HBO Max was delayed in appearing on Roku because of negotiation breakdowns. In the case HBO it was Roku that seemed to have the demands. They are looking at revenue anywhere they can, but if their position weakens look for Google, ATT, and others to simply forgo working with them.
I think Roku is in a perilous position in general. They generated a lot of buzz on Wallstreet with their high user counts. They also purchased a DSP to get more into the advertising game. However they are at risk of being disrupted. They do not offer much that is unique and have largely gained and held market position by being the cheapest and easiest to use.
Cheap Android TV devices are starting to compete with them on price and tv manufacturers have mostly chosen to create and maintain their own ecosystems.
Unless they make some big strategic maneuvers I see them slowly being squeezed out like Tivo.
The reason I picked and stay with Roku is that they aren't married to a single Big Tech co. I already suffer the lack of a proper YouTube app on my Echo Show because Amazon and Google are having a tiff. I don't want to pick an ecosystem and live exclusively inside of it.
As it is, I'm already in a mixed household (Me with iOS and my wife with Android) and it's a pain to deal with the lack of cross-platform playing together.
> The reason I picked and stay with Roku is that they aren't married to a single Big Tech co.
Same. I'm so sick of being locked into one system or another, having my eyeballs monetized, or getting the shitty version of an app because it isn't the vendor's platform. I got a Roku because they're as neutral as one can get, and so far I'm happy paying for YouTube Premium, Amazon Prime and Netflix. You tell me I can't run those on my Roku, well fuck you and your service.
> You tell me I can't run those on my Roku, well fuck you and your service.
The thing is that Google shouldn't be forced to make their apps for the 30 different streaming box app stores if they don't want to. If there's no money to be made and they inherently lose money by tasking a team to keep the Roku app (or LG app or Samsung app, etc) up-to-date then they shouldn't have to.
The Google Cast protocol is actually pretty open in this regard - the apps are just a combination of html, js, websocket, and a protobuf server with no need to publish anything - all the TV makers would have to do is embed Chrome (they would also have to use a not-e-waste chip to do so, though, as supporting 4k hardware vp9 and drm is intense and expensive). There also really isn't an app store that needs moderation or business deals to happen for your casting to work - the only registration is really so Google has a paper trail of accountability in order to prevent malware and perform some API calls (https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/registration).
They shouldn't be forced to... But their is money to be made. YouTube TV is a paid service. If I owned a Roku and YouTube TV want available for it I may cancel my subscription.
Personally I use Roku because it's the snappiest experience with the fewest crashes. I started with a Chromecast but its integration with Android was a little too deep: leaving wifi while casting YouTube would cause the YouTube app to hard lock into a "connecting to chromecast" error that persisted even after force-stopping the YouTube app. The second time I had to restart my phone because of that I chucked the Chromecast in the trash.
Fire Stick is a joke. The wifi reception is terrible, the entire UI is laggier than my old cable box, and the apps crash on launch more often than not.
Roku just works, and it works like something that was designed by professional adults and not blood-sucking marketeers eager to screw over their users to make an extra ten cents.
I have an older Roku 3 and a (2nd gen?) Amazon FireTV box (the flat box thing not the stick), and the sound from the FireTV box is far far superior than that of the Roku 3 (did a test using the same soundbar). Not sure if Roku has improved on its sound output since then or not (the Roku 3 I have is of course pretty old).
This whole thing where you have to sacrifice everything to big corps and buy new devices every year makes me not want to bother consuming any media at all to be honest. When I see people wrestle with all kinds of devices, services, and subscriptions I just get sad and start thinking if the juice is actually worth the squeeze and coming to the conclusion it really isn't.
Sadly, you and I are exceptions - caring about it only enough to voice our disregard for it. Usually, by the time a person is old enough to not need the churn of mass culture to be relevant to their peers, they're usually hooked on some brand or other of high-quality spam. Unlike street drugs, mass media rots your brain with full societal approval.
This is nothing new of course - many writers, musicians, and filmmakers of the 20th century have expounded on the soul-crushing effects of commercialized culture. As expected, they have ended up being more obscure to the general public than the ones who embraced it. It was weird seeing for the first time a mainstream artist or work that risked to be slightly more original than the industry average (in order to reach a previously uncaptured audience segment) being lauded as some sort of genius, while its subject matter was the same old "hey you, yes you, buy a bigger TV!"
Allocating resources and incentives (economy) and collectively deciding what's valuable and worth incentivizing (culture) are two separate layers of the social "stack". Advertising couples them in the worst possible way, effecting a positive feedback loop of wastage. The possibility that the emergent adtech hivemind's ultimate purpose is to measure and hone the efficiency of this mass pacification strategy is Orwellian par excellence.
My answer to this? Just enough economic productivity to afford unabashed dirtbaggery on the cultural plane. Anyone who does not share this perspective is watching a different movie.
>This whole thing where you have to sacrifice everything to big corps and buy new devices every year makes me not want to bother consuming any media at all to be honest.
People said something similar 10 -15 years ago about pirating with bit-torrent. There was certain rage with them I couldn't understand. Now I finally feel the same. I think the age of Napster and BT will be back.
Roku is actually more heavy handed than Apple. Apple allows any streaming provider to be on the AppleTV without making any kind of deal or negotiation.
No, streaming providers do not have to give Apple a cut. They can force you to pay on their website. You can not pay for Hulu Live, Youtube Live TV, Netflix or many others through the App Store.
> Apple allows any streaming provider to be on the AppleTV without making any kind of deal or negotiation.
Content providers do have to make deals to get on AppleTV. You just don't hear about it.
Here's an example:
"WarnerMedia has firmed up a distribution deal with Apple for distribution of its forthcoming streaming service HBO Max.... Under the deal, HBO Max will be available on Apple devices and integrated with the Apple TV app on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple TV."
And there are few details around the HBO and CBS deal to get on Apple TV here:
In a second sign of frayed relations between the two companies, Netflix has decided to opt out of the Apple bundle, which will upsell subscriptions to HBO and CBS in addition to its original programming
Maybe I’m confused, but aren’t these two different things? As the OP stated, any streaming provider can have an app on Apple TV (ESPN, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Amazon, Peacock, etc…) while some providers may also negotiate deals to be more prominently integrated in to the Apple TV ecosystem and/or distributed/upsold through the Apple TV+ bundle. I think they are mutually occurring circumstances… or maybe I am totally misunderstanding the arrangements Apple has with streaming services.
You're right that anyone can make an app and that's separate from integration with system-wide search and the TV app, but when you make an app Apple has a bunch of restrictions over signup, the language you use around signup, and Apple gets a cut.
Over the years there has been drama between Netflix and Apple over it (and Spotify and Amazon Prime Video). I think it's mostly been resolved, but Apple wants apps to integrate more deeply but it sounds like it needs to convince these companies to do it one at a time.
Apple only gets a cut if you go through them for in app purchases. Content providers do not have to offer in app purchases and many don’t. There has always been an exception for apps that only allow you to view content.
Right, restrictions over signup. It's also a weird, ill-defined line for "viewing apps," too. As we saw with Hey last year, you can't tell them to go to the website to sign up and you can't just have an app that does nothing if you don't signup, either.
Amazon chose to avoid this fight with Kindle years ago and everyone I talk to is confused why they can't buy books from their iPhone/iPad. Mostly because Amazon can't tell them.
The point is these are all oddball, Apple-imposed hoops that affect these companies from running their business. Even though they're spelled out and relatively consistent, it's relevant if you're claiming Roku is more heavy-handed than Apple.
In the context of streaming apps, there is no inconsistency. Are people really confused by having to go to a website to sign up?
There is a huge difference between having to follow one rule and submitting your app to the store and being required to make a revenue and ad sharing deal.
The proof is in the pudding. Every streaming service has always supported iOS from day one. Then you hear “we are still waiting to make a deal with Roku”.
You are right. The TV app is a centralized place that keeps tracks of all of the shows you watched across providers. It’s an application on the AppleTV and other iOS devices. Those are the “deals” that the original poster linked to.
The main point was that you can not just download the Roku SDK, make sure you follow their rules and submit it for approval. Roku wants revenue sharing deals - even for advertising - and sometimes asks for ad inventory.
The comment you quoted was specifically for people who I knew would reply about Apple “forcing” content providers to use in app purchasing.
TV manufacturers have mostly chosen to create and maintain their own ecosystems.
This is actually a declining trend. LG and Samsung do but Moore's law has gotten it to a point where Android TV and, in fact Roku's platform are becoming much more prevalent on TVs, particularly some of the newer lower end devices. There's a large cost to maintaining your own HTML based platform (which is what most 3rd parties are) and the HTML platforms pretty radically under-perform these days.
Android TV could win but much like the US cable operators the large CE providers aren't too excited about getting so closely tied to Google. Roku's continued independence is cool in a space where there is so much consolidation, and attractive to some CE manufacturers.
My TV has Roku built-in and it’s extremely frustrating. It’s super slow, it uses some surround sound virtualization (or something) for the stereo speakers with no option to turn it off despite being terrible (you can barely hear speech, but music and effects are extremely loud), the remote has shortcut buttons for things I don’t even use (google play and sling), there’s advertisements every time I turn on my tv and on the screensaver, the TV options are inaccessible in half the apps I use, etc.
Despite how much I dislike Google, I’ve resorted to using a Chromecast because it’s quicker, less of a hassle, and gives me the option of forcing stereo audio instead of the faux surround sound. I can also use JustWatch on my phone, tap the service that a movie/show is on, and directly open the corresponding app to cast from. It’s also nice being able to type directly on my phone instead of using the Roku remote, especially since many of the available Roku apps don’t support keyboard input from the mobile Roku remote app. Finally, I like that I can cast directly from my computer as well.
I also have an Apple TV, but its touchpad remote is annoying and it provides less value for me since I’ve moved away from Macs.
I've had TVs with Android, LG's OS, Samsung's OS, etc... They all suck.
I currently have a really nice Sony with Android TV, but I had so many problems with the built-in Android that I plugged an nVidia Shield box into it instead and all those problems went away.
The other OS's all had their own issues, but the worst part of them was, like your Roku, the slowness. Everything is massively underpowered. Nobody wants to wait for the TV to slowly load apps when they want to be watching something.
In addition, other than Android, all of them tend to lag behind on updates after the initial launch of the each app.
So now I ignore whatever is on the TV and use an external box. I've considered FireTV and Roku again, but every time I look into them, I read about problems that I don't want to have (like this article) and so I stick with nVidia Shield boxes.
I plugged an nVidia Shield box into it instead and all those problems went away.
