I wish that were true.
I used to have a very firm anti-Apple viewpoint, until I bought some of their products. Since then I have to admit I've had a very good experience when compared to Windows PCs and the various types of mobile phones I'd had before (aside from some battery issues with the iPhone 5). Normally, when I use an Apple product for the first time, it just works right away and does exactly what it's supposed to do.
In fact, one of the best purchases I ever made was the late 2008 MacBook I'm writing this on for £200 from a guy in my work - ever since I switched it on it has run quickly, sweetly and for a very long time on the almost six year old battery (the key to its great performance is no doubt the solid state disk that was installed when I bought it).
When I was in New York for work a few months ago I bought an Apple TV for the living room so I could use it for Spotify, mirroring my phone to show photos on the big screen, and for Netflix. It was the equivalent of about £65, and I feel it was worth every penny. Yes, it's very locked down, yes it has a limited range of apps, but despite its limitations it has worked really well for me in all the ways I'd wanted it to.
I wanted to buy a device with similar functionality for the bedroom TV, but didn't have the cash to buy another Apple TV (and I had nowhere to put it anyway since the telly in question is wall mounted).
Thinking that the Google Chromecast was going to be a safe bet for a much cheaper £20, and attracted by the fact it plugs into an HDMI port on your TV, I ordered one from Amazon.
I wish I hadn't bothered.
Although it came in nice packaging and the instructions were clear and easy to follow when setting it up, I cannot get the Chromecast to work at all.
I connected it to my Wi-Fi network, went through all the steps to set it up, installed the Chromecast app on my iPhone and tried using Netflix and YouTube to cast videos to the device. Every time I do it, Netflix says "we're having trouble playing this title right now" and YouTube complains of an error in playing the selected title.
Even after a complete factory reset in case I'd done something wrong, it still doesn't work. So as of right now, it was a waste of £20. It's not much money in the grand scheme of things, but it has certainly added weight to my argument that generally says you get what you pay for.
I'm not going to give up on it yet, but I'm yet to find anything that has helped.
Update: It turns out that the culprit is actually the Smart Setup 'feature' of the BT Home Hub I use with my broadband - disabling that fixed the issue. So, Google not to blame!
