Over the years I've collected a few Android devices that are hooked up to or built into TV's, as well as an Apple TV. All of these devices have one major flaw though. They assume a single user.
One user sets up an account on Netflix or Hulu, both of which have learned that multiple users might actually be on an account, but then they become a sort of key master to an account forever locked into their master account.
The creators of these devices haven't seemed to figure out that a device located in a living room can be used by many people though. They haven't come up with any ways to quickly login for a guest user to be able to quickly load up their movies and services when they're over at a friend's house, for example.
If I go over to a friend's house, I have to literally take some form of a device with me, perhaps with an internal hard drive, to be able to play movies and services that I pay for. This means that the easiest way to take a movie over to a friend's is still the outdated optical storage disc.
Why haven't these companies caught a clue?
Why can't I just sit down to a device, and maybe take out my phone, click a few buttons, have it sync with the TV, and instantly have access to my apps and movies?
Why isn't it just easy?
Do these companies not think about how fucking annoying their interfaces are? For one thing, to watch all of the movies that you have access to, you likely have to use a bunch of apps, where they're all separated. This is getting a bit better with interfaces like the Apple TV and Google's Play, but you still have to hope that the service uses the app that has what you want to watch. There's also things like MoviesAnywhere that sync your accounts for iTunes and Google and Amazon and Vudu so you can watch your movies that you bought almost anywhere...if the movie supports it...
It still feels so half-assed still though. Here we are in the 21st century, and it feels like every piece of software is barely out of beta.
I just want to be able to turn on a TV, and get access to the services I pay for, and the movies I've bought, without having to buy them again and again on every new medium.
Hell, maybe blockchain is again the hero we need.
At least it could solve the issue of being able to actually own things that you buy. We'd still have to have the idiots running companies that earn billions to catch a clue though.
Image by Andrew E Weber CC0 License (source) via pexels
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Maybe there is some technical items that need to be overcome, or maybe its as simple as just having to persuade the engineers, but I agree 100% with you. It is very annoying.
Well, Android is built on Linux, and iOS is built on top of a BSD variant, so it's likely extremely easy to implement at least users...they probably just haven't pushed for it, because there's no real added benefit.
If they did it where you could sign in with your phone or the remote, now that would take some real engineering, and they'd be able to advertise how cool that is. Like have a kid sit down to the TV, unlock his account, and it's instantly all his favorite shows, then he gets called away, and the dad sits down and with a gesture, it's switched to his account, and he puts on football or something, etc.