Can confirm. I tried a bunch of different things (even the OUYA), went to support smaller companies (Wetek) but it was all one big mess and impossible to have a couple of days pass by without a crash of either the viewer programs or just the complete OS getting stucked. I feel sorry for them, but really this thing should be like a plain analog TV which worked (in my area) fine every single day for decades. The Shield does this for me. Think I had one crash of the local TV streaming app in the past months, for the rest it has been working flawlessly for years and didn't even have to replace the remote's batteries yet. That is how such dedicated hardware should just work.
The last two AirBNBs had new TV with Roku built into the TV. I have to say they worked fairly well.. a little slow, but not bad at all.
I have a Roku at home, but also an nVidia Shield. The Shield is fast, but it has a lot of problems. First is that you must install an app to disable the Netflix button. If you enter Netflix, it does not easily let you leave the app and the button makes it far to easy to accidentally enter it. Second, the YouTube app on the shield has a weird problem where it goes into some kind of stagger mode where it updates the screen only every few seconds (maybe it gets into this mode if the bandwidth is temporarily too low). You need to rewind the video to get it to play again properly. Finally the triangular remote is terrible- it's falling apart.
Roku has none of these problems. I should say I have the older RF Roku remote, not the newer cheap LED one.
Chromecast video quality is atrocious though. I have a Chromecast Ultra on my Roku TV (TCL 6-series QLED) considered to be a mid-range panel and has decent color accuracy, but on Chromecast all of it is out the window, the same video on the YouTube TV (native app) on Roku is so much better looking and accurate.
That's interesting because what I forgot to mention is that while I have a 4K TV, it seems that the Roku apps refuse to play anything at a 4K resolution. The Chromecast Ultra seems to output 4K just fine.
I haven't noticed any differences in color though, so I can't speak to that. Maybe the HDMI input has different picture settings set than the base Roku? I'm sure you've tried that though, so I don't know.
Huh, that... just doesn't jive with my experience at all, though I have a newer LG OLED TV. My Chromecast is able to play 4K UHD/HDR content perfectly.
That being said, when I first use a new input on my TV, I sometimes forget that each input has its own profile on my TV, and have to shut off the stupid smooth motion modes and adjust colors, etc. Are you sure this isn't the case on your TV?
Getting devices and tvs to play nice can be a pain for any given set - I don’t have a roku but comparing builtin YouTube/Netflix on a 4K hdr Sony oled with chrome cast and Apple TV they were all about the same with built in performing the best (optimized for the tv I presume) - apple tv with infuse using Emby as a library was best
Chrome cast is also greatly affected by what your casting with, VLC, Videostream, chrome can all produce very different results depending on the content
Hard to tell (probably both), but it's worth noting for most of these OSes (at least Roku or Android TV) the playback is generally being handed to the hardware native decoder rather than having anything to do with the OS.
Indeed, one of the nice things about Android TV is that from a content protection point of view you don't really need to trust the OS at all as it's all abstracted down to the hardware.
It's probably not Roku that's at fault for the slowness, but rather the TV manufacturer cutting corners at the CPU/RAM. (Yet another case why there should be a modular standard for "smart TV" brains)
AppleTV, AndroidTV, FireTV, Roku, WebOS, Tizen, Comcast X1, ATT TV, Xbox, PlayStation, etc—the space is incredibly fractured.
Outside of the TVs with Roku built in I wonder how many people will buy Roku devices in the future. It will be hard for Roku to continue to compete if they have say, 10-20 percent market share.
I use a Roku now, but I don’t think I will in the future. My tv is older, so no built in apps. Roku was a cheap way to add that functionality without a big box. With that said, I am regularly disappointed with the performance of Roku especially with Plex. I am considering an Apple TV because I know IOS devices work well with Plex and there is a more robust app ecosystem available.
Not to even mention that Brightscript, the proprietary language running the device, can be a nightmare at times. I've encountered so many quirks/issues that just don't exist/happen on other platforms like AndroidTV/tvOS.
The entire smart-tv space is definitely fractured, and trying to develop for so many platforms all at once can be frustrating, especially when you're doing so in your spare time. Thankfully, at least in my case, I've had someone more experienced step in recently to help with a side-project on AndroidTV, but I digress.
Honestly, if I had a dongle for my Chromecast that supported ethernet, and I weren't too lazy to order one, I wouldn't really use the Roku anymore. With the removal of the Twitch channel, Spectrum channel, and others, I'm becoming more and more disenchanted with the platform.
Chromecast Ultra has an Ethernet port. But the color accuracy is off and the video quality (atleast on Chromecast YouTube) seems poorer (overblown highlights, inaccurate colors, etc) vs Native YouTube app on Roku.
Roku is also going to have problems with their marketshare being so North America focused when platforms increasingly need their stack to either work internationally or at least be trivially repurposed for international. Globally Roku's marketshare is nowhere near 10 - 20%.
The Roku's inability to display non-latin characters is what soured my enthusiasm for them. If it turns out that it's a trivial problem that is easily addressed once it's time to target international growth I will become bitter.
It’s too bad Android Tv application quality is atrocious. Applications like Hulu have huge swaths of the library that simply won’t play and it crashes. Couple this with a lack of application support and it is quite disappointing. The pled support was the last straw which led me to attach a roku to the television.
In my experience, poor/incomplete applications are something you have to keep an eye out for regardless of what platform you're dealing with.
I've seen audio stutter on a smart TV running the Netflix streaming app, and similar stutter on a network-enabled Blu-Ray player running the Amazon Video streaming app. I've seen 4K playback cause occasional stuttering in the Amazon Video app on a smart TV. Disney+ group playback is currently unsupported on PS4, but is supported on Xbox One. A few years ago, the PS3 Netflix app supported 1080p, whereas the Xbox 360 Netflix app only supported 720p. I've also seen the Xbox One YouTube app insist on playing a video at 720p or lower, despite that Roku will play it at 1080p (perhaps an issue with only a certain codec being available at that quality?). I've seen a paid video service with an iPhone app with completely broken Chromecast support (they fixed it a few weeks after I filed a bug report).
> There's a large cost to maintaining your own HTML based platform (which is what most 3rd parties are) and the HTML platforms pretty radically under-perform these days.
I'm struggling to understand the claim made by this statement. Maybe I missed something? What does HTML have to do with serving video over the wire? Underperforming on which metrics? What's the time value of "these days"?
Most smart TV platforms that aren't Android TV or Tizen explicitly are HTML5 based, in that their UI is HTML5 based. But smart TV platforms are never write once run anywhere - remote control button patterns, OS weirdness and shoestring amounts of RAM mean you've got to do whole suites of testing and bespoke code for at best every manufacturer, and in practice every set.
LG is the only one that could be said to have sufficient marketshare to justify that investment for any but the largest VOD providers now. The revenue generated from those platforms once rights holders are paid is a fraction of what it costs to maintain them simply through testing overhead. Android TV and Tizen's marketshare has increased rapidly over the last few (read three-ish) years, and when you often need to account for international rollout or repurposing in your cost analysis it's even stronger (Roku has zero marketshare outside of the US, many large cable companies outside of the US have Android TV based set-top boxes with multiple million installations).
This generally also applies to browser based streaming, with the added bonus that is where a bunch of piracy comes from.
I have both a Roku and a Chromecast and the Roku works _much_ better. The Chromecast used to be fine, but a few years ago they refactored it in the Home app and now it constantly needs to be reconnected to the wifi. That would be annoying enough but the setup process also fails regularly. No other device in my house has this problem.
- a Roku
- the newest "Chromecast with Google TV"
- old style chromecasts
- an "smart TV" with Android TV
- A "smart TV" from visio
The worst by far are the smart TVs. The old chromecast is next because there's no UI outside my phone, but I always have my phone so it's not that bad. Next is the Roku and finally, top marks for the CCGTV. It's super fast and responsive and I love it.
My experience with the Chromecast with Google TV is that many apps that are available on other platforms are missing on Google TV / Android TV - one example would be NHK World (the English language service from the Japanese NHK TV) and another example is Flo Sports (a sports streaming app). For this reason I'm thinking of getting a Fire TV or an Apple TV where those missing apps are available.
When I purchased the Google TV device I was under the impression that Android TV was one of the major platform on the market, but later I found out that in terms of apps choice, it's not the best.
Also, it's puzzling that some apps are available for Amazon's Fire TV but not for Google TV / Android TV - both are based on Android so I thought it would be very easy to make an app available to both platforms - maybe there are some technical aspects that I'm missing.
CCGTV is so, so buggy. I have to restart it constantly because:
- Sound won't play
- Subtitles stop working
- Some app specific issue (there's no way to kill an app that I know of)
That's strange because we have two Chromecasts in our house that have been working no differently for the last 4 years. No need to reconnect it to the WiFi constantly.
Same with my old school Chromecast audio, it needs to be rebooted constantly as it too somehow stops connecting to wifi. I used to use it with a toslink cable and got really good sound out of it using a DLNA server from my storage.
Now I just use my TV (as a monitor) optical out since it is connected via ethernet. I can still use DLNA on it as well to play my music.
Though their UI really needs some work in my opinion for it to be worth it. I subscribed specifically to listen to their exclusive podcasts, but bounced off and cancelled a month later due to it being a honestly not great experience.
It's possible that my expectations don't match the wider worlds though: my girlfriend loves Spotify and uses it for podcasts as well as music.
For me, music requires album-focused UI, and I honestly prefer having Podcasts broken out into it's own app or interface. Mixing the two just didn't feel right.
It's big but it's tied to a single service as opposed to being some huge conglomerate like microsoft or google that has it's hands into dozens of markets.
I am the opposite.
Big tech is under scrutiny and are watched closely for the data they collect. These small companies are in lawless territory and heavily collect questionable data.
Every company is only a few bad quarters away from selling data about its users, and since smaller companies are less resilient, I would say your data is far more secure in a FAANG.
The big problem with Spotify is that they're primarily controlled by the labels with their licensing agreements. All of the majors also own portions of shares within the service.
People also don't realise that I heart Radio is Clearchannel rebranded. The closest thing to an actual independent streaming service I'd say we have right now is Beatport or Bandcamp.
The situation that Spotify finds itself in, along with Roku, is that they are still at the mercy of who supplies them their content. Until they diversify and provide exclusive content of their own that keeps people subscribed (ala Netflix), they're doomed once labels and studios want to me-too and spin off their own services. Disney used to primarily have deals with Netflix, now they've split that off into Disney+. Netflix is able to maintain because of their content. I doubt Spotify will. Nor will Roku.
So even if you have the impression that they're not 'connected to' a big tech company, they're definitely at the mercy of if not already somehow owned by.
Also how are the small advertising companies doing the truly terrifying advertising tracking?
