[WorldWideWayne]

Every single TV in my house as a Windows device plugged into it. We've tried Roku, Chromecast and others - but you can't beat Windows if flexibility is what you want.

Having just a Chromecast sucks because you need a whole other smart device to actually do things. The Roku is a little better, but honestly it's too slow to navigate.

With Windows, I can do whatever the heck I want. We can play classic game emulators with Xbox controllers, watch ripped exercise DVDs with VLC media player (my wife does this), we run Netflix for Windows or Kodi to watch movies/TV and then of course we can do anything that a Chromecast does by simply opening Chrome (with adblock). It's awesome.

[twiceaday]

If you are in the Apple ecosystem you really can't beat Apple TV. Bring up the content on your phone then Airplay to the TV and use the phone as an awesome media remote. Random internet videos? Bring up on the phone = on the TV. Netflix, YouTube, Twitch? Awesome phone apps = on the TV. Your own video files? I use Air Video Server HD on PC with companion iPhone app; every video file I own = on the TV. Its just perfect.

[WorldWideWayne]

Sure, it's perfect if you're content to live in the confines of Apple's prison yard. I just can't stand Apple the company or their dumbed-down products though. They are the the king of "streamlined but extremely limited", so there's no way that a person like me who values ultimate flexibility is going to belong to the Apple ecosystem.

Can you look at funny memepics on the web while Pandora is playing in the background on Apple TV? Shop for a new game on Steam while playing a YouTube video? Connect an Xbox 360 controller to play games? We do all of these things. I haven't used an Apple TV, but somehow I doubt that it excels at multi-tasking or interoperating with the non-Apple universe.

[twiceaday]

You are comparing a $69 Apple TV to a desktop that will cost at least 4x that. And the usage models you are describing do not correspond to how most people watch TV. People sit on the couch with the TV on, potentially fiddling with their phone. This works with Apple TV perfectly. If you want flexibility then what you want is a much more expensive computer, and then you've got ten-foot-ui problems even in the most basic usage scenarios. I too have my (gaming) pc hooked up to my TV (via a long HDMI cable) but I only use it to play games because the user experience is horrendous when doing anything else.

> dumbed-down products

> streamlined but extremely limited

What the hell are you even talking about here? It's certainly not TV sticks because all of them offer similar functionality. It's certainly not Apple laptops or desktops and their unix backed OSX. What then? Phones? What activities do you do on your phone that cannot be done on an iPhone? In what tangible way is an iPhone dumbed-down and extremely limited compared to, what, Android? And most importantly, in what way does using an iPhone irreversibly force you into the Apple ecosystem?

[redblacktree]

The product in the OP is $130, which isn't too far off of that $69. You can also get 7" Windows tablets for about $80, so I think it's a fair comparison.

[WorldWideWayne]

Someone (it was you) told me that Apple TV is "perfect" and I disagreed and I said all of the reasons why. You did continue the comparison though by talking about how bad you think the UX is, but it would be nice to have some actual examples instead of empty claims.

All of Apple's products are dumbed down compared to competing products. Windows has soooo much more flexibility than OS X and I'll be glad to give you a couple of good examples to shore up my argument.

For starters - the really big obvious one is that OS X only runs on a very small sub-set of the hardware that Windows runs on. I don't care if their business plan dictates it, it's dumb and I won't use OS X because of it. Windows runs faster on the same hardware anyway.

Here's a big one for which there are lots of examples - Apple simply does not let you customize OS X nearly as much as you can customize Windows. Apple's dumb-it-down attitude reaches all the way to the smallest of features - for instance, go try and change the color of your mouse cursor in OS X. One day I tried to change it to white because I like that better and I found out that OS X has the cursor bitmap burned into a fucking ROM or something... that's just a tad ridiculous, don't you think?

I think it's hilarious that some people are so in love with Apple that they don't even see the most basic examples. If the mouse cursor example hasn't convinced you please let me know and I'll come back with a larger list of just how many ways OS X is limited (and therefore dumbed-down) compared to Windows and Linux desktops.

(EDIT: And the same arguments go for the iPhone versus others. Apple doesn't let you customize it nearly as much as Android and of course they don't let you run it on the hardware you want, so yeah the iPhone is dumbed-down. Enjoy your prison yard!)

[twiceaday]

You claim Apples products are dumbed down but the first example you give is that OSX only runs on certain hardware. That's not what "dumbed down" means. This goes more towards your point of their products being limited (extremely-limited is still a stretch). But if you think about it their product is Macbook + OSX. This pair is not limited, its as feature rich as any Windows laptop (even more so I'd argue because of the unix backed OS). The Windows ecosystem indeed has a larger selection of products but your claims were significantly more far reaching than this simple fact.

> Here's a big one for which there are lots of examples - Apple simply does not let you customize OS X nearly as much as you can customize Windows. Apple's dumb-it-down attitude reaches all the way to the smallest of features - for instance, go try and change the color of your mouse cursor in OS X.

