Katarzyna Petru
In a world where every click is worth its weight in gold for advertisers, Apple TV 4K remains the last bastion of privacy. Literally. According to a PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) report, it is the most user-friendly streaming device. No gimmicks, no hidden tracking, no flood of ads.
You’re not watching – you’re being tracked. But not by Apple!
Competition? Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung, LG – they all play around with automatic content recognition (ACR). Watching something? Their system already knows what it was and how to sell it to you again. They create your digital profile from this and trade it like gold. And Apple? No. It doesn’t use ACR, doesn’t sell your data and – most importantly – doesn’t make money from ads, so it simply doesn’t need to track you.
Sure, Apple records some data – but not on you!
Sure, Apple keeps a list of recently watched titles so you can continue watching on your iPad or iPhone. But everything is anonymised, and you can turn off personalisation with a single click. Want total neutrality? No problem – it can be set up. As for Siri? Of course, it works – but voice command transcriptions are kept for a maximum of six months and are not linked to your account.
Netflix and Prime continue with their thing
Of course, not everything can be bypassed – external apps like Netflix or Amazon Prime will still track you through their own profiles. But the Apple device itself doesn't add its own layer to this. And that makes a huge difference. In summary? Apple TV 4K is the only streamer that doesn't turn your privacy into a currency. If you want to watch without advertisers breathing down your neck – you don’t have many options.
