Fire TV

Fire TV companion apps, Second Screen and Remote, hitting iOS soon

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

Tucked away as a side note in Amazon's Fire TV announcement last week is an interesting confirmation of a companion iOS app for the set-top box that's scheduled to launch later this year in the App Store.

The software will act as a second screen solution allowing Fire TV owners to fling Amazon TV shows and movies from their iPhone or iPad to the $99 set-top box, providing remote functionality with playback controls, support for Amazon's X-Ray technology that pulls media metadata from the web and more.

In addition to Second Screen, the official Fire TV app for smartphones and tablets will launch soon, providing virtual controls for touch-enabled games...

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Amazon unveils its Apple TV competitor: meet the $99 Fire TV set-top box

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

Amazon has just taken the wraps off its new media-streaming device designed to compete with the likes of Apple's $99 Apple TV hockey puck, Roku devices and other media-streaming boxes available to cable-cutters today.

It's rather predictably called the Fire TV in a nod to the successful Kindle Fire tablet brand, costs $99 and runs a forked Android version code-named 'Mojito'.

Powered by a quad-core processor with 2GB RAM and a dedicated graphics processor, the set-top box is capable of streaming full HD 1080p resolution video (1,920-by-1,080 pixels) and Amazon claims it's three times more powerful than the Apple TV.

It supports 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus surround sound via HDMI and optical audio-out, has dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi, comes with a Bluetooth remote and ties into Amazon's vast ecosystem of digital content licensed from Hollywood majors and broadcasters.

I don't think Apple should be concerned because the Fire TV's user interface appears clunky (I even like Chromecast's better) and it's hard to see much that isn't already out there, though I have no doubt in my mind that the Fire TV is here to stay and tie existing Amazon customers even deeper into its ecosystem.

Read on for the full reveal...

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