Are they tracking me across the web when i go to seemingly completely unrelated sites like google, fb, etc?
Roku strong arms content providers all the time. Apple ID much more neutral when it comes to content providers. No, Apple does not force content providers to pay through the App Store.
I have a Chromecast, and various consoles. Roku is still the best overall (despite shortcomings). Everyone I know who bought a Roku prefers it to all the other options. Can anyone tell me what other streaming devices have over Roku?
What I need:
- A real remote. Not going to use my phone to control things.
- Good search. When I search, I want results from most of the apps - so I can find out which ones have the show/movie I'm looking for (with an indication of price).
- Good support from all the major services: Youtube, PBS, Plex, Netflix, all the major TV channels (HGTV, ABC, CBS, etc).
- Easy to install my own app without militant control from the manufacturer.
- Affordable ($25-35), and not integrated into my TV.
- Can use in hotels/motels - this is critical (Roku generally wins big here - Chromecast totally fails).
That's no use for people who don't have it (i.e. everyone I know). Those that do have smart TVs use Rokus, but that may be because their TVs are older (likely not Android).
And in any case, it doesn't check all the boxes - particularly the one about "use in motels/hotels when I travel"
My TV actually has Android, but due to multiple problems that resulted in me having to reset my TV to factory and set everything up again, I went back to my older nVidia Shield.
We now have the Shield on both TVs in the house, and they both work great.
With all the Android phones out there, nobody is going to skip Android as a device when launching their service. (Unlike Roku, which is a decision they have to make.) They also tend to update their apps a lot more often, so you always end up with the latest bugfixes and improvements. And the number of users guarantees that bugs get reported and fixed.
It doesn't fit your "affordable" point, though. We're talking $200, not $30. I've had mine quite a few years, though, and it's been well worth it.
The new Chromecast with Google TV, despite being stupidly named, ticks basically every single box here, except that it's $50, instead of $25-$35, but it's _fantastic_.
The remote is great, and includes a Google Assistant voice search button that's super useful, and the search is federated in the way you describe, and very good. It has support from every service, but it integrates really well with YouTubeTV, obviously, which is nice because there's a great Live tab with a guide. You can run the app store and install whatever Android TV app you want: I've installed NordVPN on mine to get around NHL.TV blackout bullshit.
AND it will get around a captive portal because it has a remote/browser, so you can use it in a hotel. Honestly, it's a delightful little device.
What is (mostly) unique about Roku, and one of the main reasons I went with a Roku is that it isn't made by the same company as one of the big streaming services, and is therefore less likely to privlege that service. If they start giving special privileges to youtube, then Roku just becomes a third party Android TV device.
Apple has iTunes. And I don't have a single apple device in my house, so interoperability would be problem. Not to mention that Apple TV is significantly more expensive.
They have 38% market share on new TV’s sold, and that’s not including the standalone players.
Also, they just announced a YoY doubling of advertising revenue.
Their low end device is $30, and provides a best of class (but HD) experience. I don’t really see how they can realistically be undercut on price, unless competitors started paying people to use their devices. Do you want to deal with a janky streaming device for the next 5 years, or just shell out the cost of a pizza and six pack?
If anything, they’ll be attacked from the high end. Are you willing to pay an extra $100-200 for a non-ad-subsidized streaming device?
And the HBO Smart TV app is still not available natively on LG televisions, which obviously isn't a big deal to people who already have a media system set up but is annoying none the less. All this streaming stuff sure is starting to feel like the cable television plans I grew up with.
Radarr, sonarr, and plex are a nice escape hatch for availability. Similarly, an HDMI cable connected to a PC with a browser is a working fall-back to most missing apps on any platform.
After all this time Roku still does not sell units in my country and I suspect they barely have a presence outside North America. Not really a surprise that companies who refuse to sell products to diverse markets fail to keep their revenue safe.
This is a big short coming for Roku, they not only have three or four European language options only, but developers have to actually spend time coding UTF8 support.
So far the only apps that I use that don't show Japanese as squares or worse blanks is the Apple airplay app (which shipped initially without support) and the YouTube app. It's a frustrating experience using Plex with properly named shows, but atleast burning in subtitles gives support while watching.
What does Roku require of app developers to support UTF8? Honestly wondering because it seems so bizarre that they would make it more difficult than any other app platform.
> HBO Max was delayed in appearing on Roku because of negotiation breakdowns. In the case HBO it was Roku that seemed to have the demands. They are looking at revenue anywhere they can, but if their position weakens look for Google, ATT, and others to simply forgo working with them.
That's when I ditched Roku. Android devices are cheap enough and arguably a little better.
Roku really has no lock-in - their entire value proposition is "you can stream the services you want on this cheap device." Nobody buys Roku because of the "Roku ecosystem" or "network effects" or anything else - they just buy it because it's cheap and (supposedly) works.
When it stops working - and it doesn't matter why - it's easily replaced.
I use Roku [for my outdoor projector] simply because it was 1. cheap, and 2. has the fullest support for various VOD providers. The delayed launch of HBO Max was a bit irritating, but they did have Disney+, which at the time was missing from Samsung's native app store.
I don't care about YTTV at all, though, becasue I don't want any live tv, period.
Roku has tie up with TV manufacturers like TCL too. That's where a lot of their growth is coming in.
Personally, I have switched to Fire-Stick and Chromecast with Google TV from Roku because the Roku interface hasn't evolved in the past few years and they are also pushing ads and their own channels now.
I recently managed to get my hands on a non-smart TV and bought a roku stand alone device for it. Mostly because the interface is simple and has been the same for years.
I prefer the moving fast and breaking things to stay away from our limited TV time.
I think it's great. It was cheap. I'm a fan of Roku (been with them since 2008 or so).
I'm disappointed to see these tiffs with content companies. Remember the time when every video you wanted to play on your computer required a different software player? Are these companies planning on re-doing all that with hardware?
"Oh, I have a Roku for most things, then plug in Apple TV for Apple+, I use the Fire stick for Prime Video, and the Chromecast allows me to watch YouTube TV! I just needed a TV with 17 HDMI ports!"
I have never seen adds on my LG tv, or atleast never noticed them.
I am at LGs mercy for updates though, so it still isn't ideal. And yet, with PLEX and a backup hdmi cable, it works pretty dang well
> Roku alleges Google has asked it to favor YouTube music results from voice commands made on the Roku remote while the YouTube app is open, even if the user's music preference is set to default to another music app, like Pandora.
> Roku says Google has threatened to require Roku to use certain chip sets or memory cards that would force Roku to increase the price of its hardware product, which competes directly with Google's Chromecast.
That's just straight evil - overriding user preferences to favor your own products... Some growth PM and/or business head is trying way too hard to hit their OKRs. I'd be surprised if Google could defend this in court.
> Roku says Google has threatened to require Roku to use certain chip sets or memory cards that would force Roku to increase the price of its hardware product, which competes directly with Google's Chromecast.
This could simply mean Google is requiring chips with hardware VP9 support
> Roku alleges Google has asked it to favor YouTube music results from voice commands made on the Roku remote while the YouTube app is open, even if the user's music preference is set to default to another music app, like Pandora.
This is both what many users would expect (if I have an app open, voice search works within that app), and a pretty reasonable ask for any business (don't show competitor's offering when searching within my app).
> This is both what many users would expect (if I have an app open, voice search works within that app)
No, it's not. Most YouTube users have a different primary music app.
Google is trying to artificially force a marriage of YouTube and YouTube Music because they have utterly failed to do it in the product experience and user base themselves.
If I'm watching a random YouTube video and then want to switch to music, I expect my music app to come up, not YouTube Music.
As a Roku user who thinks Google takes a pretty hostile approach to anyone using their App on Roku, I disagree. If I'm in an App and search, I expect my search to be localized to that App.
That being said, f*k Roku and their voice remote. They've been pushing that crap hard. Showing prompts on screen for upwards of 30 seconds to push the Mic button. I don't want my remote to have a microphone or be able to listen to me.
I replaced my Roku remote last month because the one I had started having connectivity issues and missing clicks all of the sudden. The first thing I did with the new remote was pop it open and rip the microphone off the PCB with a pair of pliers.
I really don't want an Android TV or Fire TV, and I'm not really keen on Apple TV either but Roku is making it really difficult to stick with them.
> That being said, f*k Roku and their voice remote. They've been pushing that crap hard. Showing prompts on screen for upwards of 30 seconds to push the Mic button. I don't want my remote to have a microphone or be able to listen to me.
This is kind of thread drift, but I really agree with this. I wish products would stop trying to get me to use some particular feature. First, they cram it onto every screen in the application. Then, they make it easy to accidentally invoke when you didn't want to. Then, they spam you with notifications saying "PLEASE DON'T YOU WANT THIS FEATURE?" Then, they silently enable it and make it opt-out. Product Managers, please just stop this madness. I don't want your feature. I don't care that your bonus is tied to its use. I already bought your product, so you already have my money. But if you keep trying to cram your feature down my throat, I'm not going to buy your company's next product. Give it a rest!
And then they aggressively complain at you, when you turn off their spam notifications for their spam features.
Google itself is the worst offender in this. Turn off the Meet advertisement in Gmail for Android, and they literally pop open a giant comment box saying, "In 1000 words or less, please type in an excuse for why you disabled the giant Google Meet advertisement we plastered all over your Gmail accounts?"
Or whenever you open an application. If I want to check my email, then I want to check my email. I have something in mind, and I am trying to figure out what somebody said to me. That is exactly the wrong time to pop up and ask if I want to learn about a new feature that was just added, because of course I don't. That's something for downtime, not when I'm actively working toward a goal.
I mean, sure, but how is the app to know your intent when you have yet to connect your brain interface device?
Does this happen to you after the first launch of the app after an update? I find it terribly annoying as well. I would rather see a "New Feature Tips" or something similar as an icon notification that I can choose to review or not. The forced balloons stealing focus absolutely needs to die in a fire.
The behaviour I expect is that the voice search is global except when I specifically go to the search screen of the app. That’s how it works on Apple TV and that’s what is intuitive to me.
That's a reasonable expectation, not having ever used Apple TV though that isn't mine. Having only ever been on the Roku platform, my perception is that it's localized.
As an apple tv user, it has been trained into me that voice commands are Global unless specifically in the search field (not just the search screen). I fuck this up all the time.
What is naturally intuitive to me is to go to an app and anywhere in that app have a voice search specific for that app, as Google is requesting of Roku.
I hate the voice search on AppleTV for this very reason. I so wish that voice would just search within the app I am using instead of sending me to the itunes store or somewhere else. Why make me click and swipe extra times to get to the specific app search box...? If I want to search globally, I could just hit the home button and then search!
> If I'm in an App and search, I expect my search to be localized to that App.
