Apple TV app

[IJMR]

Hi all. An interesting set of responses! I guess they show how naive I am about these sorts of things. I got to this forum through the internet having seen, on a different thread, the list of apps provided by, I know now, EE. I guess I must be a YouView box owner having been with BT wifi and tv for quite a few years now. Here in the far north of Scotland we then had few other choices! 

Looking at my box (totally legitimate I can assure you) I now see it is indeed a YouView one. But when I boot it up it comes up as EE. I assumed that, when BT acquired EE and shifted its branding things were moving seamlessly from the one to the other and so I had become an EE person by default and an EE box user by default. I guess I should have known better!! 

From what I’m getting from these replies, then, is that we won’t get these apps unless we persuade BT to update the box. Is that correct and is there anything else I should know or can do? Setting up new boxes where I am has always been a complete nightmare and I have had a number of complaints raised with BT around their provision up here. I believe that I’ll change at my peril! 

Are EE and BT separate companies? Do they have different boxes? Sorry for being so naive. 

[zulu17]

The EE Box Pro and EE Box Mini are currently the same as the BT Box Pro and BT Box Mini just a different cabinet.  there are Sagemcom supplied

There are various generation of earlier BT Youview Boxes  (t1000 , T2xxx , T4000)  supplied by Humax.

The earliest the T1000 range now is not supported and can only be used as a PVR . ie no apps.

Most new apps that come to the Youview platform are only developed by the app developers and Youview for the latest generation of boxes. 

Your branding and home page on youview boxes will be governed by the broadband connection , so if you have either EE or BT broadband you will see  EE TV.  The BT TV product was rebranded EE TV  a while ago as BT Group  decided to make EE its  flagship consumer brand and sell the product with its new EE broadband products.

[Brucemeister5]

@IJMR  If you are paying BT for your tv service you can indeed ask them to provide you with a new Pro tv box in order to be able to access the 2 apps that you mentioned. 

[IJMR]

Both hugely useful responses. Many thanks. 

[Midnight_Voice]

@IJMR 

You are still a BT customer if you have BT Broadband.

But you would be an EE customer if you had EE Broadband, as the two broadband services are different.

But both BT and EE customers who take the TV service get EE TV, which is a single streaming service offered to both. And with EE TV comes a choice of hardware, which for both BT and EE customers will be branded EE.

Except that the commercial terms, and the hardware offered, can be different; EE Broadband customers can pick from the Box Pro, the latest type of recording YouView box which can get the broadcast channels over an aerial, as before, or get the principle broadcast channels over the internet instead (IP Mode); or select instead the Apple TV box, non-recording, always IP Mode, but with a more advanced EE TV app, plus all the apps a standard Apple TV can get, instead of the more restricted range offered by the Box Pro. (Though a range, as you have seen, a little less restricted than the earlier T2xx and T4000 boxes).

BT Broadband customers can only get the Box Pro, not the Apple TV box.

But both sets of customers can also elect to take up to two Box Minis, a smaller, non-recording, IP Mode only, version of the Box Pro (in effect). But EE will lend you the first one free, and only charge a subscription for the second one, whereas both are chargeable with BT.

All this is done for clarity, and to emphasise that BT and EE are the same company. Except where, as above, they aren’t 😛

My advice would be to resist any blandishments for you to move to EE; stick firmly with BT for now, as EE haven’t quite perfected their back office admin yet.

[Brucemeister5]

Very sound advice, politely expressed from @Midnight_Voice in his final sentence which I fully endorse.

[IJMR]

Thanks very much both. I’ll get onto BT later this week and take no nonsense from them! Mind you I’m not at all sure that our rather old TV has a HDMI connection! Small steps eh!!

[Midnight_Voice]

@IJMR 

You’d be amazed at how far back HDMI ports go, though in the old days, certainly with Sony, they were just higher numbers, like AV4 and AV5. But as long as your TV is widescreen (16:9), it’s likely got HDMI inputs.

[zulu17]

@Midnight_Voice one correction is that the BT Broadband  EE TV offering still has a restriction of a maximum  of one extra Box Mini. So only orders for the New EE Broadband and TV  allow two extra boxes. S

[Midnight_Voice]

@zulu17 

Thanks for that. I guess EE Broadband must be better than BT Broadband then, if it can support more devices.

But I am unable to rightly comprehend how either company (sorry, just the one company) can have these limitations without taking into account what else is going on over the broadband, notably if there is a PS5 going full pelt somewhere or not.