[sbalamurugan]

I went all in on apple ecosystem this year after literally 13 years of using android.

Wife and I got iPhone 14 Pro, Apple Watch 8 and AirPods Pro. Got HomePod mini and Apple TV for home. We got bunch of home kit compatible tech at home (baby monitor, smart plugs, bulbs etc). We also subscribe to apple one family. The results are fantastic.

Everything works with everything else, which is impossible to explain without experiencing it. For example, none of the Apple ads/promotions will tell you that if you connect your phone with carplay and ask for directions, your watch will also be automatically a part of it and show you next turns. The watch will also gently vibrate when you are approaching a turn. This requires no configuration. It just works as is. We can ask my homepod to switch off the tv. We can use either of our phones or watches as remote to the TV. The video from baby monitor can be seen on our phones or TV (as pip), or on our watches if needed.

Usually every evening, we put the baby to sleep, switch on the TV, put on our AirPods, put the baby monitor video pip on top right corner of the TV and play a TV shows directly to our AirPods which can connect simultaneously to the TV. Again no config needed, it just works as it is. All we have to do is to login with our accounts (Even this is easy since you do it through phone)

I download shows/tv to my Mac, drag and drop to Apple TV app, they show up on the main TV over wifi. No casting etc. They just look and play as if they are streaming from Apple TV. I can put my phone on a stand, FaceTime with my family on the TV directly using my phone's camera and mic. It looks and works stunning - https://images.macrumors.com/t/0gxYFSdAW32RTme9jwsKnVnYidA=/.... iMessage and FaceTime are much much more reliable than WhatsApp and much higher quality. All my files are synced up between all my devices without any pain. I can copy text on my phone, and just paste it in my laptop and vice versa. I can right click on my Mac to insert image from iPhone Camera. You can use your iPhone camera on your laptop for teams/zoom calls. When we both leave the home, everything (lights, fans, AC etc) switches off and the entrance lights switch on when we come back automatically. we can control all apple home devices from any of our phones, watch, Siri on AirPods, home pod, MacBooks, etc. and every one of the device with microphone responds to "Hey Siri" keyword.

I don't know about Apple hardware as standalone devices, but the who ecosystem is just bloody brilliant. I just cannot go back to the old way of sitting and configuring each device and bluetooth pairing etc. Since we made this switch in March my productivity has gone through the roof.

[theshrike79]

Pro app tip for media consumption on the Apple ecosystem: Infuse (https://apps.apple.com/fi/app/infuse-video-player/id11362209...)

It can play media off pretty much anything. I use it to connect to multiple Plex instances (I have a System :D) and I've added a few local folders along with OneDrive and Dropbox to it.

It has apps for macOS, tvOS iPadOS and iOS that sync between each other.

So in your case you could just use Infuse on Apple TV and connect it to a directory on your Mac, then play stuff directly from that share.

[eddieroger]

I spent the last ten years pushing my family this way (my nuclear family, then as I got married, my wife joined the fold), and it pays off so well. My initial push was support - I can better support iPhones or Macs because that's what I had and they're all the same. No remembering what GPU is installed for which Control Panel option when HDMI isn't working, or being able to navigate to the exact weird section in Settings->General on iPhone by looking at mine. Since then, iCloud sharing has made sending notes and other enabled content so easy. They just don't advertise that stuff, and I don't know why.

[AnonC]

> I download shows/tv to my Mac, drag and drop to Apple TV app, they show up on the main TV over wifi. No casting etc. They just look and play as if they are streaming from Apple TV.

I presume these are shows that you’ve downloaded/bought from Apple? If yes, then I’m guessing it’s just synced from your purchases and is downloading and playing from there.

Or does Apple somehow allow shows/movies from other sources to be downloaded and played on the TV App (like a VLC equivalent)? I doubt Apple would enable something like this.

[sbalamurugan]

Apple allows movies from other sources (ahem) to be shared across devices seamlessly. It's called something similar to "home sharing" "home library" etc. There is a separate app in Apple TV which lists shows and movies from all devices on the home network.