MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.
Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1476669
leading streaming screen solution – smart TV – but... Smart TVs eliminate the need for a standalone streaming device (Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Chromecast), are probably much easier to set up and come preloaded with streaming apps you may or may not want. Our biggest “issue” with using the smarts goes back to Vizio’s initial smart TV launch. They forgot to tell Vizio screen buyers that their smart TV was designed to enable the company to harvest all of the consumers' usage information so they could sell it to "interested parties." Who would have thought folks would be upset because the company scraped and pedaled personal information for a little added profit? Now smart sets from Samsung, LG, Hisense, TLC and the rest of the screen makers do the same thing. They’re scraping so much data from us we just don’t know why they don’t give you the set and make up the difference one data point at a time. Yes, we went along with a 60-in. smart QLED 8K but disabled the smarts, opting instead for our cable/internet service provider’s new Comcast Flex box. In addition, we use Plex (www.plex.tv) because it puts all the streaming movie, TV show, sports, music options in one convenient place…it’s so cool! Why? Comcast is the largest cable/internet provider in the Americas and, with the acquisition of Europe’s Sky, have become one of the world’s largest TV/broadband service organizations since its formation in 1963. So? We feel they’ve had and been using our data since the old bundle days and know how valuable – and sensitive – the data is. We figured they’d be more interested in protecting our information rather than simply passing it around to the highest bidder(s). In addition, their box comes pre-loaded with all of the most-watched streaming apps and free/ad supported content from more than 200 streaming channel sources.