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I turned my streaming stick into a dumb app launcher, and that's all it should be (www.xda-developers.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[+] -7 points 2 months ago (17 children)

Congratulations, you just made a copy of Apple TVOS, on much worse hardware.

Love them or hate them, the Apple TV is the best streaming box around. I’ve got One and a shield tv, and the Apple TVs level of polish and performance is on a whole other level.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 months ago (8 children)

    Yeah, let's get more close ecosystem shit. Stop buying things you can modify because you own them. Think of the executives, what's wrong with you people?

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  • [–] -1 points 2 months ago (7 children)

    What?

    I’m just saying that Apple TVs are already a simple app launcher interface with basically nothing else.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    You’re not wrong in it being a fantastic app launcher, but it being locked down makes it useless for many, sadly.

    Being able to sideload is crucial for me at least, and the day google locks that down on Android devices is the day I will build a mini-PC for the living room.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

    I can assure you there's a whole lot of telemetry and tracking in those. It's not "and nothing else."

    Apple is the least awful about data privacy. Owning your hardware and stack is still better for privacy.

    *edit: others have bored this is still using Google hardware with only a custom launcher, not a unique firmware or os environment for data sovereignty. That Sudha, and the lettuce still remains that we need more open hardware vendors, or legislation that let's us unlock our own purchased devices to modify further. *

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    Yes but isn’t this article just about installing a custom launcher on a Google device? Presumably this does not solve data harvesting by Google, which would make this solution, while effective for app launching, probably worse than using an Apple TV device.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (1 child)

    Can I use an apple TV without an account? Arr there good YouTube apps with adblock, and how is the kodi and jellyfin support. If good I will switch

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    Jellyfin works well enough with swiftfin, but does have some annoyances e.g. subtitle and audio track support is tied to the player configured (native vs other).

    It's the more reliable client app I've experienced as long as you stick to 1080p though. 4k is a hit or miss, but that could be my network or server (although I do direct play when possible, but it still has the occasional issues).

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    I haven't used other streaming boxes lately, but I find this hard to believe, mainly because of the shitty AppleTV remote with the godawful touchpad that everybody decided to implement different gestures for and which is notoriously difficult to gesture properly with and only when intended to

    otherwise, I do agree that the AppleTV itself is quite polished. I use it for any streaming services that I may have, which is not many lately but was quite a few in the past, Plex, and YouTube primarily. also used to do some Zwift on it before I changed to using an iPad.

    besides the absolutely horrible remote that for some reason doesn't have actual buttons for arrows and confirm, the rest of the experience actually is quite good and generally anything that is not is to do with the apps themselves. for example, Sportsnet is just a fucking terrible app no matter what platform you're on.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (1 child)

    The remote is shit, yes, and there’s an alternative to it. I can’t recall whether or not they’ve fixed that on the newer AppleTv remotes or not, but I detest that there’s no mute, either.

    That said, it’s still pretty good, especially compared to the alternatives. The Roku keeps enshittifying harder and harder

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I have a shield tv from forever ago. It’s still plenty fast enough. All the apps we use come right up. I use a third party launcher so I can declutter the screen a bit and it’s just fine. These things done have to be blazing fast.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    The shield tv is still by far the best Android box in the market. It’s insane how it’s still supported by Nvidia, and still better than anything else out there.

    The Apple TV is “decluttered” by default.

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