This morning’s Apple Spring Loaded event featured a number of products and services. In terms of television and media, the Apple TV 4K has been refurbished, but the real highlight was a new Siri remote that addresses how frustrating the original is to use. This $ 59 remote control can be purchased separately for older Apple TV models and is somehow more expensive than the Google TV Chromecast.
The Google TV Chromecast costs $ 49.99 for a gravel streaming dongle and voice remote control. “Voice remote for Chromecast with Google TV” costs $ 19.99 separately and comes in three lovely colors (snow, sunrise and sky).
It has a standard D-pad, which Siri Remote just added and a handful of buttons. The one for the built-in voice control wizard is located just below the side of the Apple offering. Google places the volume volume there, while there is also a mute shortcut. In addition to turning the TV on / off, Google offers a dedicated button to switch the input. In addition to back and home navigation commands, Google has YouTube and Netflix shortcuts.
Apple’s new $ 59 offer has the advantage of being taller and made of metal, while offering an “elegant circular gesture on the outer ring.” It is rechargeable via Lightning rather than relying on AAA batteries. Otherwise, they share the same microphone and IR transmitter as the Chromecast remote control, while being $ 40 more expensive, with the same price gap as the regular Apple TV controller.
In terms of pure value, it’s somewhat ridiculous that you can get an entire Chromecast (or another streaming device from Amazon and Roku) for the price of a remote control that many get for improving the basic experience of using Apple TV. The previous touchpad was very easy to trigger – which made it difficult to wash the video, while the uniform shape made it difficult to know which side is up.
The switching barrier is lower than ever, as those in the Apple ecosystem can watch new original content and access their purchases from the $ 49 Chromecast iTunes library with the recently launched Apple TV app. For a while, it seemed that Apple’s home entertainment strategy was just launching Apple TV applications for various platforms, rather than focusing on hardware.
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