Hello there,
So I'm slowly coming back to the Apple ecosystem. I've been an Android user for the better part of 5 years while still holding onto my iPhone 7. I figured I'd start simple and inexpensive, and buy something I've been wanting to try for some time.
Back in January, I bought a very basic, less $400 here in Canada, 43 inch TCL tv running Google TV or Android or what have you. It has Talkback. The unfortunate part of this is that navigating on the tv itself is a struggle beyond belief. Trying to navigate through youtube or even settings can take 1 to 5 seconds to get a response from Talkback per keypress, and when you try and scroll you can forget about any sort of quick response. So I often just cast from my phone - but wanted something a little more immersive, and to give something relatively cheap and new from Apple a shot. I did end up purchasing a fire stick 4k max, which wasn't much better in the speech department. Something that irritates me to no end about these devices, so far, is the fact that when you set your speech rate on the fire tv side of things, it just ignores that when you launch netflix and talks incredibly slowly. You can't turn off speech because it relaunches netflix, youtube, prime video and various other apps and when you try and turn it on again, it, once again, relaunches them because I guess it decided to use its own overlay with tts. I'm shocked that I am seemingly the only one aggregiously frustrated by this oversight on for the most part a solid device.
And so here we are, with me 100% impulsively buying an Apple tv, having never used one since 2010- and a lot has changed since then, of course. Realizing that I can't find much info on my questions mainly because they are a little unique to my use case.
First off - what is the process when I first receive the unit as a blind user? I want to turn voiceover on from the outset. Do I need to hit the menu (or back) button on the very bottom left of the siri remote three times when the device powers on to get speech? I can't find a lot of info on this although maybe I missed something blatanly obvious.
Does the new TV OS contain eloquence? yes, I know, a typical blind stereotype, but it's far easier to hear for me through speakers than anything else out there and I don't apologize for that. Sideloading it on Android tv does no good because when apps launch, they revert to the default Google tts in whichever voice you have selected. Enraging!
How is navigating youtube on the tv? Can I like, dislike videos as well as seeing the status of likes? Android struggles with this, ironically enough, but the iPhone appears to be working just fine with the like button reading as selected if a video is added to likes.
How is Netflix, prime video navigation on Apple tv? I have to assume responsiveness will be out of this world night and day difference to anything else out there, something I'm looking forward to.
Is there any way to see the battery status of the remote? Any applications that are not tv related e.g. utilities or things of that nature that people recommend I get, as a first time user?
My iPhone 7 is still running iOS 15. Using that to pair to the apple tv am I going to miss out on anything?
I just bought the base 64 gb version. I don't think youtube or netflix or most streaming services apart from Apple allow you to download content, but I still find it incredibly funny that the Apple tv has more space than most thousand dollar televisions out there.
Ultimately I'm really excited to start my Apple journey again. The goal is to get an iPhone around black Friday and perhaps a watch, too (more questions around those shortly).
thank you for any insights and answers to these doubtlessly strange questions
Jake
Comments
apple tv
Congratulations on the Apple TV purchase. I have three of them, and absolutely love them! Youtube is my favorite app, and yes, you can like, dislike, etc. You can subscribe to channels and even view comments. You can find out battery status in settings, and it will verbally tell you when battery level is at 20 percent. Netflix and Prime Video work pretty well for the most part. As for initial setup, you triple click the button on the top left. Can't remember if they call it home or menu, but it will let you toggle VO on for the setup phaise of things. I did a recording of setting up one of my apple TV's, so if you think you would find that helpful, I can post a dropbox link. I'm not sure how well things will work with your iPhone 7, as it's probably several versions of iOS behind, but hopefully it'll be OK. I think that once you have everything up and running, you'll be very satisfied with your purchase.
I'm trying to think of apps I'd recommend, but in general, I just use movies, TV shows and youtube. Lots of others work great, but, and I have Netflix, Prime Video and Hulu installed, but I just don't find myself using them all that often. Good luck!
Apple tv recording and audio description on sonos
Hi,
I'm struggling to find a method to reply to both of the above comments, so hopefully they get sent here.
re: the dropbox recording, that would be very much appreciated, even if the process is straightforward.
As far as audio description goes, I use a sonos system too and notice the same thing. I'll have a look at Apple tv plus I wasn't aware it used Dolbi atmos with AD. I'm okay with just dolbi digital, I only have a beam, 2 ones and a sub, so wouldn't get an amazing experience, but still. I hate that some shows on netflix, like new amsterdam, are 2.0 on audio description. It's really a slap in the face considering the cost of the service now - I've been debating canceling but I can't use plex for described content because, well, you just can't find it.
Here in Canada, crave is what we use to access things on HBO max and similarly everything audio described is in 2.0. Absolutely silly considering the price of crave - which I tried then promptly canceled.
Regardless, thank you for the info, really looking forward to the journey of slowly moving back into Apple territory. There are surely downsides but ultimately I enjoy the ease of use and efficiency over so called openness.
re: crave
I have my apple tv paired with my home pod and find the AD works really well. You may want to get a crave subscription as now, crave at least in Canada has really improved their list of audio described content by a lot. Pretty much every show and movie I've seen is described nicely. However, some AD voices is a text to speach voice. If you're okay with that, this is pretty much our only option.
I get crave for free through my mobile provider so see if you may be eligible.
Prime video uses their own text to speach and I find it quite frustrating. App navigation is much slower in prime video than it is on other apps.
Another great and free service you can try is CBC gem. I also find it kind of laggy and inconsistent but it works well enough.
audio demo of setting up apple tv
This is NOT a professional recording. I made it for a friend, but will share it here since it was requested. It isn't podcast quality by any stretch of the imagination. If I had the time/mental energy, I'd try to edit, but I can't remember how much extra stuff is in the file, I'm just going to share it as is and hope it meets your needs.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/l6eoa5gpf1ybsd5ft1vyw/Unboxing-and-setup-of-new-apple-tv-4K.mp3?rlkey=xfpq3tkprag8pvmrk8ooe4d99&dl=0
Note: I can't remember if the number at the end should be 0 or 1, so if it doesn't work, try switching it.
a note on connecting via ethernet
I found out the hard way that when you connect to the internet via ethernet, you are unable to pair your apple tv to any external speakers like sonos, or home pod. This is a huge deal breaker for me as I love being able to watch tv with my home pods connected.
sonos
HI there,
I'd love to be corrected if this is not the case but the wifi on the set top box gets completely disabled when ethernet is connected. It doesn't even show up on the airplay section either so it also will not work with sonos. Sonos, like the home pod are wifi devices. I think it may still work with sonos systems that use bluetooth over wifi but can't confirm.
Apple tv dolbi atmos issues with sonos
Hi,
First off, thank you for the audio recording. It came in quite handy for the setup process which turned out to be nowhere near as difficult as first thought. I'm shocked that the apple tv didn't install all my apps from the phone and it didn't really seem to import many settings apart from wifi, but I digress.
The main issue I'm having is that anything that has dolbi in the title is hit or miss playing on Apple tv. I spent 45 minutes fiddling around with settings on the tv - audio is set to passthrough which works on my fire tv stick - I made sure the apple tv was set to auto on everything and dolbi atmos shows up as enabled.
The solution seemed to be, temporarily, rebooting everything and then it worked for a while. I went to do something else, came back, and tried to resume my apple tv show and absolutely nothing. I now can't actually get it to work, rebooting or no rebooting, and this includes netflix and prime video. Very frustrating since everything else on the device is night and day difference from anything else on tv so far.
I'll take a look at crave. Maybe I'll be able to get it with my services. thank you.