If you're using a fullscreen app on macOS and activate spotlight, do you expect it to only search that app, or do you expect it to behave like Spotlight always behaves and search the entire system?
Put another way, this depends entirely on how the OS and UI is set up.
> If you're using a fullscreen app on macOS and activate spotlight, do you expect it to only search that app, or do you expect it to behave like Spotlight always behaves and search the entire system?
To make another analogy: Maybe Roku should ask Google to make the Chrome address/search bar only show Roku.com results if you’re already on their site.
Joking aside, it might actually be a nice feature if you could use the search bar of your browser to search into the single site specifically, just like you can have different search engines already.
On Roku, voice search (using the voice search button on the remote) is always global. Google wants an exception for youtube. No one else gets this exception.
Regardless of what you think is a better user experience, Roku has made a design decision and are sticking to it and aren't giving Google special treatment, so Google is threatening to take their ball and leave if they don't get what they want.
Voice search is basically like Apple Spotlight. It's system wide.
I only expect it to be localized within the app I'm in when I'm in the search box for that app, in which case I'm not using voice search, I'm using voice recognition to fill in the contents of the search bar.
Outside the context of voice recognition for an input, to me clicking the voice button on my apple TV is opening Siri, just like "Ok Google" or "Hey Alexa"
It doesn’t matter what the consumer prefers. This battle is about the _ability_ to implement a feature, and that power should reside with the application developer.
Monopolists can often have batter products as well as charging monopolistic pricing.
> and that power should reside with the application developer.
I guess the question is, who is the developer in this case? The Youtube App is running on the Roku Platform accessing the Google Platform. Both Roku and Google are acting in both roles.
The Roku Voice Search is weird, it's surfaced via a button alongside local media controls which are contextual but Roku appears to want their Search to be analogous to Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant as a platform level tool. The volume, and mute keys are the only other buttons that behave at a platform level. The Roku Home button is contextual.
As a user of a STB, if I search (voice or otherwise) I expect it to be contextualized. If I'm in an App then the search should be localized, if I'm at the home screen then I expect it to be global.
> This battle is about the _ability_ to implement a feature, and that power should reside with the application developer.
Which begs the question: who, is _the_ developer? I think the argument can be convincingly made that both Roku and Google are “the” developer. It seems to be the fundamental disagreement underlying every modern accusation of antitrust.
Trying to think of analogies for this “dual developer” framework from the analog world and it’s difficult to come up with one that isn’t in a heavily regulated industry. Airplane & engine manufacturers maybe? Certainly no one would say Rolls Royce is the “manufacturer” of a plane but I would expect they still exercise some degree of control over what plane manufacturers can change and do to the engine. If planes with Rolls Royce engines started falling out of the sky it would be bad for business regardless of whether it was Boeing or Airbus’s doing. But the same can also be said for Boeing and Airbus. Probably more so.
Regardless, I worry the most recent claims of antitrust violation aren’t about consumer protection (as antitrust was intended) so much as they’re about consumer control.
When it comes to the device's global search feature, Roku is the developer, period. Google is only pushing this because they know they have market/end-user leverage, not because it's inherently better for the user. And even if it is, that's for Roku's product managers to decide.
Your airplane engine analogy doesn't really work; Roku doesn't want to modify the YouTube app; this is purely Roku's own global search feature. Yes, it will aggregate results from the YT app, but Roku doesn't want to modify that data source. Further, the Rolls->Boeing/Airbus relationship is more like a vendor->purchaser arrangement, which is nothing like the Roku->Google relationship here.
My preference with these devices is that instead of "apps" we have "plugins" which add content catalogs. Then playing music or video on the Roku (or any device) is a consistent experience.
The harder they push a feature, the more valuable the data they're stealing from you.
Google as an example. They push their "sensor fusion" location service EXTREMELY hard on Android. It will ask you to turn it on every time an app requests location and GPS hasn't locked. It's hard to not turn it on by accident. And once you hit yes, you never see another notification.
Well it turns out this "location service" provides some of the most valuable data Google ever receives. It's tied to their maps live traffic, "how busy is this place" features, location based advertising, wifi based mapping, accuracy of their IP->location maps.
It's creepy data core to their business and if too many people turned it off, it would seriously degrade their mass data collection.
Oh, and it's often given to law enforcement for dubiously legal "area" warrants where they simply say "give me all devices in this radius at this time". Where the radius can be hundreds of meters and the time can be hours.
Have things changed? Last time I checked, on stock Android you couldn't use the GPS without uploading your location to Google, and the whole shebang was wrapped up under the name "location services".
More than anything else, this particular piece of strong-arming makes me completely distrust stock Android handsets. It's shocking to me how casually the boundary of location privacy was violated, and it doesn't inspire confidence in any of the other privacy boundaries.
> That being said, f*k Roku and their voice remote. They've been pushing that crap hard. Showing prompts on screen for upwards of 30 seconds to push the Mic button. I don't want my remote to have a microphone or be able to listen to me.
It sounds like they have been pushing too hard, but discovery of voice commands is hard. Pushing them is probably useful for some set of customers.
For example, I have an ATV. While watching something you can click the voice button and say something like 'what did he just say' and it will go back 30 seconds or so, turn on captions, replay the bit you missed, then turn captions back off. As a user how would one discover this amazingly useful feature? I didn't even know it existed until I happened to hear about it on a podcast.
A user's manual comes to mind. A website with all of the hidden UX tips/tricks released by the vendor seems only natural. It reminds me of "that" burger joint with its famous unprinted menu. You have to "hear" about it from someone else rather than "we took the time to develop this feature, so here's the details on how to use it" vs "we did this super cool thing for our friends, but you have to be cool to know about it".
I love voice search on Roku. Typing things in with a d-pad and on-screen keyboard is horrendous. I think it's very fast, and I like that it shows me all the ways what I'm searching for is available.
On the one hand, like you I don't really care for voice commands in a remote. In the other, I really liked (and miss now that I have an Amazon firestick device) the built in CEC control of TV volume, and also the headphone jack. I also liked that it had a bit more weight to it. It was easier to find in the covers/sheets of my bed when I would occasionally lose track of it.
The latest Roku remotes have CEC control for power and volume. When my last Roku remote started flaking out, that was what prompted me to upgrade it despite the built in microphone.
Yep, that's the remote I had that I miss. I updated an old Roku I had with that remote (which we bought separately after the dogs chewed the prior remote up) to an Amazon device, and I miss those features.
I generally like the Roku experience better (a friend and I wrote some apps for it in the distant past), but we already had two Amazon sticks in the house, and we happened to go into an Amazon store recently to see what it was like, and the fire stick was cheap enough to be an impulse buy to replace the aging Roku in my bedroom. Not having HBO Max on Roku at the time played into that. I wonder how much that cost Roku.
I purchased a Roku when my previous streaming device died. I specifically chose the Roku model because it did not have a voice remote. I have no brand loyalty but I prefer to buy from a company that does not create their own content and at this point non-features are as important as features.
Thats interesting, when i got my first roku with voice control, the remote had the voice control button where the play button used to be so i cut it off the remote with a knife because it was annoying the shit out of me.
Hot take: the Apple TV is easily the best device of its kind on the market and I’m continually confused at why it doesn’t seem to be anywhere close to the most popular option.
Every other steaming device I’ve ever tried is riddled with ads, dark patterns, and slow slow SLOW performance.
I can understand the aversion to a $200 device just to watch some Internet TV but then I watch people making six figures pretend like a $50 Fire/Roku Stick is the best way to watch movies on their $2,000 LG OLED.
If I were buying a steaming device today I’d probably be evaluating the Apple TV against the Nvidia Shield.
> Unless you are fully in the Apple ecosystem already, it's not very welcoming.
This is an answer to the question I was about to ask. Except for a MacBook Air that I used to run Linux on (but is now gathering dust) and a Mac Mini that I currently run Linux on, I own no Apple devices. I hear great things about the Apple TV, but don't really care to buy into that overall ecosystem to the degree that I assume is necessary to get full use out of the ATV. It's bad enough that Google has its fingerprints on so much of what I have, and I'm actively trying to reduce that, not replace it with another corporate overlord.
1. I assume by “not welcoming” you mean “unable to buy/rent movies from Vudu/Amazon Prime on the box” and that’s a fair criticism. Someone wanting to buy/rent through third party services will find opening a separate browser to be annoying, but that leads me to...
2. iTunes is part of Movies Anywhere just like all its competitors. Being “required” to purchase/rent movies through iTunes isn’t really ecosystem lock-in.
3. “Taking away your movies with no recourse” is not unique to Apple’s iTunes Movies service. This is a standard movie industry practice that can affect you regardless of provider. Using an iTunes competitor does not remove this flaw.
Apple offers a way to back up purchases. They never promised perpetual re-download ability. From their support site: “The only way to back up your purchased media is to download your purchases to your computer.”
I would guess that no other content store can promise anything better than that. Apple didn’t make the rules here, WB/Disney/Universal/Sony did.
> 2. iTunes is part of Movies Anywhere just like all its competitors. Being “required” to purchase/rent movies through iTunes isn’t really ecosystem lock-in.
Movies Anywhere doesn't exist outside of the US fwiw.
Personally I flat out don't trust Apple on content censorship, as I think the Apple TV UI is not very good.
Does anyone here happen to know what happens if I get a movie from store X (Apple, Amazon Prime Video, etc) that works with Movies Anywhere, and so that movie shows up in my library at all other Movies Anywhere supported stores that I have accounts on, and then I do something that gets my account with store X banned?
I know I lose access on X, but how about on the other stores?
Also, how the heck does Movies Anywhere actually work? Say I buy a movie on iTunes, but then via Movies Anywhere watch it using the Fandango app on my TV.
Who pays for the bandwidth for that stream? Does Fandango just eat it, or behind the scenes does each company keep track of how much of their bandwidth was used for movies bought at each other company, and they periodically settle up for any imbalances?
It's $200. Also the remote sucks, although maybe the new one is decent.
I sold my Apple TV 4K and bought a Fire TV 4K and pocketed the difference. The Fire TV does have slightly more stupid ads on the home screen for shit like McDonald's but the Apple TV would gladly advertise me shit to buy on iTunes. Slightly more relevant ads maybe but still ads. Otherwise it does everything I did with the Apple TV plus works better with my Echos plus has Firefox for watching random vids on the web. Also the Fire TV doesn't suffer from the maddening Netflix bug that made the interface slow to a crawl if browsing for 5 minutes.
That’s what air tags are for! Shocked they didn’t put that tech into the remote.
