The bed is super weird. But it's not weird in a lot of places for valentines gifts to extend to "anyone you love in any capacity" instead of strictly romantic love. My mom has given me chocolates and a valentines card every year since I can remember and it's a normal thing around here.
To elaborate on this, when you want an update, you "update the container." This usually means downloading an entirely new container image and replacing yours with the new one, which has new internal versions and data but works the exact same. You rely on the supplier of the container (if you didn't make it yourself) to do all of that for you, and you just receive the update when you request it.
So ideally, dependencies will be taken care of for you when the container updates, if you are using a pre-built container.
No, it's smoother than even my brand new Google TV chromecast that it replaced. I replaced the default launcher with something easier for my elderly mother to understand because she kept getting confused with other devices. It's snappy, has all the apps I have needed, and was easy to set up. New apps are still developed and updated for it too since it's so popular, and ostensibly the best pre-built streaming device short of manually configuring a mini pc. I don't see software support officially or from the app developers dropping any time soon because of that.
I've used both, still prefer the shield. Hardware-wise they're about the same insofar as I never had trouble with any lag at any point on either. This is what sets both of them apart from all other streaming devices. Chromecast, roku, fire sticks, they've all had trouble with some of the higher bit rate media on my jellyfin server. Apple TV and shield did not.
I prefer the shield remote.
The main difference comes down to software. Android TV is simply better. I can get the interface exactly how I like it, and run all manner of apps in the background, making the remote more useful among other things. Apple TV doesn't even have access to the jellyfin app, you have to use swiftfin on the app store which has issues. You can sideload apps super easily on the shield. (Though for the jellyfin example, you don't have to. It's on the play store.)
Developer mode is also a great thing to have on the shield. I can now transfer apps and media from my pc super easily, speed up animations to make it feel snappier, (a feature sorely missed on apple TV) or even remote control the shield (which I haven't found a need to do yet so I'm not counting that as a plus).
This doesn't get talked about much but in my experience gaming on a Mac is often worse than on Linux despite the market share.