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While pretty much all modern televisions come with a built-in smart TV operating system these days, some platforms are arguably better than others. However, you can’t simply install another OS on your television. That said, streaming media players are a great way to use another platform on your TV. Amazon and Apple offer two of the most popular smart TV platforms in Fire TV and tvOS. Although Fire TV comes preloaded in some smart TVs, including Amazon’s newly rebranded Ember TV models, and the company’s media streamers, tvOS is limited to Apple’s streaming media player — Apple TV 4K.
If you’re setting up your home theater or streaming den and still deciding on the smart TV platform, both Fire TV and Apple TV devices are good choices; however, both have their advantages and disadvantages. For example, Amazon’s Fire TV hardware starts as low as $35, whereas you’ll have to shell out north of $129 for the Apple TV 4K. Several other differences can impact which of the two platforms is a better choice for your streaming habits.
Amazon’s Fire TV platform, as mentioned, is available preloaded on select smart TVs and can be enjoyed as part of the company’s Fire TV Stick lineup and Fire TV Cube device. It has all the essentials of a good smart TV OS, such as support for up to 4K HDR streaming, a solid app library with all popular streaming services, access to apps for local media servers, a robust voice assistant in Alexa, and the ability to control compatible smart home devices. Depending on your budget and needs, you can select from multiple Fire TV devices, giving you freedom of choice.
In terms of other key features, the Fire TV platform gives you access to Amazon Luna, Nvidia GeForce Now, and Xbox Cloud Gaming services to play PC-quality games by simply pairing a controller. Fire TV devices are also getting access to Alexa+ — a beefed-up version of Alexa with generative AI support. However, the Fire TV platform is also riddled with advertisements, and it can feel sluggish on less-powerful devices. The Fire TV subreddit is filled with user complaints about both ads and laggy performance. While Amazon’s latest Fire Experience update seems to have fixed some of the performance-related problems, there are still tons of advertisements to go around.
More importantly, like most other smart TV platforms, Fire TV collects a ton of data about you, including your viewing habits, app usage, and screen interactions. While you can prevent it from spying on you, the company will likely still have plenty of data about you.
Apple TV 4K is the only media streaming device currently offered by the company. While it’s over three and a half years old, it remains reasonably powerful as it relies on the A15 Bionic chip — the same chip that powers the iPhone 13. Users haven’t reported major sluggishness or slowdowns on Reddit and other social media platforms. Like the Fire TV platform, the Apple TV 4K has all the essentials you want in a media streamer. For example, it can stream in 4K HDR, has an extensive app library which includes all the top streaming services and local media server apps, and supports controlling compatible smart home products. While it also comes with Siri, the assistant functionality isn’t as expansive as Alexa/Alexa+ you get on the Fire TV devices. You can use Siri to search for content, get answers to general queries, control smart home devices, find apps, and get recommendations.
One major advantage of opting for the Apple TV is that you don’t have to deal with any advertisements in the interface. The overall interface is pretty simple and clean. Apple TV and tvOS are also known for their relatively strong privacy policies, and there is no invasive data collection. It does collect some data, but you can prevent a lot of it. While there is no official support for any cloud gaming services, you can use Apple Arcade for gaming if you have a subscription.
Additionally, the Apple TV 4K offers significantly more onboard storage than any Fire TV device at 64 GB/128 GB, depending on the variant. The most prominent drawback of the Apple TV 4K is its price. Moreover, some of the Apple TV 4K benefits are most useful to folks who are already in the Apple ecosystem.
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