So far so good with the Roku

A few weeks back I announced I was going to get a Roku Ultra as I’ve grown tired of the piece of crap Apple TV 4. Well I didn’t get a Roku Ultra, I instead got a Roku Premiere+, which is the step down from the Ultra. And I didn’t replace my 4th gen Apple TV…..yet. I decided to install the Roku on my bedroom TV and replace the aging 2nd gen Apple TV I’ve been using. I really do like Roku. It’s nice having Amazon Video has a choice. The remote control is superior over the Apple TV remote. And the fact that I can plug headphones in to the remote is a nice tough.

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And if you didn’t know, there is a Roku app for your smartphone (at least for ios, not sure about android) that allows you to control the player as well as making it way easier to type in text. And it also will pass through audio if you have headphones plugged in to your phone.

Another nice feature that I discovered by accident was that I could stream the Youtube video I was watching on my iPad to the Roku. Not sure if works with other media apps, but does work for Youtube.

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Hopefully soon I can replace the other 2 Apple TV’s in the house.

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Ordering a Roku Ultra

My media player of choice for years has been the Apple TV. I have a Gen 2, Gen 3, and a Gen 4 throughout the house. The combination of the Gen 2 & 3 along with iTunes has been a pretty solid combination for my household. I was pretty psyched for the Gen 4, because all it was missing was apps. I bought the 32GB Apple TV 4 right when it was released and I’ve just never been happy with it. The interface is crap, the remote is crap, and I constantly have to restart it to get it working properly again. I was really hoping that the tvOS update that came last month would have brought tremendous improvements, but it brought nothing that improved my user experience with it.

At this point, I’m ready to try a different media player. One thing that has kept me tied to the Apple stuff was that all my media has been kept in iTunes. I’ve since setup a Plex server and moved all my media over to it and it’s been a pretty impressive experience. Being on a new media server allows me to look at other media players. So I’ve pre-ordered one of the new Roku Ultra‘s.

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The new Roku’s officially release October 7th, so I won’t have it until early next week. I will report back once it’s setup with my first impressions.