Nice, very detailed comparison review of Roku and Apple TV by Dan Rayburn (who gives the nod to Roku).
Tag Archives | Internet TV
Is FLO TV Dead? Are Standalone Mobile Gadgets Dead, Period?
PaidContent.org’s Staci Kramer is reporting that Qualcomm is shutting down the direct-to-consumer version of FLO TV, its mobile TV service that provides a broadcast-like experience on the FLO TV Personal TV gadget, in-car systems, and a handful of smartphones. Judging from the FLO TV site, she’s right: It seems to have been scrubbed of all “where to buy” information except for that pertaining to Verizon and AT&T phones, which remain available for now.
FLO TV was–can we speak of it in the past tense yet?–a classic example of the right product at the wrong time. Judged on its merits, it was quite impressive: It delivered live TV with no hiccups, and Qualcomm lined up an impressive roster of big-name content partners. If it had been around a decade ago, it might have been an iPod-like hit. But in the age of plentiful Internet video on smartphones, it felt pricey and a tad retro. And one neat device that could have made it more appealing to more people–Mophie’s FLO TV jacket for iPhones, which was announced in January at CES–hasn’t shipped, and now presumably never will.
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Google TV: More Details Emerge
One of the key selling points of Google TV compared to other Internet-TV systems such as Roku and the new Apple TV is the fact that it’s designed to tap into all the video on the Web, not just the stuff that’s available via services designed to work on a Google TV box. But that doesn’t eliminate the need for Google to work with content companies to ensure that their services work really well with Google TV. And today Google is announcing a passel of partnerships with outfits involved in video, music, and other more: CNBC, HBO, Turner, the NBA, Pandora, Napster, Twitter, and more. It’s also revealing that it has deals in place with both Amazon and Netflix, replicating the two core services on Roku.
More details here:
We still don’t know exactly when Logitech plans to ship its Revue, the first stand-alone Google TV box, or how much it’ll charge for it. That information will presumably be announced at an event Logitech is holding on Wednesday of this week–I’ll be there, and will report back with that news and more thoughts on Google TV then.
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Roku and TiVo Will Get Hulu Plus This Year
Good news for Roku and TiVo fans: Roku and TiVo Premiere boxes are getting Hulu’s Hulu Plus service later this Fall. For ten bucks a month, Plus subscribers will be able to get scads of new TV episodes and a sizable back catalog of old stuff, and Roku and TiVo will let them watch it all on their TVs.
It’s good news for Roku and TiVo, too, since Hulu Plus will be an attractive offering that won’t be available on Apple’s Apple TV. I’ll be curious to see which is a bigger hit: Hulu Plus’s all-you-can-eat TV shows with ads, or Apple’s 99-cent HD TV rentals.
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What’s Missing From Internet TV: Accidents!
Internet TV is threatening to turn cable TV’s subscription model on its head with on demand programming and rentals, but there is a key component that’s missing: content discovery. There is still no better way to find out what’s on than to flip through channels.
Apple TV, the Boxee Box, Google TV, Hulu, Roku, and a sundry of desktop (and now mobile) applications comprise a compelling alternative to traditional cable TV service. My colleague Harry McCracken has them all pretty well covered.
I know many people who have “unplugged” themselves from the shackles of costly year-long contracts. Why pay for channels that you don’t watch? Those people are typically more technically savvy than most of the population. I just recently upgraded my mother’s 1980s big screen TV to an HDTV.
My mother and I find what’s on TV in much the same way: we channel surf or use a “guide.” There are more than a few shows that drew me in by happenstance. AMC’s “Breaking Bad” is my favorite “accident.” Internet TV is surfing with a net, keeping us in the familiar, and not venturing out into the unexplored.
Sure, Internet TV has media guides that showcase featured content, but where does that leave programs that aren’t already in the spotlight? Would Internet TV allow me to stumble onto a “Twilight Zone” rerun at 3 AM? Sometimes randomness is nice – I don’t always like to know exactly what I’m looking for.
Internet TV is better suited for enabling a user to watch what they want when they want. I’m keeping my cable, but will be buying a Boxee Box as an alternative to Time Warner Cable’s on-demand services.
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Internet TV Boxes Galore
My new Technologizer column for TIME.com is up–it’s a look at the new wave of Internet-TV boxes for the living room that are arriving over the next couple of months, and it focuses on the new Roku, since that’s the only one I’ve personally kicked back with so far. I mention the new Apple TV too, of course–FOX News’s Clayton Morris has one in his possession, and he likes it and thinks it’ll become “a quiet hit” for Apple.
Now that Roku’s out and Apple TV is just about here, the next big questions for this category all rotate around Google TV and the Boxee Box–both of which aim for a more feature-packed, comprehensive approach to Internet TV than the keep-it-simple-and-cheap Roku and Apple TV. I hope to try ’em all before the holidays are here.
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Veebeam Shoots HD Video from PC to TV
I’m spending part of this unusually busy tech-news week at the DEMO conference in Silicon Valley. One of the most potentially cool products I’ve seen is Veebeam, a new setup for wirelessly broadcasting Internet video from a computer to a TV set. In a way, it’s a competitor to Internet TV boxes such as Apple TV and Roku. But instead of getting you whatever movies or shows are available on the box you choose, it gets you anything you can watch on your laptop or desktop, including Hulu, iTunes downloads, and more.
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BitBop Bops onto Android Phones
A few months ago, I wrote about Bitbop, a paid all-you-can watch TV service for smartphones with major network shows and high-quality downloads. At the time it ran only on BlackBerries. But here at the DEMO conference in Santa Clara, the company just unveiled an Android version. No news about an iPhone version, but with the somewhat similar Hulu Plus on the way for Apple devices, that’s not a huge loss. (Bitbop is from Fox, which is also part owner of Hulu.)
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The Boxee Box: Nearly Here, Still a Contender
What a difference a year makes. When Boxee and D-Link unveiled the Boxee Box in late 2009, things were pretty quiet on the Internet-TV-in-the-living-room front. Now, after a bit of a delay, the companies are getting ready to ship the Box in November. And it’ll compete against the all-new Apple TV, set-top boxes and TVs based on Google TV, the first devices that support Hulu Plus, and a bevy of other methods of getting video off the Internet and onto an HDTV. Little Boxee, in other words, will face daunting competition from some pretty formidable rivals.
I met with Boxee CEO Avner Ronen and D-Link Director of Consumer Marketing Brent Collins this weekend to get a sneak peek of a nearly-final Boxee Box. And you know what? Despite the avalanche of competition it’ll face, it still looks pretty cool.
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Google TV vs. Apple TV: It May be War, But They're Nothing Alike
I’m home from the IFA conference in Berlin, but the show continued on without me–and today’s major event was a keynote by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, with an extended demonstration of Google TV. You can watch it here.
The Google TV demo didn’t really involve any new news, but it was significant as Google’s first public walkthrough of the platform since Apple announced the all-new Apple TV. The names may be similar, but the two companies’ approaches to TV really are radically different.