EDIT:
So according to this thread, this is a Google related change and not Nvidia?
In which case, similar to the banner issue from a previous update, you can get a different launcher (see comments for FLauncher) to avoid it
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShieldAndroidTV/comments/181vh4t/ads_at_full_screen/
AppleTV 100%. it’s 2nd really only to the shield when it comes to streaming formats , as the Apple TV doesn’t support some of the edge cases (as far as normal users go). Streams most things on my plex server. No ads , stellar performance. My 2017 4k is still a beast and I like the UI. You also don’t really have to deal with apps or services skipping your device because of some bullshit, and if you do it’s not long( hbomax, YouTube TV come to mind).
The only thing it really doesn’t do well is casting like chromecast or side loading but I haven’t had an app that I’ve wanted to install that I couldn’t so there’s that. It has airplay but it also requires you to have an iDevice/Mac but I generally wasn’t a huge user of the feature when I had my chromecast.
Sorry, you say casting doesn’t really work well. Does it work at all from Android? We use that pretty heavily in our home. I guess the TV does have the Chromecast built in, so we could still use it.
I’m not in the Apple ecosystem at all, so I don’t know if it is a viable choice. I guess I trust Apple not to put ads on everything, so it might be an option.
To my knowledge no but it wouldn’t surprise me if someone found a way to do it. It’s just that chromecast/Google TVs is a lot more friendly and open. You can cast iOS or android.