You escalate the notion of a mouse cursor theme being difficult to change into the entire operating system being difficult to customize. An operating system does a lot of stuff, I don't see how any of this follows.

> I think it's hilarious that some people are so in love with Apple that they don't even see the most basic examples.

I'm not sure what you think this tiny thing is indicative of, but I guarantee to you that most people have never even thought about this because it is irrelevant to their lives.

> And the same arguments go for the iPhone versus others. Apple doesn't let you customize it nearly as much as Android and of course they don't let you run it on the hardware you want, so yeah the iPhone is dumbed-down. Enjoy your prison yard!

To summarize your arguments: Apple provides fewer hardware options and a lot less theming options. Seems to me like your words are a bit too harsh considering you are describing a full desktop operating system and a full mobile operating system, both of which have significantly more knobs to tweak than just themes. They also run software you know. Limiting access to fiddle with themes is hardly a prison yard. Also, not everybody has the time to fiddle with themes. Also, just because something is customizable doesn't mean you can make it look good (customizability comes at a cost to coherency). Also, plenty of people use Apple strictly because of how their products look and feel. I think your theming metric is quite weak in general, but especially when used to back up the claims that every single thing Apple makes is "dumbed down" and "extremely limited."

[WorldWideWayne]

Limited options is exactly what "dumbed down" means and Apple is known for offering dumbed down limited devices and computers. The examples I gave are just that - examples. I can give you a whole laundry list of ways that OS X is limited compared to Windows and yes, the fact that you can only run OS X on one single brand of hardware is a major limitation.

Being able to change the color of the cursor is not a "theming" option, it's a usability option because I can see the white cursor and find it on the screen much better than the black one. It's just one example though.

I'll go through every piece of software that comes with OS X and show you a better default application that comes with Windows if you want. Let's start with the basics - Finder - which is super limited compared to other file browsers.

- Just added the ability to cut and paste in Lion/2011!

- No hooks to extend it the way you can Windows Explorer. (So, you simply cannot have a whole class of software, like TortoiseGit.)

- No address bar to quickly see and/or enter a path. You can get close with the status bar thingy, but it's still limited in ways that matter - namely, having an obvious place to enter a path...

- Cannot remove it from the Dock because reasons. (I don't care about the reasons, you simply cannot do it.)

[artmageddon]

When you say device, can you give an example of what you're referring to? My wife got a me a Chromecast for Christmas, a great friend of mine got me a FireTV stick for my birthday loaded with emulators on it, but I'd really like to be able to carry a full-fledged PC around if that were possible.

[WorldWideWayne]

Sorry, nothing really portable - we have a couple of Zotac ZBOX "nano PCs" (http://www.amazon.com/Zotac-ZBOX-CI320NANO-U-W2-nano-Plus-Wi...) and the others are an old laptop (Dell XPS L502X) and an old Shuttle SH67H3 barebones PC. Each site except the laptop also has a Logitech K400/r wireless keyboard/touchpad which is great except when it occasionally loses signal.

[lorenzhs]

But that's 8 times the price of a Chromecast (if you include the keyboard and mouse).

For me, a Chromecast is very close to the perfect device, as my iPad lives in the living room most of the time and allows me to conveniently control the Chromecast, without any keyboards or mice lying around. While it's not as powerful or flexible as your setup, I prefer its convenience. It does everything I need it to (Netflix, Youtube, other players [ZDF Mediathek etc], play local files with Plex or Videostream for Chrome, ...), and does so hassle-free. For surfing, I prefer the iPad over the TV anyway.

[artmageddon]

The only problem I've had with the Chromecast is that the wifi connection feels a little finnicky at times, and maybe I'm just not using it right, but if you can't actually get it on the internet, it doesn't do much for you. That said, I still really like it.

[lorenzhs]

The main problem for me is that it's 2.4GHz only. As lots of people live in the inner cities in Europe, where lots of flats are in close proximity, that spectrum is extremely crowded even in residential areas. I guess that's much less of an issue in the suburbs though.

For me, the 2.4 GHz spectrum is only usable during "off-peak" hours, or extremely close to the router (the Chromecast is <1m from the router, so it's fine). But since I use 5 GHz for everything else, I muddle through with surprisingly few issues :)

[WorldWideWayne]

Absolutely. (Unless you count the cost of the iPad or other devices that's required to run the Chromecast.) The Zotac box is actually ~16 times more expensive than a Chromecast, but unfortunately I just can't do whatever I want with a Chromecast and I'm totally willing to pay to get what I want.

I don't think there is more inherent convenience in the iPad -> Chromecast setup. My $20 wireless keyboard is actually more convenient in my opinion because it's a dedicated input control that's ready to go as soon as I pick it up. With a smart device, I have to setup a whole other device with apps that are compatible with Chromecast and when we're picking stuff to watch we don't have to huddle around a tablet or phone - we just look at what's on the TV.