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After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

arstechnica.com

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Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#101

Post by wcfields »

joshmlewis wrote: post #72
sand500 wrote: post #68

Dumb TVs are still a thing https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1629173-REG/nec_e658_...

> powered by Samsung's Tizen OS for business Not exactly (or at least bad example.)

The "OS" on the commercial TVs is more or less for digital signage purposes only. Samsung is kind of the defacto in the market, but I've worked with some new Panasonics that are just as nice.

As far as the OS: It doesn't have an 'app store' and essentially you can program it to check in to an RSS feed / FTP / etc.. to grab new content, schedule content, or use a USB to load up a scheduler (Think like restaurant menu that changes from breakfast to lunch at 10:30am).

Other nice features may include ability to daisy chain to make a video wall, fallback/failover if HDMI1 goes off, RS-232 control or command of other systems. Some models also are built for 24/7 duty cycle, though, if you go to a local sports-bar or the like they will buy consumer TVs that will look blotchy within a year or two because they aren't built to be on 20 hours a day.

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#102

Post by sneak »

whalesalad wrote: post #87
sneak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple TVs in the default configuration show large video ads for Apple stuff in the hero unit on the homescreen, same as Amazon is being accused of doing in TFA.

There is a setting to choose what the home button does. My Home Screen looks just like a grid of icons. No ads or anything. The Apple TV app is not the same as the Home Screen.

No, the home screen displays ads in the hero unit for the currently selected app. By default the first app on the home screen is an Apple one, so going to the home screen displays ads on the home screen from the selected Apple app.

You can change the apps in the first row to prevent this, but by default the behavior is the same: home screen ads.

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#103

Post by squeaky-clean »

Retric wrote: post #84
vladvasiliu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works fine with a TV. I bought one knowing that the "smart" features weren't all that great. I tried connecting it to the internet, and it felt more sluggish, although it's a brand new 2023 model. I was able to reset it to factory defaults and it's working well enough for what I bought it for (the image is very good, at least for my needs). For reference, it's a TCL with Google TV. But the Fire TV TFA talks abou…

The fire stick is the pure streaming dongle, a Fire TV is an actual TV which includes that dongle built in and sold at a discount. So, buying a cheap Amazon fire TV and not connecting it to the internet is a reasonable choice for a cheap ‘dumb’ TV.

There's also the "Fire TV" which is a streaming box and not a stick, sold from 2015 to 2022, which doesn't help the confusion in the naming.

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#104

Post by winternett »

whalesalad wrote: post #7

The trick is to never give your TV access to the internet and to pair it with an Apple TV. If you buy a TV and it won't even boot or work without an internet connection - return it and get a different one.

Don't worry, smartphones will begin to fill the gaps, we pay for them, but the Industry does whatever it wants with them. In about a year, we may well have to watch 2 ads before making phone calls with the way things are going, while we of course pay even higher fees for mobile service (of course).

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#105

Post by wkat4242 »

RajT88 wrote: post #9
kxrm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems to use internal DNS, which complicates things. I have the same TVs I resolved this with my router utilizing a firewall rule that redirects all udp port 53 traffic back to my pihole.

See - that would work if our TV was sending out DNS requests. It doesn't though! Like, it seems like it has its own truly internal DNS resolver, which gets updated I presume via OS updates.

Yup I tried this too. Not working. Must be using DoH. Or some proprietary resolver.

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#106

Post by sneak »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #82
riversflow wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite parts of AppleTV is that it has those beautiful screensavers.

I would pay for more aerials. I don’t understand why they are limited to so few, and if I could eliminate N.Y.C./London/Hong Kong/SF/other major cities, and get some lesser seen areas, that would be awesome.

It’s quite difficult to get permission to fly a drone over an active LAX (to say nothing of Times Square or London).

The fact that they got to do this (and show it off via screensaver) is one of my favorite “we have unlimited money and power” Apple flexes.

The amount of time, money, and planning to produce these is staggering. They’re slow motion, probably shot in 8K, and are drone shots with expensive cinema lenses. There is probably a team of 1-3 people dedicated simply to the paperwork and approvals and flight planning, not counting cinematography/DP and postproduction.

I would love a reddit-style Q&A with Apple’s internal filmmaking team.

They’re not aerial, but they’re beautiful paid apps: search “magic window” on the ATV app store. They have a few timelapse video apps that I love to leave playing on my ATVs.

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#108

Post by speedgoose »

RajT88 wrote: post #59
speedgoose wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recycling the TV is better than not doing it, but not wasting it is even better for the environment.

You'll be happy to know we're not wasting it. We use that TV frequently.

I understand, but when you describe your TV as a cheap consumable not worth being careful with, be prepared to trigger some emotional reactions with people who are concerned about the environment.

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#109

Post by tokamak-teapot »

ace2358 wrote: post #57
sharkweek wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple TV advertises its own content when you are on the homepage (even as a non-Apple TV+ subscriber so it's a little more aggressive than like sitting on the Netflix homepage as a subscriber) but as far as I can tell nothing more than that. Been a user for the last 7-8 years and I love the UX.

If you count the top-app-row preview as an ad, maybe there are ads. If you move the tv+ app off the top row you don’t see anything by Apple. There are no app suggestions or notifications on Apple TV (or at least I turned them off about 8 years ago). I have been happily streaming media off my computer with Apple TV and have never had a single issue with it.

I have Spotify at the top left of the clickable icons and the top row of the screen shows Spotify’s suggestions.

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#110

Post by whalesalad »

winternett wrote: post #104
whalesalad wrote: post #7

The trick is to never give your TV access to the internet and to pair it with an Apple TV. If you buy a TV and it won't even boot or work without an internet connection - return it and get a different one.

Don't worry, smartphones will begin to fill the gaps, we pay for them, but the Industry does whatever it wants with them. In about a year, we may well have to watch 2 ads before making phone calls with the way things are going, while we of course pay even higher fees for mobile service (of course).

maybe on an android device but this is unheard of in the Apple ecosystem
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