Fire TV Omni and 4-Series
Amazon is officially in the TV business. The company has announced its first lineup of Amazon-branded 4K Fire TVs, which will begin shipping in October. This is a major expansion from the company’s “Fire TV Edition” collaborations, where its popular streaming software comes preloaded on sets manufactured by other TV makers. But with its new Omni and 4-Series, Amazon is describing these as “Amazon-built TVs.”
The Omni series is the higher-end of the two, and beyond offering better picture quality, its other key selling point is hands-free voice control. Amazon includes far-field microphones in each model of the Omni series, which comes in 43, 50, 55, 65, and 75 inches.
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The Fire TV Omni sets also include picture-in-picture for checking your smart home cameras, and you’ll see your Ring doorbell feed whenever someone is at the door. Amazon says it will be adding a “smart home dashboard” later this year for more comprehensive controls over your connected home gadgets.
You can get a 43-inch 4K smart TV for about double the price of an Apple TV 4K box with no screen. Amazon has more details here.
This privacy report focuses on streaming services, not hardware platforms, but related to the previous post re: Amazon’s new Fire TV Omni Series, it’s also the case that Apple TV is the only platform that makes privacy a priority and doesn’t put ads on your screen.
Except for ads for Apple services.
Previously:
> Amazon includes far-field microphones in each model of the Omni series
Because that's what my TV needs is a microphone. It's not enough that Amazon will presumably be doing pixel tracking to see what you're watching. Now they want to record your room, too.
> Except for ads for Apple services.
While I've definitely seen ads in various places for Apple services on my iPhone (most notably the full-screen popup that appears nearly every time I open the Music app) I've never seen an ad from Apple on Apple TV. Then again, I don't use the TV app, so maybe that's where they all are?