Yesterday was the start of WWDC, Apple’s annual developer conference, where they revealed some new features coming to the Apple TV. It was also the start of E3, the big gaming conference where Microsoft talked about the Xbox’s future and Sony talked about the PlayStation’s future. Here’s a summary of the announcements related to streaming media.
Apple TV
Unlike Google, Apple actually spent several minutes talking about their streaming media TV platform, tvOS, during their keynote yesterday. For starters, Apple revealed that the Apple TV now has over 6,000 apps and 1,300 video channels. For comparison, the Fire TV is currently at just over 4,800 apps. While individual quality apps are far more important than the sheer quantity of apps, the speed at which the Apple TV gained so many apps is a testament to the popularity of the Apple App Store. Apple also announced that Sling TV is now available on the Apple TV, and they’ve updated their app policy to no longer require support for the Siri remote in games.
Most of the new features coming to the Apple TV revolved around Siri, Apple’s voice assistant. Siri on the Apple TV can now search for content by category. The example given on stage during the presentation was a search for “high school comedies from the ’80s.” Siri can also now search YouTube videos and jump you directly into an app’s live stream by saying “watch” plus the app’s name.
As for non-Siri features, Apple is releasing an update to their Apple TV remote app which now replicates all the functionality of the Siri remote, just like the Fire TV Remote App replicates all the functionality of the Fire TV voice remote. Unfortunately, the app is still only available for iOS devices. Apple also revealed a feature they’re calling “Single Sign-on” which lets you log into your cable service provider once on the Apple TV, and it will handle activating individual apps for you. Lastly, the Apple TV now has a dark mode which turns the white background on the GUI black.
Xbox
Unfortunately, Microsoft didn’t announce new Xbox TV hardware like was rumored, but they did reveal the new Xbox One S console. The new console is 40% smaller than the existing Xbox One, but more importantly, it now supports 4K Ultra HD and HDR video. The Xbox has always been a popular streaming media device, and now it will likely be able to stream 4K and HDR videos from Netflix and Amazon Video. In addition to streaming 4K, the Xbox One S comes with an optical drive capable of playing 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays, making it a very well rounded media player. Microsoft also revealed Project Scorpio, a new Xbox they expect to launch in time for the holidays next year that will have the power to run games at 4K resolution and will have some virtual reality component. The Xbox One S will start at $299 and be available in August.
PlayStation
Sony really only focused on gaming during their presentation yesterday. The only thing remotely related to media is the announcement that Playstation VR, Sony’s virtual reality headset, will be released on October 13 for $399. It will of course require a PlayStation 4, but will also require the PlayStation Camera. A bundle that includes the VR headset, camera, and two PlayStation Move motion controllers will be available for $499. With so many large companies, including Amazon, putting effort into VR, it’ll likely be a part of many media viewing experiences moving forward. Sony could leverage Sony Pictures, their movie and television production unit, to be the first company to offer virtual reality content outside of games.
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I wish there was a plex server app for Xbone, like what’s coming for the Nvidia Shield. It would give me more reason to buy a Xbone S.
The Windows store is coming to XB1 in the next month or so.
It’ll be up to Plex after that.
wasn’t the whole purpose of Plex to support transcoding streams to upnp media clients like the xbox360 and ps3, where no app was available?
wait there is a plax app for xbox one. i used it. i guess you not in the u.s ?
Interesting article. Especially when competing companies talk about total number of apps available on their platform. Definitely a numbers game. I am not a fan of too many restrictions on open platforms BUT I think Amazon made a mistake when it allowed all those individual “Fullscreen Inc.” social networking apps into the app store. We all know they should have been just one app with multiple channels within. Rules/Guidelines should have been put in place. Blatant self promotion. Roku allows the same thing, dozens of “apps” flood the platform at the same time when in fact they are simply “channels” from within the same app. It allows their platform to boast about how many apps they have.
It’s worth noting the Xbox one S will only upscale games to 4K. This hardware is in no way capable of rendering in true 4K resolutions.
I like the voice search on my FTV but if i wasn’t using KODI id def be looking into the Apple tv. I like the idea of being able to deeply search into what i want to watch.