This week on TechHive: The Apple TV could use some conviction



Apple’s $150 streaming box isn’t a bad product, but it faces the same fundamental challenge as other streaming boxes: With so many apps competing for users’ attention, managing and sorting through them all can be a chore.

Last week, Apple provided a glimpse at a solution last week with its upcoming TV app and single sign-in features. Unfortunately, some of the biggest streaming services and TV operators aren’t on board. Netflix, for instance, won’t feed its content into the new TV app, and so far only Dish Network and DirecTV have confirmed support for single sign-in.

But rather than call these companies out for holding back the user experience, Apple is pretending as if nothing’s wrong. That seems uncharacteristic of a company that’s been congratulating itself on its own courage lately. Read the full column on TechHive.

Weekly Rewind

Roku Ultra and Premiere+ reviews: Also on TechHive this week, I weighed in Roku’s latest high-end streaming boxes, the $100 Roku Premiere+ and the $130 Roku Ultra. Both devices support 4K HDR video, have the same speedy performance, and include a headphone jack on the remote control for private listening. The Ultra adds remote voice search, optical audio output, USB media storage, and a “remote finder” feature.

To me, the Roku Premiere+ hits the sweet spot on price for 4K HDR streaming, as the Ultra’s extras are mostly niche features you can live without. But unless you have a 4K HDR television to go with it, you’re probably better off with the $50 Roku Streaming Stick.

OTA for Android TV: Bear with me as this next update is going to get nerdy. Google’s other living room platform (besides Google Cast) just got an encouraging update for cord cutters. The platform now supports USB TV tuners for watching broadcast networks in the built-in Live Channels app. This requires Android TV box with USB input running Android 7.0–right now, that’s just the two-year-old Nexus Player–and a supported tuner such as the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-955Q.

Google is also enabling DVR apps for TV devices running Android 7.0 and higher. In theory, this will allow app makers to build recording directly into Android TV, though no such apps exist yet. When paired with the new tuner support, this could turn Android TV into a decent all-in-one solution for streaming video, live broadcasts, and over-the-air recordings, without having to use a networked tuner such as HDHomeRun. But seeing as these updates are still experimental, I wouldn’t go investing in hardware just yet.

More Catch-Up

Save More Money



The 2016 Roku Streaming Stick is arguably the best value on the market right now. Performance is solid, the remote control is comfy, and the smartphone integration–which lets you search by voice and listen privately through headphones–is clever. And at least until tomorrow, you can buy it on Roku’s website or on Amazon for $40, which is $10 less than usual. (That’s the same price as Amazon’s new Fire TV Stick, which I’ll be reviewing soon.)

Roku’s website is also offering two-month trials to Showtime, Hulu, and CBS All Access as part of the deal, though you’ll have to cancel before the trials end if you don’t want to keep subscribing.

Thanks for reading!

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Until next week,
Jared