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Comment by drcongo | Hacker News Reader

You could have spent 1/20th of the cost on an Apple TV or even a Firestick and she'd have got exactly the same.

Edit: And with an Apple TV it would also not be spying on her 24/7 and sending audio recordings of her private conversations back to Samsung.

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Ironically Apple TV, especially the remote, is harder to use. Roku seems to be the best in terms of usability.

I agree. My 80 yo mother in law has stopped using her Apple TV because she is simply unable (or perhaps unwilling) to learn how to use the remote and how to navigate the Apple TV menus. I'm baffled as the Apple TV UI seems intuitive to me, but after spending a lot of time with her, I've realised she is simply just not up to it. Her memory is shot, which doesn't help :-(

I love the new Apple TV remote, but definitely do not buy Roku if you don't want to be spied on.

At this point, I feel like the “Apple TV remote is hard to use” is an outdated meme. The old remote with the touch surface at the top took some getting used to and is the source of most complaints. But that hasn’t been the standard remote for almost a year now[1]. They’ve moved to a far more “normal” remote that reminds me a lot of the same remote that comes with Samsung TVs.

Plus, with an AppleTV remote, you’re not going to end up with buttons for services that no longer exist or have been rebranded. My parents still have DirectTV Now and Rdio buttons on their Roku remote.

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/20/18277449/apple-tv-remote-...

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