Apple TV 2015 Review & Giveaway | Dramel Notes

After months of speculation about Apple building an actual, glass-and-pixels television, the company unleashed a brand new version of its living room set-top companion instead.

It’s been nearly three years since Apple refreshed its relatively inexpensive media streamer, and the latest model is the biggest Apple TV update since the little black box of tricks was first introduced.

With competition from Google’s Chromecast and Amazon’s FireTV reaching fever pitch, can Cupertino still hold its own in the battle for the space under your TV? Read on to find out, and at the end of the review we’re giving ours away.

A Brand New Apple TV

Media streamers are all the rage these days. Many ardent consumers of all things media, including myself, have been waiting for Apple to make a move and update its ageing, and quite frankly disappointing media streamer for a while. I’m not just talking about a faster processor, more RAM and some new channels — the expectations set by Google and Amazon, as well as long-established favourites Roku and a surge of cheap Android “stick PCs” has upped the ante in recent years.

Apple’s answer to that competition doesn’t just involve new hardware, but a completely new platform. This incorporates a brand new operating system, called tvOS, and a brand new and completely redesigned remote control too. It’s radically different to the Apple TV that came before it, while providing much of the same functionality.

Of course, tvOS isn’t really that new. It’s based on iOS, which is evident from both the user interface and overall simplicity employed throughout. If you’re familiar with iOS, you’ll pick up tvOS out of the box.

In the box you’ll find a shiny black Apple TV, a very thin touch-enabled remote control, a USB-C to lightning cable, and a power cord. There’s a distinct lack of HDMI cable, de rigueur for manufacturers of moderately-priced TV accessories in recent years.

The unit itself is available in 32GB and 64GB configurations, with storage space reserved for apps and their data. At present there probably aren’t enough apps to fill the 64GB model, at least in terms of apps you’re likely to use on a day to day basis. That said, if you’re serious about using the Apple TV for more than just watching things, you should probably go for the higher capacity.

You can pick up the Apple TV for $149 and $199 for the 32GB and 64GB models respectively. This positions the streamer at the upper-end of the bracket in terms of competition — with the Chromecast costing a mere $49, FireTV at $99 (currently down to $75) and the Roku 3 at $80. This is hardly surprising — Apple usually targets the higher end of the market, though at this price point I’d say the Apple TV is still pretty affordable.

A Bigger Package

The new Apple TV is bigger than its predecessor in terms of abilities and physical size. Despite the added heft (measuring up at 98mm x 98mm, with a height of 35 mm; weighing in at 425g), it still looks great along recent TV plug-ins like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. You could feasibly hide the box from view completely, but you probably won’t want to.

It’s still a square rectangle with rounded corners that looks just like one of Apple’s app icons from iOS or OS X. The added size makes it quite a bit larger than the Chromecast and similar Android-powered USB sticks that have found fancy among users in recent years.

The added space houses the 64-bit A8 chip (the same one found in the iPhone 6), 2GB of RAM, an internal power supply (no power bricks here), 802.11ac wireless and a Bluetooth 4.0 chip. Presumably Apple went for the A8 to keep costs down, and though the A8X found on the iPhone 6s and iPad Air 2 offers more in terms of performance, performance is nothing short of silky smooth.

All that RAM and processing power is put to use in playing H.264 video up to 1080p at 60 frames per second, as well as running fairly simple apps and games in 1080p (no 4K support here). Unlike the iPad Air 2, which has an output resolution of 2048 x 1536, the new Apple TV only outputs at 1920 x 1080 — which goes a little further in explaining why the very latest processor isn’t quite so important.

There’s not an awful lot going on in terms of the unit itself. You get a single “new MacBook-style” USB-C port, 10/100 Ethernet, and an HDMI port for hooking the unit up to your TV. There’s a single white LED on the front, which lets you know when the unit is on, and that’s about it.

Rather annoyingly the new Apple TV, just like its predecessor, it still a fingerprint and dust magnet. The shiny piano black sides suck the grease off your fingers from across the room, and the matte black top surface preserves fingerprints better than your local police station. This is a minor point, and one that probably annoyed me more than most regular users as a reviewer.

Now With tvOS

tvOS is just what the Apple TV needed. Instead of a rigid selection of Apple-approved channels, the platform empowers users and service providers with a new app-based approach. The result is a far more personalised streaming solution, where you won’t see an exhaustive list of channels you no longer want.

Unfortunately, Apple is still quite heavy-handed in terms of “suggesting” which movies and TV shows you rent and download from iTunes. These appear front-and-center on the home screen, with your own apps and services appearing below.

