After Sonos last week, I was looking at my daughter’s 2019 Sony Bravia TV, because the Amazon Prime app had stopped working. It seems that support was stopped in September and as of New Year the AP app has also stopped working!
I then double checked and our Sony Bravia 2017 Android TV is also out of support - it got an Oreo update last last summer, but that appears to be the end of the story.
Time to follow through on my original idea of just using it as a dumb TV and attaching a FireTV or similar (we only use Amazon Prime, so FireTV makes most sense).
My daughter and her boyfriend are going back to the dealer, to see if they can get a refund/free FireTV stick, as the TV is no longer fit for purpose - they bought it primarily for its Amazon Prime support.
But I find it hard to accept that Sony can simply end support on TVs that are less than a year old! They have to have a 2 year guarantee over here anyway, so that definitely sounds like a case for the Consumer Goods laws.
And I was upset that my 2017 Samsung didn’t get the Apple TV app. That must be a record, dropping support for a 2019.
With mine, I spoke to Samsung and they said the version of Tizen was the limiting factor. All the other apps on it are still supported, but I did what you are planning. Bought a Fire TV Cube and now ignore the apps on the TV.
My only struggle is lip-sync. The Cube is connected to the TV via one HDMI, and my soundbar via another HDMI (so I can still use the onboard tuner with the soundbar) and the lip-sync is way off. I’m slowly increasing the audio delay in the TV, still not quite right.
This will only become a bigger problem unless manufacturers are forced to provide essentially “support expiration dates”. Even then that isn’t fool proof, as other manufacturers may not play nice.
I have a dumb LG LCD in my bedroom I bought in 2010 and it still works flawlessly No software to abandon I guess.
I bought my first TV with built-in streaming apps, a Vizio, about 7 years ago. Surprisingly all the apps that I used on it still worked last year when I last checked. However they where always low quality apps and there is a very limited selection, so I switched to using a $20 Roku on it last year.
The second TV I bought with built-in apps I only bought because it was cheaper than the same size TV without built-in apps. I never tried that TV’s apps I used a$20 Roku on it from day one.
Starting to think there could be a real market for good old “dumb” displays as the “normals” get fed up with this kind of BS. Just a high quality OLED panel and some HDMI ports with a super simple OSD for picture settings. How much extra cost is there in these smart TVs from the ARM chipset and R&D for the garbage OS/app store? OR are prices being subsidized by pre-loaded crapware…
The problem with this is that there is little to no profit in making dumb displays for consumer use. Companies make most of the profit off licensing deals for apps, collecting and selling user data, etc…
There are fantastic commercial displays with no “smarts” but they have commercial price tags that consumers won’t pay.
Bought a new TV on Saturday and I really don’t care what “Smart TV” options it has. (It arrives Thursday.) In fact, I paid so little attention to that that I’m not even sure what’s built in. I don’t trust any built-in TV options to be supported or even well implemented in the first place. I’d rather attach something like an Apple TV that I can swap out when something better comes along.
That’s my suspicion, however I’ve not found data to support any conclusion either way. I’d guess there are a few manufacturers that developed such platforms as a way to differentiate their products on the market as opposed to making cost from licensing deals. However I’m sure manufacturers are in no rush to make such details public.
I’ve shopped around pretty extensively and haven’t located many options on the commercial market. The ones I’ve found typically use display tech that is geared for 24h operation rather than response time and active contrast. I’d bet with proper marketing, a subset of consumers would pay a premium for such a product.
I am guessing Sony had very little choice in making the AP app not work on their TV. Amazon probably cut them off. And they don’t need the info from the Sony TV because they get it from their own platform and know everything about you anyway.
And how much effort can these companies be putting into the security of their TV platforms – OS and apps? This is stupefying. I trust my TV on the internet about as much as… well… I don’t.
A Vizio executive has said publicly that TVs would be more expensive if they didn’t have data via smart services to subsidize the cost. It’s probably not a big difference but margins are razor thin and they can’t risk losing sales to average folks who expect streaming apps to be on board.
Society has lost all sense of value. We won’t pay a “real” amount for anything any more.
No wonder quality is suffering. I’d happily pay more for a good quality product that does what it should and lasts.
The same for food. I worked in the food industry for several years and know how much pressure the farmers and suppliers are under, with price requirements set by the supermarkets, with no regard to the actual cost of producing and processing the food.
Society needs to rethink about what is cheap and what is good value, the two are not the same thing!
I believe this trend will hurt most companies. The ones that realize that supporting their devices (as Apple does) is the only way to promote brand loyalty will win.
After a while even the most patient of us get fed up with buying stuff that are unsupported after 6 months.
There was a “Nature of Things” (CBC) episode that I remember one of the interviewees talking about tomatoes explaining why they’re mostly tasteless. The answer was that the buyers are paying not for taste but for the amount of round red objects. Unfortunately when you build a system which is meant to optimize for [only] one goal, that system tends to optimize against other worthwhile goals at the same time.
There was a problem with one of the discounters, here in Germany. They’d go to egg producers and convince them to sign an exclusive contract (mainly because they would buy so many eggs, that the farmer couldn’t service their existing contracts). They’d get a few percent less than their old contracts per egg, but they’d sell several times as many.
They would invest heavily in new equipment and new stock to service the discounter. Then, after 2 years, the renewal would drop the price in half, meaning that the farmer was losing money on every egg sold. Many went insolvent.
There was an interview with a farmer at the weekend, he makes less than 40c per chicken he sells. He reckoned, that if he got an additional 50c per chicken, he could half the number he needs to house in each stall, which would produce healthier chickens and reduce the amount of antibiotics needed to nearly zero.
But the supermarkets and discounters have so sewn up the supply chain that is next to impossible for the farmers and suppliers to charge what the product is worth. The German government is looking into ways to improve the situation, possibly with minimum prices. But that will only work if they can guarantee the money gets back to the producers, not get stuck in the pockets of the supermarkets and discounters.
This would be great if only items got better as price went up. Most of the time that is not the case, The cost only goes up because of a name not because the quality is any better.
I’ve seen both sides bought something cheap and it lasted a long time and bought something expensive and it didn’t last as long. Only when they begin to realize that we spend more money on things to get better quality not just a brand, will this work 100 percent. Don’t get me wrong there are something that still follow that model but most of the time it is hard to figure out which one is which.
My mother married in the early 60s. She received a Sunbeam hand mixer as a wedding gift. She used it at least once a week, if not more, for over 40 years, before it finally burnt out.
My wife and I have had probably half a dozen hand mixers since the turn of the century, both cheap ones and expensive ones.
These days its more about, how cheap can we make it and how much can we charge others for it.
The old adage you get what you pay for isn’t always true anymore, just because something is more expensive doesn’t mean it is made better. A lot of times a dirt cheap and an expensive item are made by the same company maybe even in the same plant using the same parts just with a different look to make it appear to be better quality. Its very sad…
No software to abandon I guess.