app store is a little quiet at the moment, but even in the short time that I’ve been testing more apps have been released. The truth is that with Apple I really believe that this app store’s going to grow and become the biggest and best of any media streamer.
Even as it stands today, the new Apple TV is a brilliant media streamer. It has a smooth and slick interface, with a remote and voice control that destroys anything that even the best TV can offer. Given that it will be expandable and will be supported for a long time yet, the Apple TV is great if you want to upgrade your TV’s capabilities. For some the lack of Ultra HD might be a slight disappointment, given that the new Amazon Fire TV does support it, but I can understand why: most people don’t have the broadband to support Ultra HD and Full HD gives the right balance between content and bandwidth.
Speaking of Amazon, it's worth noting there's no support for Prime Instant Video as of yet, and with Amazon being bullish about its own streaming hardware this is something you may not see on the Apple TV for some time, if ever. So if you watch Amazon as much, or instead of, Netflix then you might want to look elsewhere.
So, should you buy the new Apple TV? Well, the answer really depends on what you want to do. If you just want something cheap and are happy to beam stuff from your phone, the Chromecast is hard to beat on value. If you don’t care about apps and just want a quick, simple box for iTunes and Netflix, with some services via AirPlay, the old Apple TV is excellent value. If you love the idea of the voice interface and want a box that will grow and evolve over time, the new Apple TV is brilliant.
Video outputs: HDMI 1.4, Networking: Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 10/100Mbit/s Ethernet, Dimensions: 98x98x35mm, Streaming formats: AirPlay, others via apps, Internet streaming services: iTunes, Apple Music, Netflix, Now TV. Via AirPlay: BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, All 4 and BT Sport