Amazon's Fire TV Is Powerful, but Voice Search Limitations Hamper User Experience

[sixrom]

REALLY - Apple TV continues to be an EPIC disappointment to many of us.

At some point Apple TV may end up being another Apple failure.

It's been around for so long without any real advancements that many mainstream customers don't even know or care that it exists. About the only person who could save Apple TV is dead and thus ATV may also be dead.

Apple may keep it around just to save face.

 

[hakr100]

Plex and XBMC both do this and they're both running on the Fire TV.

Plex is a P.I.T.A. Not familiar with XBMC.

 

[bozzykid]

Nobody's tastes are everyone else's. The point is, around 90% of the Netflix library can only be viewed by them sending you pieces of plastic in envelopes through the mail. Kind of defeats the purpose of streaming when the selection is so poor.

Sounds like you aren't really the type of customer they are looking for then. I'm not sure why you would subscribe to their streaming plan. But plenty of other people are satisfied with the content based on their growth.

 

[smoledman]

Here's the problem with TV:

Image

This is the part Jobs would never have cracked. Sure the GUI is one thing but the content is another.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Sounds like you aren't really the type of customer they are looking for then. I'm not sure why you would subscribe to their streaming plan. But plenty of other people are satisfied with the content based on their growth.

I gave it a try last month (the first month is free), and you can't really see how poor the selection is until you opt into streaming. I doubt we'll keep it for long. I keep checking "newly added" with the hope that something good will pop up, but for the last several weeks it hasn't changed at all that I can see. Still the same lineup of bottom-of-the-barrel movies and a couple of TV series that I've either seen already, or don't care to watch. I don't know what type of customer doesn't care about the other 90% of programming that they can't watch, but the fact that many buy into it tells me quite a bit about the cord-cutters. It sure isn't about quality or variety.

 

[smoledman]

Voice control on XBox One works pretty well, though not 100% flawless. If Amazon has nailed this at a $99 price point that that's amazing. I guess if the speech recognition is happening on the remote control that helps.

 

[elvislives]

Several million Apple TV owners would disagree with you.

Well not me...

I think Apple just needs to update the hardware and add Apps... This would be a good start!

 

[Italianblend]

Would like to see some objective articles from this site instead of spinning everything pro-apple.

 

[LordVic]

Nothing to do with popularity - it's a statistical cross-section about what people think of their ATV experience.

very VERY flawed premise you propose here.

What you imply is that the people who have read your specific post, in a specific thread, on a specific niche company product 'fan' site is a statistical, unbiased cross reference of the general population is a true Cross sectional sampling of the general population...

I Highly recommend you go back to your university statistics class, or any class that focuses on Scientific theory and how sampling is supposed to be done and you will realize your premise behind this line of thought is severely flawed.

your "likes" are in no way indicative of anyones overall agreeance with your statements. the ONLY true statement which you can gleem from this bit of data is "there are 11 people who have read my post and clicked the like button for any particular reason"\

You also posted on page 1, which statistically always gets the most page views, rather than subsequent pages after, thus lending towards a higher probability of getting more likes than later posts, since well, most people don't read later posts

 

[RedOrchestra]

very VERY flawed premise you propose here.

What you imply is that the people who have read your specific post, in a specific thread, on a specific niche company product 'fan' site is a statistical, unbiased cross reference of the general population is a true Cross sectional sampling of the general population...

I Highly recommend you go back to your university statistics class, or any class that focuses on Scientific theory and how sampling is supposed to be done and you will realize your premise behind this line of thought is severely flawed.

your "likes" are in no way indicative of anyones overall agreeance with your statements. the ONLY true statement which you can gleem from this bit of data is "there are 11 people who have read my post and clicked the like button for any particular reason"\

You also posted on page 1, which statistically always gets the most page views, rather than subsequent pages after, thus lending towards a higher probability of getting more likes than later posts, since well, most people don't read later posts

NOPE - what I said was, that 11 out of the 26 people who regularly read and post to MR agree with me (it's up to 20 now) and that is a VALID statistical representation.

 

[LordVic]

NOPE - what I said was, that 11 out of the 26 people who regularly read and post to MR agree with me (it's up to 20 now) and that is a VALID statistical representation.

Citation needed:

you have no proven yourself that any of your "statistical" representation is in fact valid nor correct.

nor have you taken into an account for reader bias, and the nature of where your post existed in the timeline

Basically

your entire premise is flawed. Your continual refusal to accept that and touting this mythical "26" number only emphasises your complete lack of intelligent thought behind any of your posts.

