Hi and hope all are well today. First, thanks in advance for any / all responses. Second, apologies if this isn’t the best place to ask this question.

I’m curious if anyone, has moved completely from using an AppleTV to something else. Current use case for the ATV is a few streaming apps (Crunchyroll / HiDive, Tubi, etc.) and Apple Arcade (a few casual games).

If you did completely switch, what did you decide on using? Did you go back to buying movies / using a DVD/Blu-Ray player, setup a mini PC and stream from websites / rip music and movies, use a gaming console instead, etc.?

Exploring options and entertaining thoughts for right now. Again, thanks and have a good day / evening.

Edit - 2024/01/01 - Just wanted to thank everyone for the lively discussion and resources (links, recommendations, etc.) related to my question.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    81 year ago

    It isn’t that hard when you convince a globe that your luxury phone is the only status symbol that matters.

    Apple isn’t perfect, but the premium you pay on their devices does mean that they wrap the data mining bat in some padding first before they beat you over the head with it. Microsoft and Google just keep adding more nails.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        81 year ago

        Well, I worked for them for quite a while and never saw or heard anything that suggested a large scale data collection program existed beyond the usual analytics that people can opt out of. I’m on a plane, so I don’t have the time to do a deep dig at the moment, but for a quick anecdotal test, I’d say you could just open the menus of a Microsoft computer, Google computer, and Apple computer, and tell me who seems to be shoving more targeted ads down your throat.

        Sure, if you use their Apple TV streaming service or other equivalent media thing, I’m sure they collect data, sell, and use it, but that is a far cry from some of the really invasive moves we’ve seen from companies that produce ad supported hardware/software.

        The contents of my computer should be mine because I straight up own it. If I’m connecting to a subscription service that I don’t own, then I have a slightly lower expectation of total privacy.