I think that must be how you configure it? The too banner does not show that for me - it grabs the shows I e been watching from infuse tv and. Puts them there
Apple TV app banners (ads) are easily adjusted. Just put different apps on the top row. I mostly have folders up there and it rotates through the app banners when you have the folder selected.
The new chromecast is pretty good and $50, and until very recently the ATV was pretty out of date and overpriced. The chromecast stutters sometimes in the main screen, but actually playing videos is just fine.
You can also side load unofficial youtube apps, which are much better than the actual youtube app on the chromecast.
The LG OLED tv os was missing some services, like HBO, but it stutters less.
The only thing missing from all of these devices is a backlit remote. I don't know why they're against the concept.
> The new chromecast is pretty good and $50, and until very recently the ATV was pretty out of date and overpriced. The chromecast stutters sometimes in the main screen, but actually playing videos is just fine.
I can understand "overpriced", but on the other hand, the apparently-not-out-of-date chromecast stutters? WTF.
Last I used one, the Apple tv remote control sucks in comparison to Roku. No tactile directional buttons, I couldn't get used to the trackpad thing. No mute button. No "lost remote" button on the console to make the remote beep.
Also, I know many will disagree, but...no headphone jack. I don't like bluetooth earphones.
I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Apple just last week updated the remote to address those criticisms. The new remote is compatible with old Apple TV hardware.
There are directional buttons, trackpad swipes, and a classic iPod-like fast forward and rewind touch gesture. Mute button and TV power buttons now included.
I just don't get it. All these big companies pouring oceans of money and research into voice control. What makes this the holy grail of computing? What customer has a burning desire to sit there talking to a computer?
And after all this research, voice control is still primitive and limited, and its capabilities are impossible for a user to discover. If I want to search my E-mail for a message from a colleague about Project Abc, can I do this through voice control, or do I need to type into a search box? I could try voice control, and when it fails because it doesn't know what I want it to do (or it punts me to a generic web search), now I just wasted my time and feel silly for talking to a computer that doesn't understand me.
I'd enjoy a voice control which isn't tied to a device, but more like an Alexa+Siri+Google Now "in a stick with a button to initiate listening and a hardware switch to physically turn the mic off".
One that understands "Google, set a timer for 5 minutes" as well as "Siri, remind me to call X tomorrow" and "Alexa, start Y on the TV in the living room"
Clearly, users differ on this matter, so vendors should be able to choose their approach and let users vote with their wallets, not have everyone’s hand forced by Google.
> No, it's not. Most YouTube users have a different primary music app.
Exactly. If I setup my music profile to be Spotify, and I have a Spotify premium account, I expect my device to play music on Spotify. Why should it play on Youtube?
So it boils down to the fact that `YouTube Music != YouTube`. In that case you could be right about the user's expectation.
I for one don't use YT Music, but to use YT. Then again I don't use Pandora or Spotify as well, but do listen to music on YouTube (non-music). In my case, I'd expect the search to be executed in the context of YT, but that's what the defaults are there for. I'd choose YT (non-music) as default, if that's possible, or YT Music if i'd care.
Yes, somehow it does make sense that it selects the app which is set as a default, even if I would expect it to perform the query in the opened app.
Can it act upon "Open Song/Performer in Pandora/Spotify"? What's so hard about it? It all doesn't make sense to me.
I'd expect it not to query in YT Music but in the app which is currently open, which is simple YouTube. No, it feels like Google shouldn't have the right to expect YT Music to get launched if it is not set as the default app.
If I'm watching a video on youtube and ask to play music, no I do NOT want at all youtube to handle that.
Youtube music is crap. Google has proven many times that they are totally unable to manage music. They should stop to try, because it is utterly embarrassing.
It's good enough for a lot of people. I pay for YouTube Premium, so I get YouTube music (formerly Google Play Music) included, and it works well enough that I'm not going to pay for a separate music app.
Google: Look, you can buy a device with less storage, and store all your MP3s in the cloud!
Me: This sounds terrible… but ok, let’s give it a go.
Google: Now that you have all your music in the cloud, wouldn’t it be nice if you paid us monthly for access to a lot more music?
Me: No.
Google: I see you switched to another app while watching a YouTube video. If you paid us extra, you could keep playing that in the background!
Me: First, why would I ever want that? It’s bad enough YouTube now keeps playing videos in a little thumbnail when I try to exit them. Second, why are you charging a monthly fee for a feature that ought to just come with your app?
Google: Hey, how about a free trial of our subscription service?
Me: No.
Google: Hey, how about we ask you every day if you want a free trial to our subscription service?
Me: Still no.
Google: Ok, I tell you what. How about we shut down Google Play Music, literally the only built in MP3 player, and then if you want to keep listening to music on your phone, you pay us monthly?
> Me: First, why would I ever want that? It’s bad enough YouTube now keeps playing videos in a little thumbnail when I try to exit them. Second, why are you charging a monthly fee for a feature that ought to just come with your app?
It makes sense - Google can't run YouTube without ads. Ad buyers, which have ads in video form, don't want to run ads when the user isn't looking at the content nor able to easily click on their link to convert them to a paying customer (plus google never gets paid as the user probably won't switch to the app just to click the ad). They either do this or ask advertisers to make ads specifically for audio-only streams (which still makes it hard to drive conversions), but then they'd have to charge advertisers for impressions which Google has very rarely done.
I can listen to YouTube on my PC with the YouTube window in the background. I can listen to YouTube on my phone without looking at my phone. Why would you pay extra to listen to YouTube with your screen off? It might not make sense from YouTube’s business perspective, but sadly that doesn’t mean charging for this “feature” makes sense either.
Doing something that makes sense from a business perspective, even if it doesn’t make sense from the consumer’s perspective, is the entire reason things are done at companies.
YouTube Premium is the only reason I stick with YouTube Music. I was a Google Play Music user, and that was fine. Getting both was a boon. I would say though that YouTube Music has been an overall downgrade.
Youtube music was better until several months ago, when they made some changes that ruined it for me. I haven't used Youtube for an extended session of watching music videos since those changes happened. Overall I have watched many fewer music videos since the change. This is on Youtube as implemented on Android TV.
I definitely prefer music videos over plain audio streams.
I think the message is, if a user clicks the mic button in the YouTube app, does it end up to the YouTube search or the system-wide Roku search? I'm sure Roku is exaggerating by specifically calling it a grab for music listener marketshare.
> This is both what many users would expect (if I have an app open, voice search works within that app), and a pretty reasonable ask for any business (don't show competitor's offering when searching within my app).
Only if I search using the in-app search feature do I expect it to be restricted to only that app.
If I'm watching a YouTube video and ask my device to play music, I expect Spotify to open as that's what I use and pay for.
The platform should prioritize the user, not the app developers.
Not if I have the notion that search from a button on the remote is universal and I want to be taken directly to that content elsewhere. That’d be like suggesting Siri should only fetch content from the active app. It’s a signal for ranking, but not an absolute one.
You don’t always need to have a verb. The way I use my Apple TV is usually to just say the name of the content because I want to pick where it comes from.
But even if you say play, it could still ask you where from and/or confirm it got the right thing. Roku != Amazon Echo.
Agree on the second one, but why tf should Google force them to support vp9? If they want to save some money there to stay competitive it's none of Google's business.
How? They have bargaining power with a monopoly share. But it really saves bandwidth and avoids patent fees to unrelated companies. What part is the abuse? Should they have to support mpeg1 too if someone wants to use an old chip at enormous bandwidth costs?
If it is about their DRM and not their freely licensed VP9 then I could see where it get into abuse if competitors can't use it. And I see where standing up the music service using youtube and messing up the system voice search is abusive.
> YouTube music is a different product from YouTube itself.
Sorta not really. On Roku, Google is deprecating all of the other means of playing content (e.g. Google Play Video) and funneling everyone to the Youtube App now for everything.
So if your default search engine in firefox is duckduckgo, but you're currently on google.com/maps reading reviews of a car service, firefox should use google for your next search request?
This is a bad comparison. There's only ever one voice search button on the remote, but there are multiple easy-to-click search bars when you're viewing maps.
IMO, even if I had Spotify on a Roku, I would be fine with this change. It's not difficult at all to press the home button and then the search button to signal you want to search outside of YouTube. A big chunk of YouTube's utility is that it has music videos.
Shouldn't it be up to Roku, not Google, to decide how their product experience works?
LGs TVs have a prominent omni search button. If you’re in the YT app and use the omnisearch it searches across all content services you have connected. It’s an amazingly useful feature and makes the TV experience actually feel integrated. First time I’ve been happy with a “smart” TV experience.
It would be up to Roku if Roku were willing to support Google with resources for developing their YT/YT TV apps.
They literally have no power beyond acting as a gatekeeper for their users. Their omnisearch (which was awful, at least the last time I used it) is a major part of their strategy to try and guide users towards content they profit from.
Given that it's Google's job to guard the UX of their Roku apps, I think it's 100% reasonable for them to tell Roku to add HW support for new features and not gimp search inside the YT app.
I could see this argument if a search for music would lead to a search for (say) a music video. But the idea, as I understand it, is that a request for music to be played would instead be routed through YouTube Music. Even if I'm in the YouTube app, I'm not going to want my music search to go through YouTube Music -- I'm not a subscriber.
I'm not sure exactly what qualifies a music search as a music search and not a search for a music video. The entire point of YT Music on a smart TV is that it's virtually indistinguishable from the default YT app.
it's more like asking "if I press ctrl+L in google.com/maps, should it focus the browser's search or the app's search" - in which applications currently can override ctrl+L to focus their own search bar.
> This could simply mean Google is requiring chips with hardware VP9 support
Almost definitely what they want but that isn't benign. There's very little user benefit here (lower bandwidth costs IF you're on a metered connection which is a tiny % of people) and lots of benefit to google/youtube (lower bandwidth!) and lots of extra cost to roku (these chips will cost more, at least in the short term). So google is basically forcing Roku to spend money to save google money.
That said, VP9 isn't just a good idea for Google. It's a good idea for everyone doing video delivery. Google and everyone else shouldn't be strong-arming Roku into deploying VP9-capable hardware they should be finding ways to help. Buy a billion dollars worth of VP9-capable chips for the next Chromecast on the condition that they cost no more than 10% more than H264-chips and the manufacturer agrees to sell to anyone at that price... or... something.
Even if it is what most users would expect (I don't agree it is), that is a product decision that should be entirely under Roku's control. Google's threat to pull YouTube from their device is an anti-competitive move.
If customers do want either behavior, they should be advocating to Roku for it. Google has no place setting a requirement here.
Roku does not support multitasking. I would not expect a voice search to close the app I'm using. If I want to switch apps to listen to music, I could hit the home button, then voice search and let music preferences launch the appropriate app.