This brings us to on one of my longstanding criticisms of the Apple TV as a platform. You’re still paying money to pay money, though you don’t have to of course. tvOS goes a long way towards remedying this — you’re more likely to find free-to-air and on-demand services on the new platform, now that developers can port and release their existing iOS apps instead of relying on being included in a device firmware update.

AirPlay support is strong, and continues to work most of the time. The one exception to this was when mirroring my MacBook Pro’s screen in 1080p in order to play a video, which resulted in stutters and a frozen image. Unfortunately certain apps don’t play nicely with AirPlay either — with one of the main culprits being Facebook. You can’t stream video or audio while browsing your feed, which is annoying but certainly not game-changing.

Apple is also positioning its new set-top wonder as a games console, not only including support for AirPlay enabled games (like iOS favourite Worms 3) but also support for games that run on the console itself. A few surprisingly big-name games that have taken to the platform include Disney Infinity 3.0 and Guitar Hero; both of which require third-party accessories to complete the experience.

iOS favourites like SpaceTeam, Oceanhorn, and Jetpack Joyride top the charts, though truth be told there’s not a lot to get excited about in terms of gaming on the Apple TV at this stage. Don’t for a second think that the Apple TV can stand with the big names in terms of gaming — an Apple PlayStation or Xbox competitor this is not, but it was never meant to be. Freebies like Crossy Road work without a hitch, and the touchpad on the remote control is good enough with no noticeable input lag.

Other apps provide a smattering of additional services, though I question the usefulness of apps like AirBnB on a TV screen. The one app I really wanted to see was VLC, which would add a huge amount of capability in terms of media consumption, but there’s no sign of it yet. I’ve learned to be cynical about such apps making it through Apple’s tough selection process, but there are a few premium apps that promise to add support for less-orthodox formats (OneVideo is one such app) — so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

As is now the norm with Apple’s software, accessibility options are exhaustive with full support for VoiceOver, zoom and boldened text for better readability, a “reduce motion” setting that removes all the whooshing animations, and the usual support for closed captioning and subtitles.

Remote Living

By far one of the biggest improvements in this revision is the new remote control, which now includes a touch-friendly clickpad, four separate buttons, and a volume rocker that controls the volume on your TV using the included infrared blaster. My 3-year-old LG TV didn’t require any setup whatsoever, but you can disable this from the menu if you really want to.

The new clickpad makes interacting with the Apple TV more “Apple” than ever before, and it’s arguably the one of the best improvements over past models. Scrolling around feels great, though it takes a little getting used to and I found myself overshooting icons to begin with.

Fortunately there’s a degree of visual feedback provided on screen, as icons tilt along with your touch, which helps “train” the exactitude of your input. It’s even possible to increase or decrease touchpad sensitivity in the menu if things aren’t quite to your liking. You can also use tap inputs to move left, right, up, and down as if you were using an imaginary directional pad.

Entering text, passwords, and search terms manually can be a fairly laborious process, as Apple has employed a horizontal text input method rather than a QWERTY keyboard. My girlfriend liked this much more than I did, so you may disagree with me when I say it left me yearning for a “proper” keyboard.

Of course, you can always enter text using the official Apple Remote app, which turns your iPhone or iPad into a powerful remote control — exactly how it worked on the last Apple TV. If you own a compatible “Made for iPhone” gamepad, you can also use it to control the unit.

The other way Apple invites you to interact with the new Apple TV is using its digital assistant. There’s dedicated Siri button on the new remote, and it works just as you’d expect. Natural, flowing sentences work best — commands like “launch Netflix” or “show me Christmas movies” work, but I couldn’t use Siri to “search for American Dad on Netflix” — it consistently told me it couldn’t find anything on Netflix, suggesting the iTunes version instead.

Missed Opportunities?

The Apple TV has once again not been designed to conquer all things media, and this is evident from the capabilities left out by Apple. I was hardly surprised to find a complete lack of uPnP media server support, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. Fortunately there are apps — notably NAStify — which add this functionality, but they’re not free and users report mixed results.

Instead, the primary method of streaming your local media falls on Apple’s own technology, notably HomeSharing. This will probably act as a barrier for many who are considering the purchase, particularly if you don’t use iTunes to manage your media.

A Super Little Package

This is the Apple TV update you’ve been waiting for, and the already-impressive ecosystem is only set to improve as more developers take to the small screen. As more local on-demand services become available, you’ll have more to watch on your TV, without paying a penny. Till then you can use AirPlay to stream from your iPhone or iPad, or cough up iTunes prices and purchase media — if that’s your thing.

