The voice search works well for finding stuff to watch by name, actor, director, or genre you can even open apps by voice. But the Apple TV is pricey, it can’t display 4K “ultra HD” video, and not all of those cool voice features work with inside all of the video services. That Siri stuff is very useful, and the screensaver is a knockout (slow-mo flyovers of beautiful major cities). You can say to the remote control, “Show me the highest rated romantic comedies from last year,” or “Find the second episode of Season 2 of ‘Lost,’” and it’ll find your options from the Apple, Netflix, and Hulu stores. And here’s the short version: It offers amazingy sophisticated voice recognition. (As a workaround you can always play Amazon videos on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad and broadcast it to the Apple TV using Airplay. But the Amazon reps I asked declined to comment.) (There are rumors Amazon is indeed writing an app that will bring its videos to Apple TV, which would be awesome for Apple fans. It’s one of only two boxes here that can’t bring you movies and TV shows from Amazon Video. Especially if you’re an Amazon Prime member you get thousands of movies and TV shows to watch free. (Netflix is shifting its focus to producing its own shows.) So if you’re going to buy a streaming box, you’d better make sure it can get onto Amazon Video. It feels as though the biggest and best-priced movie store online these days is Amazon Video. (Without it, you’re condemned to type out search terms using the remote control and an on-screen grid of letters, which is like water torture.) They all have fast processors and, in most cases, the ability to say the name of the movie, show, actor, genre, or director you’re searching for, which is a godsend. And all require a connection to a power source as well as your TV’s HDMI ports. They all bring the most popular video and music services to your TV, including the ones you have to pay monthly for (HBO Now, Hulu Plus, etc.). Just in time for the holidays-what a concidence!Īs it turns out, they’re amazingly alike. And they’re for people who want to do all of this while sitting on their couches in front of an enormous screen.Īnyway, the new crop of streaming TV boxes and connected devices has landed. They’re for people who’d like access to many more services than their TVs already offer, better organized, more easily searched, and more beautifully presented. They’re for people with older TVs that don’t already offer access to Netflix & Co. They’d just as soon watch Internet shows on something that can already get online, like a phone, tablet, or laptop. Besides: Millions of people, especially young ones, don’t watch TV on the TV at all.
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