It's good to see such optimism. But it's not necessarily true, see for example the Apple MFi program that requires custom chips provided only by Apple as way to tax & lock devices. In the TV/broadcast business Roku is in, it is unfortunately pretty common for content providers to mandate DRM X or Y, which is embedded deep into the main SoC, so you'd have only one or two possible sources.
I don't understand why Google, who is apparently competing with Roku with Chromecast, would try to "help" Roku fix a worse user experience? My Spidey sense tells me there's more to it than just trying to fix the Roku UX.
I agree, it does seem to make sense... and this isn't just with YT, it also affects YT TV. On my Smart TV, with a Roku remote, I don't want to switch out of the current app (YTTV in my case).
I'll take your pitchfork and brandish it at least ...
>>This could simply mean Google is requiring chips with hardware VP9 support
Shouldn't we expect reasonable backward-compatibility?
Your second point seems valid.
To be honest though ... youtube is the weak link in most of my set ups. Can't access ad-based youtube via Sonos (and no, I won't pay for premium because of how I feel about Google right now), scrapes here with Roku, etc.
If they're talking YouTube TV specifically (the terminology doesn't make much distinction between YouTube and YTTV, although the headline makes it seem like 'YouTube' always means YTTV in this case) they also might be requiring a new DRM chip for level 1 widevine.
No. If I'm in YouTube I want Tidal to play music, not their janky YTM setup that can't give me quality audio even if I pick the video myself. At least make it a toggle for users to manage themselves vs hard coding it into the app.
> Roku alleges Google has asked it to favor YouTube music results from voice commands made on the Roku remote while the YouTube app is open, even if the user's music preference is set to default to another music app, like Pandora.
That's the behavior I would expect from a full screen app. ie, if I issue a command in a full screen app for the command to be interpreted in the context of that app.
I find FireTV stick (from Amazon) to be applying in this respect, it doesn't appear to know command that direct them input to a specific app. When I have Google open and ask it to search for $search-string it will do it in the Amazon store context, ie offer to sell me a program rather than find the string on Google.
Annoying. It relates to the lack of discoverability in voice interfaces, there may be an incantation to get the behaviouyr I want but there's no way within the interface that such methods is revealed.
If I'm actively using Google Maps, I'd love for Siri to respond to "get directions to McDonalds" within the Google Maps context instead of opening Apple's.
No it isn’t. If you have Google maps open and suddenly decide you want to go to McDonald’s, then sure, that voice command should go to Google Maps. But if you make a voice command to send an email to someone, it shouldn’t open Gmail instead of your default mail app just because Google maps is open.
Similarly, if you’re watching a video on YouTube and want to search for a cat video, sure, the voice command should search in YouTube. But if you want to listen to music and have Spotify set as your default music app, it shouldn’t send the request to YouTube Music just because YouTube is open.
But YouTube is a music streaming platform. The most popular, in fact (no, not YouTube music). I constantly listen to music across both Spotify and YouTube. YouTube serves video and doesn't present music in the way we usually think of it, albums sorted by artist, chronologically presented... But that isn't really how the younger gen listens to music. It is a music app and a common way a lot of people consume their music.
That's not at all how voice assists are meant to work. Voice icon in cars/remotes are all meant to provide answers or take commands irrespective of what's happening on that device or other devices they control.
>"When searching within an app, favor results from that app"
vs
>"When searching within an app, favor results from a related app"
There is a big difference between these two things. "Youtube" is not the same as "Youtube Music" in the same way that "Xbox" is not the same as "Xbox Live".
As p49k explained it - if you were trying to send an email from YouTube would you expect Gmail to come up or your preferred email app? What if Gmail was renamed to "Youtube Mail"? Would that change your expected behavior?
Sending an email is a different interaction than doing voice search.
Sending an email is an explicit intent - open whatever app I use to send emails.
Searching is an open query - find the most relevant results. What results are most relevant is subjective, hence why you would give the user a choice for what results to favor.
The separation between Youtube and Youtube Music is a technical minutia, they're both Youtube just different apps. If you want a technical solution, Roku should probably implement a search API such that doing a voice search would let the Roku query whatever app is currently running for results. Then any app can provide more relevant, context aware results.
>Sending an email is a different interaction than doing voice search.
Going from watching videos to playing music is a different interaction than doing voice search.
>Sending an email is an explicit intent - open whatever app I use to send emails.
Using a global voice commands (not search) has explicit behavior - use whatever app I have set to default for the functionality I am requesting. "Play Stairway to Heaven" should use my default music app. Note that "voice commands" is different from "voice search" in this context and is the alleged problem.
>Searching is an open query - find the most relevant results.
If I use Spotify as my default music app it is because I trust their music search more than YouTube Music. Otherwise YouTube Music would be my default music app.
There is also a massive contextual difference between a global Voice Search (using the Voice search icon on the Roku remote: it searches Roku) and using the Speech to Text option that may appear when already searching within a search field (which uses the search field of the app itself, in this case: Youtube)
>The separation between Youtube and Youtube Music is a technical minutia, they're both Youtube just different apps.
Google deciding there is a difference between the two means that there is a difference between the two for both a marketing perspective and whatever minor technical differences there are. If there were no differences there would not be a YouTube Music app and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.
You're basically making the argument for why this should be a user preference.
Do I want the current app I'm using to influence the result of a voice command or not.
Unfortunately the line between voice commands and voice search is often fuzzy. Lines like this:
> Roku alleges Google has asked it to favor YouTube music results from voice commands made on the Roku remote while the YouTube app is open
make it unclear if it's talking about a search or a command.
Ideally Roku would implement a more fine grained API where a user can set permissions/preferences on an app by app basis, similar to Android and iOS permissions APIs and especially how notifications are handled.
Either way if Roku's allegations definitely don't paint Google in a good light here. It just seems like there could be more to this story.
> Roku alleges Google has asked it to favor YouTube music results from voice commands made on the Roku remote while the YouTube app is open, even if the user's music preference is set to default to another music app, like Pandora.
This seems reasonable to me - it would be super frustrating if I'm in YouTube, hit search, and Pandora pops up. Like what's the point of that?
> Roku alleges Google has asked it to favor YouTube music results from voice commands made on the Roku remote while the YouTube app is open, even if the user's music preference is set to default to another music app, like Pandora
This is what my Amazon Echo Show is doing when Youtube is open on it, and I find it rather logical and convenient. That lets me search on youtube with my voice.
It's probably not the best idea to be commenting on antitrust allegations against your employer unless you want your comment to be read out loud in a deposition.
This is exactly what the cable co's want. F em. I'll either pay for the services or pirate the content. I will never let the cable co's "win". They are terrible, horrible, corrupt, money grubbing soulless corporations who have screwed over the masses for long enough.
Hawks have great eyesight, and are effective predators. It's not a good metaphor for the people who punish anticompetitive behavior. Maybe anti-trust sloths?
Ehh... I would wager on Roku being more dug-in here. For them, control over their hardware is an existential concern. For Google, streaming television is one of their many dalliances that may or not still be active 5 years from now.
Every television that I've bought over the past 5-10 years has Roku built into it. I know that some people prefer to plug in Amazon devices instead, and that's perfectly fine (not that Amazon is any "less evil" of a company than Google or Roku). But I use Roku's platform because it's usually the hardware default, and I like the UI well enough.
I'm already pissed that Google has raised their prices to the point where I no longer save any money compared to what I used to pay for cable+internet. And then dropped sports coverage for my local baseball team anyway. If YouTube TV disappears from Roku's platform, then I'll just sign up for Hulu or whatever 5 minutes later. Or fuck it, I might just go back to cable. These over-the-top, "skinny bundles" have been a bait and switch in practice.
Same here. Except for the cable part. I really like Google TV but, I am not going to buy new hardware for it. Hulu is good enough, plus they have some good exclusives coming back.
Welp, I specifically bought a Roku device a few months ago just to use YouTube.
I ran into major issues using Fire TV's YouTube app. The app would fail to get past the initial loading screen and hang forever. It would typically require 2-3 device restarts to work again, and even then it would only work temporarily. I tried completely resetting my Fire TV, relogging in, etc but never managed to get it to work properly). YouTube is the only app I've had issues with on Fire TV.
Google also discontinued YouTube's great web browser experience, which was almost identical to the app, that you could load in Fire TV's web browser.
I did the same thing, youtube recently dropped support for the older AppleTV and I had no interest in shelling out extra money for 4k or the option to play games i'm never going to play.
This TV set-top box arms race is so stupid. The smart TV apps stopped working so I got an AppleTV. That stopped working so I got a Roku. When that stops working I guess i'll just go the full PC route with a NUC and a nice interface like Kodi.
> Welp, I specifically bought a Roku device a few months ago just to use YouTube.
We have Rokus (a 4K Ultra in the living room and a TCL Roku TV in the bedroom), as well as a 4K Chromecast, and until we got the Roku Ultra we had a Nvidia Shield TV. We keep more than one type of device specifically because it is inevitable that a provider (Roku, Amazon, Google) will drop a service we enjoy. This actually happened with the Shield which is why we replaced it with a Roku; it was no longer working with Emby at all, and it was flaking out on certain other services. It could have been just a case of bad hardware but it was flawless for two years straight until one by one services stopped working on it.
This is also why I have a Mac, a couple of Windows PCs, a Linux workstation, and a BSD laptop. When one of the above can't do something, one of the others can.
Mine was the first gen Shield, and I never could figure out why it stopped working properly with my (self hosted, local network) Emby server. Even after a factory reset and trying a different Google account it never worked right. No issues whatsoever with the various Roku devices in our house and at my mom's and SIL's houses.
I am in no way on Google's side on this but I am taking this with a grain of salt since I am sure that Roku is quite aware of the leverage this allegation could bring against Google with the on going anti-trust suite that is being brought against them.
Either the journalist has interpreted Roku's claims incorrectly, or Roku is spreading falsehoods.
It's a very common practice for streaming services to make crazy demands about the devices they're on.
Roku[1], Google TV[2] and Firesticks[3] all have Netflix buttons on the remote not because they wanted them there, but because Netflix forces them to with the threat that they will blacklist their device.
And inevitably, all devices comply because they know they won't be able to sell the product without Netflix support.
If it was “you must have a Netflix button and no others” I could see the argument but the demand for a particular user experience isn’t anticompetitive automatically.
Company with leverage others might not have using that leverage isn’t something we vilify in general.
If you're willfully ignorant of the situation, then sure. Otherwise, using leverage to favor your own product over competitors despite user preference is textbook anti-competitive behavior, almost comically so: Not only does it unfairly disadvantage competitors, but it also robs consumers of choice (by ignoring their preferences).