I’ll be buying an Apple TV when it’s time to give this one away to a lucky reader, and that’s probably the best thing I can say about it. Sure, it’s expensive; but it’s also powerful, pleasant to use, and thanks to some stunning aerial photography even manages to make screensavers cool again.

Apple TV 2015 Giveaway

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HTG Explains: Everything You Know About Resolution Is Probably Wrong | Dramel Notes

“Resolution” is a term people often throw around—sometimes incorrectly—when talking about images. This concept is not as black and white as “the number of pixels in an image.” Keep reading to find out what you don’t know.

As with most things, when you dissect a popular term like “resolution” to an acedemic (or geeky) level, you find that it’s not as simple as you might have been lead to believe. Today we’re going to see just how far the concept of “resolution” goes, briefly talk about the implications of the term, and a little bit about what higher resolution means in graphics, printing, and photography.

So, Duh, Images Are Made of Pixels, Right?

Here’s the way you’ve probably had resolution explained to you: images are an array of pixels in rows and columns, and images have a pre-defined number of pixels, and bigger images with bigger number of pixels have better resolution… right? That’s why you’re so tempted by that 16 megapixel digital camera, because lots of pixels is the same as high resolution, right? Well, not exactly, because resolution is a little bit murkier than that. When you talk about an image like it’s only a bucket of pixels, you ignore all the other things that go into making an image better in the first place. But, without a doubt, one part of what makes an image “high resolution” is having a lot of pixels to create a recognizable image.

It can be convenient (but sometimes wrong) to call images with lots of megapixels “high resolution.” Because resolution goes beyond the number of pixels in an image, it would be more accurate to call it an image with high pixel resolution, or high pixel density. Pixel density is measured in pixels per inch (PPI), or sometimes dots per inch (DPI). Because pixel density is a measure of dots relative to an inch, one inch can have ten pixels in it or a million. And the images with higher pixel density will be able to resolve detail better—at least to a point.

The somewhat misguided idea of “high megapixel = high resolution” is a sort of carryover from the days when digital images simply couldn’t display enough image detail because there weren’t enough of the little building blocks to make up a decent image. So as digital displays started to have more picture elements (also known as pixels), these images were able to resolve more detail and give a clearer picture of what was going on. At a certain point, the need for millions and millions of more picture elements stops being helpful, as it reaches the upper limit of the other ways that the detail in an image is resolved. Intrigued? Let’s take a look.

Optics, Details, and Resolving Image Data

Another important part of the resolution of an image relates directly to the way it is captured. Some device has to parse and record image data from a source. This is the way most kinds of images are created. It also applies to most digital imaging devices (digital SLR cameras, scanners, webcams, etc) as well as analog methods of imaging (like film-based cameras). Without getting into too much technical gobbledygook about how cameras work,  we can talk about something called “optical resolution.”

Simply said, resolution, in regard to any kind of imaging, means “ability to resolve detail.” Here’s a hypothetical situation: you buy a fancy-pants, super high-megapixel camera, but have trouble taking sharp pictures because the lens is terrible. You just can’t focus it, and It takes blurry shots that lack detail. Can you call your image high resolution? You might be tempted to, but you can’t. You can think of this as what optical resolution means. Lenses or other means of gathering optical data have upper limits to the amount of detail they can capture. They can only capture so much light based on form factor (a wide angle lens versus a telephoto lens), as the factor and style of lens allows in more or less light.

Light also has a tendency to diffract and/or create distortions of light waves called aberrations. Both create distortions of image details by keeping light from focusing accurately to create sharp pictures. The best lenses are formed to limit diffraction and therefore provide a higher upper limit of detail, whether the target image file has the megapixel density to record the detail or not. A Chromatic Aberration, illustrated above, is when different wavelengths of light (colors) move at different speeds through a lens to converge on different points. This means that colors are distorted, detail is possibly lost, and images are recorded inaccurately based on these upper limits of optical resolution.

Digital photosensors also have upper limits of ability, although it’s tempting to just assume that this only has to do with megapixels and pixel density. In reality, this is another murky topic, full of complex ideas worthy of an article of its own. It is important to keep in mind that there are weird trade-offs for resolving detail with higher megapixel sensors, so we’ll go further in depth for a moment. Here’s another hypothetical situation—you chunk out your older high-megapixel camera for a brand new one with twice as many megapixels. Unfortunately, you buy one at the same crop factor as your last camera and run into trouble when shooting in low light environments. You lose lots of detail in that environment and have to shoot in super fast ISO settings, making your images grainy and ugly. The trade off is this—your sensor has photosites, little tiny receptors that capture light. When you pack more and more photosites onto a sensor to create a higher megapixel count, you lose the beefier, bigger photosites capable of capturing more photons, which will help to render more detail in those low light environments.

