Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, The League, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia are just a few shows that keep me entertained throughout the months when football or basketball is over for the year. Movies as well, are always a must year round no matter what day it is. These two forms of TV content are reasons alone to re-evaluate where you get your TV programming from.
The thought of television without cable or satellite programming is now a thing of the past. Technology has rapidly evolved and now we are lucky to be blessed with multiple options to choose from when it comes to viewing content on our TVs.
Well this is your lucky day because we’re going to evaluate both the Roku and Apple TV.
What is Roku?
Roku is a little black device that helps you stream movies, TV shows, games, sports, and more on your television all through your Internet connection. Many people have been using Roku daily since a good amount of programming is available on demand.
What is Apple TV?
Apple TV is a small black box that assists you with accessing HD content that you can view on your TV. Apple TV also uses AirPlay to stream content from your iOS devices straight to your TV.
Apple TV is appealing to a large amount of people primarily due to the accessibility of their iTunes content.
Features
Well let’s take dive into the meat and potatoes of our two devices.
Ports and Outputs:
The Roku 3 has a power plug, Ethernet port, HDMI output, USB port and a microSD slot. These are all the ports and outputs that are needed with the exception of the older composite style audio and video. But if you do own an older TV or like using composite connections, the cheaper Roku devices offer this setup. This shouldn’t really matter since most TVs purchased in the past few years have been equipped with HDMI inputs.
Apple TV has a power plug output, HDMI output, Ethernet port, optical audio port and a micro-USB port. Theoretically the Apple TV has the same standard ways to connect to your TV without the option of using older composite cables, which in my opinion are out dated anyways.
If you use your iCloud religiously, you can purchase and store movies and TV shows there so that they are available to view on all of your apple devices. This makes your content readily available to your Apple TV as well.
Remote control:
Roku’s remote control is connected via WiFi so your line of sight will not prevent you from controlling your device. You can use this remote in other rooms or behind furniture without losing connectivity.
The Apple TV remote uses an IR signal which means you will need to be positioned in a place where the line of sight is clear of any obstacles which can block the infrared signal. This can be troublesome for those people with numerous amounts of furniture in the same room.
As a bonus, the Roku remote includes a pair of earphones that plug directly into the remote. This is useful for when another person is sleeping in the room and you still want to listen to your content without disturbing that person. The one thing I do like about the Apple TV remote is the slim futuristic design of it. It’s definitely pretty sleek looking compared to all the other cable/satellite remotes that are on the market today.
Channels:
Roku offers What’s hot (music and radio), Movies & TV, News, Latino & International, Family, Sports, and Games for their TV categories. Netflix, Hulu, HBO GO, and Pandora to name a few specific channels that are offered.
Apple TV streams movies, music and radio from your iTunes account straight to your TV. Netflix, Hulu Plus, HBO GO, Disney channels, and You Tube are of the basic channels Apple TV offers. Apple does not offer as many channels as Roku, however AirPlay makes up for that disadvantage.
Other Features
- Roku 3
- TV compatibility
- 1000+ entertainment channels
- Built-in wireless
- One stop search across multiple channels
- Plays 720p HD video
- Plays 1080p HD video
- Dual-band wireless
- (Wi-Fi a/b/g/n compatible)
- Motion control for games
(Angry Birds Space included) - 5x faster processor
- Apple single core A5 processor
- Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n)
- Bluetooth support for Apple Wireless Keyboard (requires Apple TV software version 5.2 or later)
- H.264 video up to 1080p, 30 frames per second, High or Main Profile level 4.0 or lower, Baseline Profile level 3.0 or lower with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
- MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
- Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format
Apple TV
Price
Roku:
$49.99, $59.99, 79.99, and $99.99 (depending on features)
Apple:
$99.00
Cons
The Roku offers plenty of features however the one big feature it is missing is You Tube. Many people use You Tube daily to search for the most popular viral videos on the internet so this is
one small negative about Roku.
The other big issue I have with Roku is the inability to stream content from your phone or another device like AirPlay from Apple TV is a big loss in my opinion.
If accessories are key, the Apple TV does not come with an HDMI cable. At $99.00 you would think they would include this cable.
The other complaint I have is the ability to customize Apple TV. If you love the apple ecosystem and have a huge iTunes library then this shouldn’t matter. If you are like me and want to make the most out of your device the Apple TV isn’t capable of those options.
Lastly, both devices do not play over-the-air TV channels. So if you’re about to get rid of your old cable box and totally switch to one of these devices, you better think twice.
Summing it up
Roku and Apple TV have plenty to offer as an alternative to your typical cable or satellite programming. As long as you have average to above average connection speeds, streaming content through these devices can provide enough programming to keep you entertained. However, until they can figure out how to incorporate over-the-air channels and channels that are exclusive to cable and satellite on to these devices, there is still room for improvement.
