Technology sucks sometimes. It really does.
We've had an Apple TV for a few years now. Since cutting the cord it's been reliable and we've had absolutely no problems with it.
Even before the fire, we'd always left music playing for the dogs when we left the house. It calmed them a bit and ended a lot of the barking that used to occur in our absence. Before we cut the cord, it was easy as it came through the cable box and there was direct RCA connection between the box and my receiver. When Apple TV arrived, it presented more of a challenge, as the Apple TV had no separate audio output jacks. We solved the problem by inserting a HDMI audio splitter between the Apple TV and the television. It worked well. We could still leave the house with the music playing while the television was turned off.
After the fire, we replaced our aging Vizio with a shiny new 65-inch 4K Samsung. We'd salvaged the Apple TV, and didn't feel any immediate need to replace it because the picture quality was still amazingly good.
When Apple announced a new Apple 4K TV a few months ago, we decided it was time to upgrade and get the full potential out of our new Samsung. The strange thing was, initially it refused to send a 4K signal to the television. I traced the problem to the audio splitter box. It wasn't 4K compatible. I ordered a new one that was and when it arrived I swapped it out with the old one. Viola! 4K image acquired. (And yes, we did see a notable improvement in picture quality.)
The trouble was—and I didn't notice it until many days later—music (via Spotify) would no longer play through to the receiver when the television was turned off. I played around with the three splitters I had in my possession (including one from the old house) and came to the unfortunate realization that we could now have music from Apple TV when the television was off or 4K resolution when it was on—but not both.
This was unacceptable. I know there are probably other [expensive] solutions out there, but what we decided upon today was picking up the cheapest iPod touch we could get, and use that as our Spotify source when we leave the house and/or don't want the television on.
It's not the most elegant solution, but after looking at separate streaming units to connect to the receiver, I think it's the best one right now. I have 14 days to return the iPod, so if any of you have suggestions for some other way to do this, leave a comment.
Of course it should be difficult, it's Apple, it's been decades since they were consumer friendly.
That sucks.
How do you like the new AppleTV remote?
It is quite an improvement! It doesn't fly out of your hands and it's much more intuitive than that POS from the previous version.
That sucks. How do you like the new AppleTV remote?