Because of this reliance on limited light-recording media and limited light-gathering optics, resolution of detail can be achieved through other means. This photo is an image by Ansel Adams, renown for his achievements in creating High Dynamic Range images using dodging and burning techniques and ordinary photo papers and films. Adams was a genius at taking limited media and using it to resolve the maximum amount of detail possible, effectively sidestepping many of the limitations we talked about above. This method, as well as tone-mapping, is a way to increase the resolution of an image by bringing out details that might otherwise not be seen.

Resolving Detail and Improving Imaging and Printing

Because “resolution” is such a broad-reaching term, it also has impacts in the printing industry. You’re probably aware that advances in the past several years have made televisions and monitors higher definition (or at least made higher def monitors and televisions more commercially viable). Similar imaging technology revolutions have been improving the quality of images in print—and yes, this too is “resolution.”

When we’re not talking about your office inkjet printer, we’re usually talking about processes that create halftones, linetones, and solid shapes in some kind of intermediary material used for transferring ink or toner to some kind of paper or substrate. Or, more simply put, “shapes on a thing that puts ink on another thing.” The image printed above was most likely printed with some kind of offset lithography process, as were most of the color images in books and magazines in your home. Images are reduced to rows of dots and put onto a few different printing surfaces with a few different inks and are recombined to create printed images.

The printing surfaces are usually imaged with some kind of photosensitive material which has a resolution of its own. And one of the reasons that print quality has improved so drastically over the last decade or so is the increased resolution of improved techniques. Modern offset presses have increased resolution of detail because they utilize precise computer-controlled laser imaging systems, similar to the ones in your office variety laser printer. (There are other methods, as well, but laser is arguably the best image quality.) Those lasers can create smaller, more accurate, more stable dots and shapes, which create better, richer, more seamless, more high-resolution prints based on printing surfaces capable of resolving more detail. Take a moment to look at prints done as recently as those from the early 90s and compare them to modern ones—the leap in resolution and print quality is quite staggering.

Don’t Confuse Monitors and Images

It can be quite easy to lump the resolution of images in with the resolution of your monitor. Don’t be tempted, just because you look at images on your monitor, and both are associated with the word “pixel.” It might be confusing, but pixels in images have variable pixel depth (DPI or PPI, meaning they can have variable pixels per inch) while monitors have a fixed number of physically wired, computer-controlled points of color that are used to display the image data when your computer asks it to. Really, one pixel is not related to another. But they can both be called “picture elements,” so they both get called “pixels.” Said simply, the pixels in images are a way of recording image data, while the pixels in monitors are ways to display that data.

What does this mean? Generally speaking, when you’re talking about the resolution of monitors, you’re talking about a far more clear-cut scenario than with image resolution. While there are other technologies (none of which we’ll discuss today) that can improve image quality—simply put, more pixels on a display add to the display’s ability to resolve the detail more accurately.

In the end, you can think of the images you create as having an ultimate goal—the medium you’re going to use them on. Images with extremely high pixel density and pixel resolution (high megapixel images captured from fancy digital cameras, for instance) are appropriate for use from a very pixel dense (or “printing dot” dense) printing medium, like an inkjet or an offset press because there’s a lot of detail for the high resolution printer to resolve. But images intended for the web have much lower pixel density because monitors have roughly 72 ppi pixel density and almost all of them top out around 100 ppi. Ergo, only so much “resolution” can be viewed on screen, yet all of the detail that is resolved can be included in the actual image file.

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The simple bullets point to take away from this is that “resolution” is not as simple as using files with lots and lots of pixels, but is usually a function of resolving image detail. Keeping that simple definition in mind, simply remember that there are many aspects to creating a high resolution image, with pixel resolution being only one of them. Thoughts or questions about today’s article? Let us know about them in the comments, or simply send your questions to ericgoodnight@howtogeek.com.

Image Credits: Desert Girl by bhagathkumar Bhagavathi, Creative Commons. Lego Pixel art by Emmanuel Digiaro, Creative Commons. Lego Bricks by Benjamin Esham, Creative Commons. D7000/D5000 B&W by Cary and Kacey Jordan, Creative Commons. Chromatic Abbertation diagrams by Bob Mellish and DrBob, GNU License via Wikipedia. Sensor Klear Loupe by Micheal Toyama, Creative Commons. Ansel Adams image in public domain. Offset by Thomas Roth, Creative Commons. RGB LED by Tyler Nienhouse, Creative Commons.

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