I would love to see one of the meetings that lead to absurdly unethical and borderline/outright illegal decisions like this; did anyone bother to bring it up? Did the person that brought it up get the silent treatment? Were they no longer invited to lunch? Does everyone just understand that those topics are off limits? Or do these people seriously not care because they know they can get away with it?
It's like Microsoft sponsoring the NFL and so they have to use Surface tablets. That means they don't have Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, and other competitors tablets. Is that anti-competitive? If so, then every business out there must be anti-competitive. Buying ads to get yourself on a higher position in search results, buying ads on TV during primetime slots, and any behavior that makes you look better than your competitors would also be anti-competitive.
That's not the same thing at all. Microsoft paid money to the NFL so they use the tablets, presumably more than the other bidders. That's what competition looks like.
A better example would be if Microsoft forced the NFL to use their tablets by threatening to invalidate all of the Windows and Office licenses in their organization. Would you say that's "leverage" or anti-competitive behavior?
Imagine if Samsung offered $400m to the NFL so they use Samsung computers. Microsoft's "leverage" could prevent the NFL from taking that offer, and there's nothing Samsung can do about it. That's anti-competitive behavior: one company unfairly disadvantaging competitors to the detriment of the customer (NFL in this case, which wouldn't get the $400m)
That's not a reasonable example at all. Netflix doesn't sell Roku another product like in your example with Microsoft, there's only one product at play here. Netflix and Roku both benefit from this relationship. Roku benefits from selling more Roku's, and Netflix benefits from people having a place to watch their content. Netflix in this case has leverage because they know their content is more important to people than other content so maybe they can turn that into a button. Netflix's user base is also something that they get to negotiate with since more users = more money for Roku, so it really isn't any different from being the highest bidder.
As for the Samsung example, I completely disagree. If it was a situation like that Microsoft would have paid enough money to be an exclusive provider. You can't count that $400 million as lost without counting how much Microsoft paid them for the exclusivity. If the NFL was just using a bunch of different products then the value of the advertising to Microsoft is reduced, and so they would pay less for it or not participate at all, which they have every right to do.
Most importantly, Roku doesn't have a single button on their remote, they have multiple. Roku's charges companies to put a button on their remote, it's estimated to be $1 per customer. Netflix is likely paying to be on the remote. But even if Netflix wasn't paying or was paying less it's clearly leverage and not anti-competitive behavior because Netflix isn't forcing Roku to only have Netflix on their remote or refuse to do business with them.
The thing is that you can always come up with an example for something being anti-competitive. Any company that advertises is inherently anti-competitive because they can throw around their money to force out their competition. As a company I could have a more expensive and inferior product but because I have so much money I can outbid my competitors to get the advertising slot and will outsell my competitors. This isn't anti-competitive behavior in the common understanding of it, and certainly not in the legal sense.
> This isn't anti-competitive behavior in the common understanding of it, and certainly not in the legal sense
That's the same thing I'm saying, that advertising is not anti-competitive. You brought up the NFL example, and I replied by saying that's a bad example because it's just advertising, and advertising is not anti-competitive behavior.
> As for the Samsung example, I completely disagree. If it was a situation like that Microsoft would have paid enough money to be an exclusive provider. You can't count that $400 million as lost without counting how much Microsoft paid them for the exclusivity. If the NFL was just using a bunch of different products then the value of the advertising to Microsoft is reduced, and so they would pay less for it or not participate at all, which they have every right to do.
There I think you may have misread/misinterpreted the last sentence in my comment. I was saying that Microsoft forcing the NFL to use Surface tablets by threatening to cut off their access to Windows/Office if they don't is anti-competitive, because it means Microsoft does not have to get into a bidding war with the competition (like Samsung), and at the same time it means Samsung was unfairly robbed of a business opportunity by a competitor.
I never said that the actual Surface deal Microsoft struck with the NFL (in real life, not in analogy land) was anti-competitive.
Also, I don't see what the Roku/Netflix button thing has to do with this thread, because the OP is about Google threatening to pull Youtube TV from Roku unless Roku gives them preferential treatment in their software (among other demands).
You can't because you're a boring person. If you were famous or had a large following on, say, social media, then Microsoft might consider reaching out and paying you for a sponsorship.
How so? It is the same thing as advertising. Roku is benefiting greatly from Netflix being on their platform as well. Netflix could ditch Roku and say they only support X other devices. But they both need each other and so they agree to something that makes sense for both parties.
Anyway it is pointless, because Roku actually charges companies to put a button on their remote[1]. They supposedly charge $1 for the button per customer.
> It's like Microsoft sponsoring the NFL and so they have to use Surface tablets. That means they don't have Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, and other competitors tablets. Is that anti-competitive?
No, it really isn't. Look, I agree with you -- a company throwing their weight around feels super shitty. But leveraging your advantages is basically just business.
Netflix paying Roku to add their button on remotes wouldn't be anti-competitive in the same way that buying exclusive ad space isn't. And therefore Netflix realizing that they bring so much value to the Roku ecosystem that they can get their button without actually having to pay is good business. Like I hate it. But it's true.
I agree that everybody involved is evil but we're still allowed to have opinions about that. Roku's evil and Google's evil don't necessarily cancel out.
I think the difference here is that Netflix does not make the devices themselves, so they are an equal outside force on the market of smart tv devices. Google on the other hand is using it's YouTube product to influence things on the device side, where they have Chromecast as direct competitor.
Thing is Google are so internally disfuntional it seems unlikely that that's the actual aim here.
Thi is the same Google that still can't get their own gaming streaming service working on their own TV OS. And you think YouTube are trying to attack other manufacturers to boost sales of a $50 dongle with no margin?
Tbh I think it's more likely that nobody on the Chromecast team has ever met anyone from the YouTube team. Many things at Google would work better if they did.
Might the difference here be that Netflix doesn't have a competing product?
Google could be incentivized to put onerous requirements on Roku which result in a worse user experience, price increases, or additional development time. That would benefit Chromecast.
> And inevitably, all devices comply because they know they won't be able to sell the product without Netflix support.
That sounds pretty anti-competitive to me. So that would not be a "falsehood". Just because lots of companies are making anti-competitive demands, does not invalidate the point.
> Roku alleges Google has asked it to favor YouTube music results from voice commands made on the Roku remote while the YouTube app is open, even if the user's music preference is set to default to another music app, like Pandora.
How else do you use voice search for a music video on Youtube? If I open youtube and do a voice search. I'm expecting the search to be constrained to the app.
It sounds to me like they want the YouTube Music app to open when you search for a song on the YouTube app. Those are two entirely different apps, with different content, experiences, etc. It just so happens that Google named them the same, probably so they could more easily force integrations like this.
As said in the sibling comment, Google has combined all of their TV apps besides YTTV into the YouTube app. Music/Movies/Regular videos are all via that app. OP is saying "if i'm in an app, I want voice search to focus that app's search bar".
This sounds like the user is in Youtube, then says 'Play some Beyonce'. In this scenario, I'd expect some Lemonade from my default music app, not Youtube...
I'm just about sick of YouTube and YouTube TV not playing well with whatever device I've decided on. First it was YouTube and the Firestick, now it's YouTube TV and Roku.
Frankly, how did Google end up with a good TV service? I'd rather not be relying on Google for TV streaming.
First, you can play YouTube without any problem on Firestick, they made the change 2 years ago. Second, you should give the new Chromecast device a try, it's far much better than Roku. Third, Google is asking Roku to support VP9, which is a much superior video coding format, I don't see any issue with this ask.
No thanks. I'll stick with a computer running a web browser connected to the TV and a wireless keyboard because I'm sick of having to give a shit which devices are supported by which services.
- Google and consumers, who can enjoy better compression and lower bandwidth
- Consumers, who can enjoy a much more mainstream video encoding format in not just YT but pretty much every app.
Google doesn't want to write off 45% of the set-top market right away, but at the same time it's 100% in the right to demand Roku support modern royalty-free codecs going forward.
Roku fights pretty much everybody nowadays and as someone who's been dealing with full-screen ads and missing apps on my $1000 TV, I have no sympathy for Roku whining about needing to support a modern codec.
A goat farmer in rural Afghanistan browsing YouTube on his 2003 XP box has a legitimate excuse - Roku does not, especially going forward.
There is a balance between keeping the burden of backwards compatibility forever and making efforts to keep things accessible to those without new hardware.
Google has invested a decent amount of money in developing its Roku app. Roku is now trying to hold users hostage so that Google continues to pour resources into supporting inferior technologies.
We will see how this ends - I think if Google blocked YT/YT TV on Roku, it would annihilate Roku and barely scratch Google.
> Frankly, how did Google end up with a good TV service?
Just peeling off this part of your comment. It seems like it would have been the natural course of events after they had to develop IPTV services for Google Fiber customers.
What percentage does Roku take? I wasn't aware that they were in the same rent-seeking game as the other app stores. They do talk about their "Platform Revenue," but it seems that's mostly generated from ads.
There are a lot of negative remarks about Roku in here and I’m baffled.
I think their user interface and experience have been flawless for the past 5-7 years. I’ve had Roku 3, Roku 4K, and now a TCL Roku TV. The remote control is super snappy. The mainstream apps work really well (Netflix, Hulu, Prime, Plex, YouTube, PBS Kids). I can’t speak to the developer or business side of the company but for a steaming device/platform, I haven’t had a single complaint.
I bought an Apple TV 2 years ago for HomeKit hub purposes and to this damn day, I have no idea how to control it with the remote control (does the remote have momentum, is it a cursor? no idea). But my 3 year old has no problem with the Roku.
The streaming platform space is fractured for sure, but I think Roku is one of the best there is.
So, why shouldn’t they seek revenue from apps? Apple friggin charges 30% for iOS ecosystem no? Roku deserves to be paid for what they have built.
As for this Google/Roku issue, this is nothing more than a strike for likely unreasonable or unfair treatment. Google has every right to strike but strikes generally just piss off the customers. So, go ahead and take YouTube off of Roku and Roku can just build a skinned TV browser to view YouTube videos on their website.
Maybe the solution is to evolve the TV web browser experience in the same way that we have evolved to mobile friendly sites. Maybe TV friendly sites could eliminate some of these issues. But this opens up the app/web debate and I generally think native app experience is better.
At the end of day, Google has increased the advertisement frequency and quantity recently and the experience is beginning to suck. They are making more and more money from advertising so coming off of Roku is just a reduction of eyeballs for them.
I loved Roku but they lost me when their latest model would only show regular 1080p on a 2K HDR-10 screen. And yes it supports HDCP and all that crap. Roku just never tested downscaling apparently.
