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 report by PIRG (Public Interest Research Group), it is the safest streaming device for users. No tricks, no hidden tracking, no flood of ads.
You don’t watch – you’re being tracked. But not at Apple!
Competition? Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung, LG – everyone is dabbling in 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 profit from ads, so it simply doesn’t have to track you.
Indeed, Apple does store some data – but not on you!
Indeed, Apple keeps a list of recently watched titles so you can continue your viewing on your iPad or iPhone. But everything is anonymised, and you can turn off personalisation with a single click. Want full neutrality? No problem – it can be set up. And Siri? Of course, it works – but the transcriptions of voice commands are kept for a maximum of six months and are also not linked to your account.
Netflix and Prime continue as usual
Of course, not everything can be circumvented – external applications like Netflix or Amazon Prime will still track you as part of their own profiles. But the Apple device itself doesn’t add its own layer to that. And that makes a huge difference. To summarise? Apple TV 4K is the only streamer that doesn’t make your privacy a currency. If you want to watch without the eyes of advertisers on your back – you don’t have much choice.
