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WWDC 2018 live discussion and announcements (1 Viewer)

JohnRice

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Are you saying Atmos is coming to the 4K ATV, or will it require another freaking hardware upgrade.
 

Ted Todorov

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One box to rule them all. Cc @Mike Frezon :)
Zero password entry for viewing specific apps/networks if I understand correctly. That would be very welcome. They also announced that my providers, Spectrum (ex TWC) are now officially on Apple TV, so presumably I'll have a choice between watching via TiVo & AppleTV.
 

Mike Frezon

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Zero password entry for viewing specific apps/networks if I understand correctly. That would be very welcome. They also announced that my providers, Spectrum (ex TWC) are now officially on Apple TV, so presumably I'll have a choice between watching via TiVo & AppleTV.

Boy...the things I don't understand...

How would an Apple 4k TV work with my Spectrum service?

I've already got a Spectrum (actually a holdover T-W) DVR with a 1TB drive and six tuners. Is there some benefit I'd get from being able to access my Spectrum service via the A4kTV box?
 

Ted Todorov

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Boy...the things I don't understand...

How would an Apple 4k TV work with my Spectrum service?

I've already got a Spectrum (actually a holdover T-W) DVR with a 1TB drive and six tuners. Is there some benefit I'd get from being able to access my Spectrum service via the A4kTV box?
AFAIK you will be able to watch any channel you subscribe to either via their specific app on the AppleTV or via the Spectrum app (there is one for iPad right now).

Why? Depends on what matters to you. If video quality matters, you will be getting 1080P video on your AppleTV vs 1080i/720P from your cable/DVR. Some of the apps would replay older broadcasts for you, but some of it may be live only, while your DVR allows you to record whatever you wish, watch it when you wish and skip commercials (are these cable service boxes as reliable on the last one as a TiVo?)

Certainly Apple could/should offer a DVR like future version of the aTV. Depending on the approach it could be done with the existing hardware and mostly remote sofwatre/iCloud storage, but as with most things it depends on cable cos agreeing on Apple’s terms.

Why would it matter to me? For the most part even TiVo is not as convenient as the AppleTV (and certainly not as high in quality in the case of my Roamio. But, I refuse to watch commercials, so that would greatly limit what I’d be willing to watch via the AppleTV vs TiVo.
 

Ted Todorov

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So I rewatched the AppleTV part of the keynote and found it very exiting overall, but noticed one particular statement. To listen to Dolby Atmos all you need is an AppleTV and a sound bar. This immediately brought back to me my past complaint that Apple needs to release a sound bar version of the HomePod.

Also, is it really true? If you got a Sonos sound bar could you use just it for high quality Dolby Atmos?
 

Sam Posten

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Also, is it really true? If you got a Sonos sound bar could you use just it for high quality Dolby Atmos?

Googling around it seems Sonos currently only supports DD 5.1 on their soundbars.

But boy, was that section confusing to a lot of people. The dopes at CoM really screwed up their reporting. Atmos support has NOTHING to do with soundbars, tho a very limited set of soundbars support Atmos.

Edit: looks like they fixed their article. See the comments.
https://www.cultofmac.com/552777/tv...gn=news&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter
 

Mike Frezon

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Like I said, the things I don't understand.

I'm finding it harder and harder to keep up with how everything connects with each other these days. I get the supreme feeling I'm really not taking full advantage of my "stuff." I'm starting to think I'm reaching an age where it's hard to teach this old dog new tricks. And that makes me very angry/sad.
 

Mark Booth

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If you want a sound bar instead of a A/V receiver, at least 7 speakers and a dedicated subwoofer, no, you aren’t taking full advantage of Dolby ATMOS.

Mark
 

DaveF

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It took me two days to watch the keynote, but I got through it. :) very developer centric this year. Not as interesting to this home user. I mean, it’s great you can now have easy aTV login if you’re a cable subscriber in France. Not much use if you’re an American with Verizon or Comcast. And I gather the Amazon Prime app now uses both left and right speakers for its sound (yes, still bitter Apple authorized a stereo-only app for its “premiere” streaming box). Waiting to hear if the Atmos will be usable by us HTPC looneys.

A bunch of productivity features for the SOHO people. Some small fraction of that will turn out to be useful for this casual home user. I don’t use my desktop as a storage folder, so all that stuff was lost on me. And I didn’t understand all the editing features of photos in folders. Why are photos in folders and not in the Photos app? Do these features appear in Photos too? Or getting it.

Because I’m weird, I’m happy to see the new privacy and password features. Those are good. And I read that 1Password will get better integration feature in iOS, so cool.

More AR games I won’t play. I believe in AR as more important than virtual reality. But there’s nothing there yet for me, besides a tape measure. I’m not sure if my 20-year belief in AR has been wrong, or it’s still too early.

Oh, right, FASTER IPHONES!!! Ok, that’s awesome news.

Feature to quantify how I’m wasting my life posting to HTF and liking photos of friends’ kids ... that will be depressing.

My wife will love the new auto-start exercise feature in WatchOS. Because I’m using her Gen 0 watch, I’m left manually starting exercise programs like an animal — a hamster in its wheel, more accurately.

That stupid Memoji is going to force me to buy an iPhone X this Fall, only a year after buying my current 8+. Stupid memoji.
 

DaveF

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I totally didn’t understand the Siri Shortcuts feature. Is there any more explanation of it online?
 

DaveF

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Thanks. I don’t have nearly enough things automated (or automatable) for this to be useful, I think, for a while. But we’ll see.
 

Ted Todorov

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Not much use if you’re an American with Verizon or Comcast.
And I gather the Amazon Prime app now uses both left and right speakers for its sound (yes, still bitter Apple authorized a stereo-only app for its “premiere” streaming box).
I remember being one of the complainers about no 5.1 for the Amazon Prime app, but that bug is long gone

Oh, and I never thought it was a privilege to be an American Spectrum user, but apparently we are practically French. (Though, unfortunately, not Canadian, thus no Canal + choice for us.)
 
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