Don’t waste your hard earned money on this crappy product by Apple. Requiring an iTunes installation to update these devices is simply arrogant and completely not consumer friendly. The competition offers much better options.

Source: Apple will reportedly launch an unambitious 4K Apple TV – The Verge

I’ve owned a 3rd Generation Apple TV for about a year now. During that time Apple has issued several updates that seemed to apply to the device just fine. Well no longer, today Apple put out an update that made me jump thru hoops that basically pissed me off.

Here’s what happened.

• Apple TV prompted for the update, I responded yes.
• It did the download then applied the updated and restarted the device.
• Instead of coming up normally, the screen displayed a picture of the device and a cable connecting the device to an iTunes logo. WTF?  This is a device for my TV, why do I need to involve iTunes?

Now, at this point I’m mad. A simple update is already going off track and Apple, in it’s arrogant manner, assumes I am supposed to figure out what the screen is trying to communicate. Well no, I don’t grok what Apple wants so I Google, only to find out that I am supposed to;

1. Find or go out and buy a cable with mini-usb on one side and usb on the other so I can connect the Apple TV to a computer that is running iTunes.
2. Connect it so iTunes can fix the botched update.

I am steamed now. I am not an Apple fan and don’t have these cables laying around and I find it mighty presumptuous for Apple to assume I will have iTunes installed anywhere. Roku doesn’t do this to me when I update either of my Rokus. Chromecast doesn’t do it to me. Only Apply forces me to use a piece of software that has nothing to do with my TV.

So, I borrow a cable and try to connect it to the Apple TV device. But no, nothing can be easy. It will not fit since Apple put the two connections way too close to each other. The fat HDMI cable makes it impossible to insert the mini-usb connector.

Back to Google. There I find a post that says to disconnect all cables from the Apple TV except the power cable. Not fucking intuitive at all here Apple. I’ve been performing an update on your damn device all along while getting the feedback on the TV screen, and you somehow expect me to just know that when I connect to iTunes I should disconnect the TV screen? I cannot believe you do this to your customers and still hold onto them.

So finally, I get the Apple TV and iTunes communicating. And what does it do, it does a ‘recovery mode’ whatever that is. When it finishes it tells me to disconnect the Apple TV and reconnect it to the TV.

I do so, and now I get even more angry. Seems that recovery means factory reset! All my settings are gone. Everything. I must now go thru the painful and slow process of inputting everything all over again. At this point, Apple is a bad word in my house. I am cursing the day I wasted my money on Apple products.

To anyone thinking about buying one of these I say don’t. The Roku is a much friendlier device and priced the same or cheaper so save yourself the aggravation and go with it.