Technology

Apple TV doesn’t have ads at all. If that’s all you care about, I would say go for that.

The Firestick isn’t really jailbreakable per se, but it doesn’t really need to be. You can sideload things with extreme ease. There’s a pretty decent app that allows you to watch YouTube with no ads or sponsored content shown. That alone is worth the cost of a Firestick for me. It does have some ads in the menu, but they’re not super obtrusive and never bothered me much. Plus the cost is much lower. You used to be able to put a different launcher on the Firestick and never see any Amazon content at all (ads) but they fixed that a while back and I haven’t bothered to see if that works again, but for all I know it might.

Edit: it does.

AppleTV UI is smooth, and it builds a “master queue” of programs you are watching or want to watch across services (similar to Plex). The exception to this is Netflix — they refuse to “opt in” to this service for some reason.

It also doubles as a Homekit hub if you need something like that.

My hot take is the AppleTV will last you years where the fire stick will probably get frustrating after a while.

By that I mean the AppleTV is fast. Of the other streaming devices I’ve used (newer chromecast, Rokus), my first gen AppleTV 4K still is snappy and feels better. I think I got this thing in 2018.

That may not be the end all for you, but when you compare a lot of these devices back to back, the AppleTV just feels better to use.

For what it’s worth, I have an Apple TV, I love it. Really smooth, fast interface. Works really well. Voice search isn’t even terrible! For an Apple product. It really improves the TV experience. My only frustration is mixed app support, e.g. Netflix has an app that works fine but it doesn’t integrate into the rest of Apple TV which sucks. Also.. apples walled garden can be annoying at times, so I also have a chromecast for the rare case I need to go around one of apples arbitrary restrictions.

I had a Firestick 4K then swapped it out for an AppleTV 4K. The Apple TV UX is really clean, fast, and lovely. The Fire TV stick had adverts and stuff in it and the UI, while simple, felt cluttered and a bit confusing in comparison. Fire TV just felt like an amazon storefront and it was difficult understanding what I did or didn’t actually have access to. On Apple TV, your content is featured first and foremost, and it recommends shows to you based on what you’re subscribed to rather than what it thinks you’ll spend money on.

The downside to Apple TV is that apps that haven’t fully integrated (namely Netflix) get kind of swept aside. There is no side loading and no browser, so you can’t get unofficial apps running on the system like on Fire TV. (I used to have a side loaded app that just let me stream movies and shows from some sketchy, foreign website) There’s also no VPN for Apple TV currently, but that’s coming with the next major software upgrade.

FireTV has a bunch of ads and it seems harder to remove on the newer models / firmwares. For Android, I would suggest something with Android TV like Chromecast with Google TV or Onn Android TV. I have no experience with apple tv so I can't be sure.

If you are going to pay for a lot of subscriptions, Apple TV is probably better.

If you want to use your own media from nas, stream torrents, ad free YouTube Vanced, use iptv subscription then Apple TV is not for you.

If you have other Apple devices, so you can make use of features like AirPlay, the Apple TV is a no-brainer.

I have a Fire TV Stick Lite and it's awful. The UI is sluggish and using it for anything is a chore. Perhaps if I had got a higher spec one it would be different, but honestly I cannot recommend this particular device at all.

FireTV 4K is full of ads and is slow; also, the 3rd party apps vary greatly. Nebula crashes a lot, and Crunchyroll is a hot mess. I was thinking of replacing it with an Apple TV, but since I’d like a device for indie games and Honkai Star Rail, I’ve decided to get a mini PC instead. It’s arriving today, so I can’t tell you how it is, but price wise, it’s $185 and it runs on an Intel N100, so it’s energy efficient.

Assuming you're British ("telly"), consider a Mi Box (not Mi Stick, it's too sluggish). You'll get all the bells and whistles you need, but also possibility of sideloading stuff when needed because it's stock Android TV

FireStick is somewhat hackable. You can sideload Android apps onto it. For example, I got Apple Music running on it https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/06/yes-you-can-run-apple-music-natively-on-your-android-firestick/

You don't have to subscribe to Amazon Prime to use the other TV services. You can also install Kodi if you want to play back local media.

The FireStick will use USB power - so you can use your TV's USB ports rather than a separate plug. It also has an Ethernet adapter - I think only the more expensive Apple devices use Ethernet.

I have a fire TV cube that feels very responsive and generally works well. I have never used an apple TV device though.

i have a firestick with jellyfin, it has some ads on the menu but i watch stuff from my own server so no ads there.

it should support most encodings and most of the stuff is in direct stream. this means you could run jellyfin on a raspberry pi and would work.

I mean to me Chromecast/Google TV is the obvious best choice of all of these.

Why not a Roku device?

If you want to watch Twitch, get the Firestick.