We have just purchased and installed the new Apple TV 4 and have begun getting to know it. It's clear that this is a new environment and so there are not as many apps as there are for Roku or Amazon Fire TV. While you may read claims that say that Apple TV 4 has over 2600 apps, Kathlyn and I have been digging through the App Store and not even a search turns up far too many of our favorites.
But if you have a big investment in Apple products and you use the Apple iTunes Store for much of your media purchasing or renting, do not let the shortage of apps dissuade you from going with an Apple TV 4. The number of apps is sure to change quickly as Apple TV 4 is only a few months old now and already it has some of the great free cable cutter channels like Tubi TV (Paramount Pictures), Crackle (Sony Pictures), popcornflix, NFB One, Pluto, PBS, Smithsonian Channel, Free Form (Disney/ABC) and a number of others. The offerings will grow fast, you can bet safe money on that.
So far, we have been able to build a free TV package on our Roku that includes 113 apps that we actually use. On the Apple TV 4 we have been able so far to find 29 apps. Again, expect this to change rapidly, as Apple TV 4 is a completely new Apple TV system that is unlike any of the company's Apple TV models that have come before. Apple has never supported open apps before and while I do believe they are overstating their case when they discuss the number of plug-ins available, there is a comforting elegance to its apps that longtime Apple users will appreciate.
As I suspected, the apps in the Apple TV 4 Store are very well done and they all work using the same kind of restrictive Apple developer uniformity that makes for much less confusing performance than some of the apps we have found and use on the Roku and Fire TV devices.
#cablecutting #appletv4
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