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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1384448
the service, and great new ones are appearing all the time. It’s also worth keeping in mind that if you have an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you’ll be able to play these games not only on the big screen, but also take them with you on the go on your iPhone, or sneak a few turns in during a coffee break on your Mac. Obviously, an Apple TV doesn’t even hold a candle to a PS5 or Xbox when it comes to being a gaming platform, but Apple’s set-top box is considerably cheaper, and there are definitely some really fun titles for the more casual gamer who just can’t justify investing in a dedicated console. 7. Home Theatre Audio If you already own one or two full-sized HomePods — or are willing to invest in a pair before they’re gone — the new 2021 Apple TV 4K can use those to replace your AV receiver or soundbar entirely, giving you full Dolby Atmos surround sound audio from your entire home theatre system. While the older 2017 Apple TV 4K gained Home Theatre Audio support in tvOS 14.2 last fall for all content played directly from the set-top box, the new 2021 Apple TV 4K takes it a giant step further with support for eARC. This means you can plug your Apple TV 4K into any TV with an ARC or eARC port and use your HomePods as the destination for all the audio that travels through your TV, whether that’s from the smart TV itself, a Blu-ray player, or PS5. Of course, the price of entry is pretty steep if you’re not already a HomePod owner — to get the best sound you’ll need a pair of $299 HomePods plus the $179 Apple TV 4K, which works out to almost $800. However, if you shop around you can probably find some good deals on the now-discontinued smart speaker, and a pair of HomePods will definitely give you better quality than all but the most expensive soundbars. 6. Privacy You may not have given this much thought, but most smart TV manufacturers aren’t nearly as big on privacy as Apple is. This means that there’s a good chance that your smart TV is spying on you, reporting all of your viewing habits back to the manufacturer’s mothership. While some smart TVs allow you to turn this off, it’s almost always enabled by default, and the options to disable it aren’t always obvious. In fact, many of these TV makers are quite cheeky in their approach, requiring users to explicitly switch OFF settings like “Don’t Share My Personal Information,” and this makes it pretty hard to trust whether disabling these settings is truly enough to keep your viewing habits private. While there’s obviously nothing you can do about sharing your viewing habits with the streaming services themselves — Disney+, Netflix, and even Apple TV+ are almost certainly keeping track of what you’re watching on each of their individual services — there’s absolutely no reason that a TV maker needs this information — other than selling it to marketing companies and advertisers, of course. With Apple’s strong focus on privacy, you’re pretty much guaranteed that your Apple TV isn’t reporting anything at all outside of each individual app. After all, Netflix doesn’t need to know that you decided to stop in the middle of Outlander to go indulge in an old episode of Dawson’s Creek on Hulu. In fact, since Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency feature works on tvOS 14.5 and later just like it does on your iPhone and iPad, you can feel even more confident that what you do on Netflix stays on Netflix. 5. Siri Is More Powerful on the Apple TV Even though Apple has been quick to add AirPlay 2, HomeKit, and Apple TV+ to just about every other smart TV and streaming box on the market, one feature that remains absolutely exclusive to Apple’s own devices is Siri. Most modern smart TVs can do Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, of course, but if you’re a Siri user, you’re going to want your set-top box to live in the same ecosystem and understand the language