Why this Apple TV fan has come to prefer Amazon’s Fire TV – Gigaom – AppleTV 4 Jailbreak (appletv4jailbreak.com)
Being part of a family whose members own multiple Apple products, moving away from the notorious walled garden is not only a difficult choice to make, but often times a costly one. So when a product from someone like Amazon makes it easy for me to venture out even a little, I take notice. And with some of the latest apps and improvements that are now available on Amazon’s Fire TV, I just may be upgrading my collection of Apple TVs around the house to Amazon’s Fire TVs, and here’s why.
Everything you’d expect from the Apple TV
AirPlay through Reflector – There are several different developers that make AirPlay apps for your desktop that will turn either your Mac or your PC into an AirPlay receiver. AirSquirrels is one such developer and Reflector is its app that does just that. Recently AirSquirrels came out with a version of Reflector that supports the Amazon Fire TV. When AirSquirrels’ Reflector app for the Fire TV is running, you can stream music and video from your iOS device directly to the Fire TV as if it were an Apple TV. You can even enable AirPlay Mirroring and use the Fire TV to transform your television set into a big screen display for your iOS device. This was a feature that until the end of last year was pretty much exclusive to the Apple TV. The only downside, and depending on how you use your Apple TV this may be an minor inconvenience for you, is that the Reflector app must be running before the FireTV will show up on your AirPlay list of devices.
iOS Remote App for Fire TV – Showing continued support for the iOS platform, Amazon just recently released a native remote app for the Fire TV that mimics the functionality of Apple’s own iOS Remote app for the Apple TV. It complements the included remote that comes with the Fire TV by adding a virtual keyboard. This makes interacting with the various apps on the Fire TV much easier. One feature that Amazon’s remote has that Apples remote for the Apple TV does not is that it adds voice search capabilities to the Fire TV. While this feature is included with the remote that comes with box-shaped console version of the Fire TV, it is a feature that is lacking on the remote the comes with the tiny USB powered Fire TV Stick. Amazon’s iOS Remote app brings voice search to the Fire TV Stick without having to buy a replacement remote.
Home Share iTunes Music with Plex – If you have not yet uploaded your entire music library to Amazon’s Cloud Player, and you still have a sizable music library on your Mac or PC that you want to continue listening to on the Fire TV, then consider using Plex as a replacement to Apple TVs own Home Share feature. While this is a great way of instantly accessing your desktop’s iTunes Music library from the Fire TV, you may run into some problems when accessing your iTunes Video library. Plex does not have the ability…
https://gigaom.com/2015/02/14/why-this-apple-tv-fan-has-come-to-prefer-amazons-fire-tv/