 

[RedOrchestra]

nor have you taken into an account for reader bias

On MR, they're ALL Apple fanatics, which provides even stronger validation.

 

[OllyW]

NOPE - what I said was, that 11 out of the 26 people who regularly read and post to MR agree with me (it's up to 20 now) and that is a VALID statistical representation.

Who exactly are the 26 people and how do you know they are the ones who agree with you?

 

[samcraig]

On MR, they're ALL Apple fanatics, which provides even stronger validation.

Now everyone on MR is an Apple fanatic? Is that what you're asserting?

 

[jettredmont]

It's so strange and laughable in the same how people get so upset when Apple the "Pioneers" of technology don't get a product to market first!! I own every :Apple device known to man and I'm certainly not biased or upset with this fantastic product, AMAZON HIT THE MARK!! Pay homage where it's due and stop crying like babies... Apple TV has lagged behind this growing market in more ways than I can count..

Can you name any product in the last 15 years which Apple released before everyone else?

* iPad - Tablet PCs had been around for years
* iPhone - phones and smartphones had been around for years
* iPod - MP3 players had been around for years

AppleTV 1 is probably about the closest thing, although even then there had been network-attached TV set top boxes before.

Apple is never the first out. Often, though, what they do put out redefines the market so much that you forget all the also-rans who came before (and after).

With the history Apple has, I think it is much more prudent to say "let's see what Apple puts out later this year" than it is to say "let's see what Amazon comes out with in its Fire 2 next year". Apple has a history of reshaping markets, while Amazon has not (aside from the original Kindle, but that hasn't had the staying power of Apple's products).

 

[jettredmont]

Can't find the voice search on Apple tv....

You go to the regular search, then in your iPhone Remote click the little microphone button.

 

[jettredmont]

And yet, not. You literally highlighted my reference to in-market sports, but you did not provide any solution to the problem, I assume because there is no solution.

Correct. If you are addicted to watching televised sports programming, the only viable cord-cutting options are (1) get friendly with your neighbors who like the same teams, (2) eat out at sports bars more often, (3) settle for time-shifted illicit recordings.

No good solution for sports programming out there. The most recent stats I saw put about 40% of the cost of the average cable bill on sports entertainment; I seriously doubt an affordable streaming sports package will be coming out to kill that golden goose any time soon.

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It's not entirely absent everywhere. Aereo offers streaming live TV for $8/month. Local channels, but that would get me some Rangers, Mavs and Cowboys games.

I'd add that an antenna (see antennas direct for sizing at your address) would give you the same without the monthly subscription. You need to figure out the DVR yourself, but that isn't an overly difficult thing to hobble together.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Correct. If you are addicted to watching televised sports programming, the only viable cord-cutting options are (1) get friendly with your neighbors who like the same teams, (2) eat out at sports bars more often, (3) settle for time-shifted illicit recordings.

No good solution for sports programming out there. The most recent stats I saw put about 40% of the cost of the average cable bill on sports entertainment; I seriously doubt an affordable streaming sports package will be coming out to kill that golden goose any time soon.

Addicted? Is that the same thing as being a fan of a team?

Yes, nearly half of typical cable bills are essentially passed through to subscribers from the sports franchises for broadcast rights, and since we can't choose the sports or teams we want to watch, we have to pay for all of them in our market, or get none of them. That deal sucks for anyone who doesn't want to watch everything.

Anyway, this all goes to what I have been saying in this thread. If Apple could develop a product that would give cable subscribers the ability to watch the programming they are already paying for when they want it, and make programming easier to find, then they could have a winner. Not that this would make the cable-cutters happy, but then all of the TV boxes thus far are aimed essentially at them, including the current AppleTV model. A box that doesn't assume that people don't want to give up a lot of programming they get now could have more general appeal.

 

[John.B]

Against my better judgement, I went ahead and ordered a Fire TV to try out.

Almost immediately after it went "Prepared For Shipping", I found the Ars Technica hands-on review: Amazon Fire TV misses the same marks as Ouya, other media boxes | Ars Technica

Oh, well, it will at least give me a chance to do a side-by-side-by-side comparison of Amazon Instant Video app quality between the Fire TV, the built-in app on my Sony Blu-ray, and the iOS app airstreamed to a 3rd gen Apple TV...