Never heard of 2K TV but sounds like a pretty narrow issue. I’m guessing it’s not not widespread across a high percentage of their user base? Nonetheless, it may not be the right choice for your specific needs but this comment shouldn’t be extrapolated to the average user.
Roku makes insane demands of its video providers. So does every large platform company. Google is awful too, but this is like the pot calling the kettle black.
They make all their money as being a service provider. That’s why they require content providers to use their platform and to rev share subscription and purchases made on the Roku platform. They aren’t a hardware company.
I currently have YouTube TV I access via my Apple TV. The nice thing about internet cable is how quickly you can switch providers. If Google or Apple get into a tiff or whatever then I can switch to Fubo and not miss a beat. Many people have mentioned Fubo as an alternative and frankly it looks pretty good. The biggest reason I watch TV is for sports. Fubo and YouTube TV seem similarly matched in that regard. As consumers we should all be glad we have choices.
If this is true, could you imagine if Google tried to pull this on Apple? Making YouTube music show up when using the siri remote. These allegations are serious, and if Roku isn't lying it's straight up crazy.
Apple would laugh and tell Google to fuck off, right before removing every app for iOS that even contacts any Google service. They're about the only company out there with the clout and cash to give Google the finger without having to go to the courts (legal and/or public opinion) to do it.
Apple does no such thing in case of search in Safari, so why are you making this stuff up?
Not too mention Apple puts the same kind of requirements on developers and apps on their own tvOS platform - including UX behaviours and format support.
I've had Roku, Chromecasts, a couple different LG and Samsung smartTVs, and the best, far and away was the cheap TCL Roku TV. Why? Because everyone in the family could use it, and there were hundreds of streaming providers available. Chromecasts are easy, but require another device to work. The Roku TV? You could operate it from the buttons on the TV if you lost the remote (a regular occurrence with 7 people in the house)... and it was fine. So... what about the YouTube app? It was great on Roku.
I'm still astonished by how much LG and Samsung are able to cripple their own devices in the performance department. It's like they bought the cheapest chip/mainboard that checked the box 'smooth 30fps 4k hdr'.
I don't understand how this isn't common knowledge: smart TVs are universally bad. This was figured out years ago. Just get a good screen + hdmi/dvi port and attach your laptop. No ads on your screensaver, no screen tracking that otherwise wouldn't happen, it's fast, it's 100% compatible with all platforms and media (if not legally, then through torrents).
If your laptop works, and your screen works, then this setup works. What's the downside?
The article raises an interesting point. Ultimately, Googles pushing of 'royalty-free' AV1 for the greater good is just shifting costs to device makers and implementors that have to pay increased engineering and build cost instead of royalties. if it turns out to really be royalty-free that is...
This wouldn't be the first time Google uses their market power to gain an unfair advantage in the TV space.
On the TV Device Maker side they don't allow manufacturers to use alternatives to Android TV (such as FireTV) or they threaten to kick them out of Android Mobile. See https://www.protocol.com/google-android-amazon-fire-tv
Imagine how excited you would've felt if you won a Roku in 2021. You'd probably try to sell it. Or maybe you'd give it to your grandmother, unless you already gave her one way back in 2012.
The bigger picture is that streaming has become such an expected, basic, embedded functionality and Roku along with other dependent companies failed to adapt.
Yes, Google is in a consistent, self denying state of being evil, but Roku has become the Blackberry of stream boxes. They haven't done anything innovative in years. I won't be surprised if they will be forever flooded by a storm of no-name Chinese Linux/Java powered stream boxes. Obviously these devices don't provide the same user experience, but they definitely reflect Roku's mediocrity.
This kind of tactic works. I have 3 rokus in a box collecting dust and two brand new Fire sticks that replaced them. I didn't want to do this but 85% of my streaming time is spent on Twitch.tv and I wasn't able to use my Roku's to stream it anymore.
It depends on how you define interesting content of course. For me that is "Tactical or strategic games with a significant enough RNG component to be classified as 'Controlling the Chaos' (think Poker, not Chess) and which have a lively leaderboard. I enjoy watching the competition for Rank #1 and I enjoy competing to see how high I can get. My current favorite game is Team Fight Tactics (Riot Games the maker of league of legends auto battler). You can find the leaderboards here:
https://lolchess.gg/leaderboards?hl=en-US
And my all time highest rank achieved was #540/1,250,000 in North America (not bad at all for an executive and father of a toddler). Pretty much all of the guys competing for rank #1 will also be streamers so finding content is as easy as googling their name from the leaderboard + twitch.
If thats not your cup of tea, probably the best way would be to choose twitch's browse option and just watch the most popular streamers in each game for a few minutes to see if you are into their content. Some are informative, some are looking to appeal to 13 year olds, some are chasing some goal, etc.
Roku is not a completely innocent content portal. Roku notably sells buttons on its remotes tied to services you may not even use. A consumer friendly remote would have configurable buttons, so they’re not against favoriting certain apps over others. Within Roku itself you’ll get sidebar ads for certain video services. Roku is happy to prioritize your app but only if you pay for it.
Interestingly, there are 3rd-party remotes that contain different "suggested" channels. I've got one with six of those buttons, which is actually kinda nice because 5/6 are channels I use.
I wouldn't be surprised if there exist programmable remotes that allow custom launchers, at least for the set of all channels Roku has ever had on their own buttons (they must be giving each app they put on there a unique, or at least rarely-recycled, code, since remotes with different promoted channels on them do work as expected on Rokus other than the one they came with). Though, yes, it would be nice if Roku let the user program those buttons on stock remotes.
I have always used a Roku for TV streaming, but things like this are making it more difficult.
Something similar happened with Amazon and the Twitch app for Roku. Amazon obviously wants you to use a Fire product to access Twitch, and they completely removed support for the Twitch app for Roku. Even the unofficial Twitch app shut down shortly after this, leaving no reasonable way to access Twitch content from a Roku.
If the Youtube app and available alternatives get removed as well, I'll basically be forced into another device since Twitch and Youtube offer a large percentage of the content I watch.
I can only hope that some future legislation or anti-trust lawsuit makes it more difficult for these companies to force you into buying their specific hardware to access these services, but I am not hopeful.
Twitch on Roku is really frustrating. The unofficial app worked perfectly for me and then the dev faced legal action from Amazon. One thing I have found is that using the "Roku Stream Tester" dev tool you can push a twitch stream to your TV to play it.
This is a giant pain in the ass obviously but it does work if you just want to use it occasionally. The Stream Tester works through a REST API so theoretically someone could write a browser plugin or app to automate all of this.
edit: a fun side affect of this is that the stream plays better than it ever did in the official twitch app or even on my Non-4k fire TV. 60fps is really smooth whereas on the FireTV or the Twitch app for Roku it would hitch and stutter occasionally
This isn't that big of a deal to me because I could still use the YouTube TV app from my iPhone and then just "cast" it to the Roku which is acting as a "cast client".
And even then, that's only at my friend's house where their TV is too old to have built in "smart TV / cast to me" functionality.
Roku is dope but this might not be as big of a deal as it seems.
Stuff like this is why "general computing" devices should (and will hopefully) never die. I just plug my laptop into my TV via HDMI and I can stream video, browse the web, play games, and do whatever. That solution has served me well for a decade now and I have zero interest in smart TV software, Roku, Chromecast, Fire Stick, Apple TV, or any of that crap.
I've never used Roku voice commands. Is it unambiguous that a command is for music? Or "Stevie Wonder interview" and "Stevie Wonder Superstition" be interchangeable, with the first going to a Youtube vid and the second playing in Pandora?
This is why we as users should choose our platforms carefully. This spat between Roku and Google is ultimately all about $$$ generated with 'monetizing' our habits and data. Ad infested platforms like Roku will continually try and push for larger share of the pie. Whereas, Google will continue pushing for more data. They both will win. Win at our expense. Not thanks, I would rather stay with my Apple TV and have a modicum of control over my privacy, even though it's more expensive piece of hardware to buy.
so I have a firetv stick, a chromecast, both play youtube hulu disney+ etc, they're each like $30~$40 dollars, I thus have never had the need to buy a Roku stick, why do I need one and why does this youtube-tv-app matter?
Google calls the accusation baseless. But it is quite reasonable to assume that a lot of documentation is produced during the course of such negotiation, so I would expect there to be some pertaining to the items at issue. Am I wrong?
Maybe they could use a FOSS YouTube client like Nvidious. Or even install a freedom-respecting and open source decentralized solution such as Odysee (LBRY) or PeerTube, and ask people to post there.
Two advertising companies fighting over peanuts. I don't support either party here. Roku is becoming more useless over time and that has nothing to do with Google.
It'd be nice if you mentioned why when you downvote. This really is 2 advertisers fighting over which one gets your search and where it goes - and both claim they are right and doing it for their users. Roku has made it pretty clear that they want to advertise to you but they could care less to make something that works and does more than spy on you and deliver ads. My next device won't be from Roku or Google.
I guess this is a good a place as any to say that the video quality on youtubeTV is atrocious. I was shocked when I watch a live NFL game on the Roku amazon prime app. Also ytTV has just about double in price in less than 3 years.
Roku has some issues too. Namely, it autodownloads a new random app about once a week so Im constant deleting apps from my home page.
Lastly, this sounds a lot like, "Comcast Cale users might lose the ESPN Chanel ...". I'm pretty sick of all these xorporations.
> Roku has some issues too. Namely, it autodownloads a new random app about once a week so Im constant deleting apps from my home page.
WTF? New random apps about once a week? I've never seen this. Have multiple Roku boxes and a couple TVs with integrated Roku. Using them for years. Maybe there's some kind of "suggest new channels to me" checkbox you've got checked in account preferences?
The quality is really bad. Terrible compression with blocky artifacts and poor black levels. My pirate IPTV service has significantly better image quality.
Nothing of value loss, the youtube app on Roku is very glitchy and the entire ecosystem of Roku is very ad supported and user hostile. I would expect voice commands within the youtube app to stay within youtube.
I am 50/50 on youtube music/youtube, but youtube app includes music so it's a general hard to decipher request but genereally if I want to voice search while I'm in youtube, I want it to stay in youtube.
Who the hell would pay google for youtube? Anything worth watching is on patreon so you can just watch it there if you want to pay for something without dealing with all of Google's crap.
I think Roku is in a perilous position in general. They generated a lot of buzz on Wallstreet with their high user counts. They also purchased a DSP to get more into the advertising game. However they are at risk of being disrupted. They do not offer much that is unique and have largely gained and held market position by being the cheapest and easiest to use.
Cheap Android TV devices are starting to compete with them on price and tv manufacturers have mostly chosen to create and maintain their own ecosystems.
Unless they make some big strategic maneuvers I see them slowly being squeezed out like Tivo.