The online retailer-turned tech company and content provider announced its new Amazon Fire TV product today at an event in New York City. The $99 is available for order now on Amazon.com.
The new settop box, unveiled by Peter Larsen, the company's vice president in charge of Kindle, is "very thin, about the size of a small piece of toast," said analyst James McQuivey, author of Digital Disruption: Unleashing the Next Wave of Innovation. McQuivey was among several analysts and tech journalists attending the event, providing updates on Twitter about Amazon's announcement.
The Fire TV name "makes good sense, builds on the brand," he said, after noting that the company "sees the millions of set top boxes that they sell, they know this is a hot market."
BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield posted that the Fire TV settop box promises to be three times as fast as competing products. For Netflix, which is a competitor in terms of streaming video content, Amazon's announcement is good news in a way. The "more IP-enabled TVs the better for #netflix - makes it easier to get to their service on the big screen," he noted on Twitter.
#Amazon#kindlefiretv price and features ships today pic.twitter.com/4Y3axw5Wmd
— Rich Greenfield (@RichBTIG) April 2, 2014Fire TV's included remote lets you use voice to search for content and the ASAP (Advanced Streaming and Prediction) feature predicts what you want to watch and buffers them before you even hit play. Among the other services beyond Amazon Instant Video and Netflix that are pre-loaded on the device: WatchESPN, Hulu, Pandora, YouTube, Crackle and Showtime -- and music services TuneIn, Pandora, Amazon MP3 and iHeartRadio.
"Tiny box, huge specs, tons of content, incredible price—people are going to love Fire TV," said Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos in a statement. "Voice search that actually works means no more typing on an alphabet grid. Our exclusive new ! ASAP feature predicts the shows you'll want to watch and gets them ready to stream instantly. And our open approach gives you not just Amazon Instant Video and Prime Instant Video, but also Netflix, Hulu Plus, and more. On Fire TV you can watch Alpha House and House of Cards."
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The settop box will also play video games that can be played with a controller.
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