Today Amazon announced that they are releasing an upgrade to their Fire TV that will bring expanded voice search.
“We’re excited and energized by the momentum we’re seeing with Fire TV,” said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Devices. “Customers are telling us they love it, developers are building for it, and we’re working hard to expand existing features and build new ones. We’re thrilled to have Hulu Plus, Crackle, and SHOWTIME integrating their full selection of movies and TV shows into Fire TV’s unified voice search.”
They also announced the following new features that will be rolling out soon.
- New Prime browse will make it even easier to discover movies and TV shows that are included in Prime Instant Video.
- Amazon FreeTime and Amazon MP3 integration coming as part of a free, over-the-air software update.
- More Games coming soon. In addition to the over one hundred games available on Fire TV, you will be able to play touch-enabled games with the upcoming Fire TV app for your phone or tablet.
They also promises new apps developers like Telltale Games, Halfbrick, Pixowl, Disney Interactive, Minority Media, Paradox Interactive, Gaiam, AllRecipes, and Twitch.
The amount of support for Amazon Fire is amazing compared to the slow start Chromecast had. Amazon is clearly dedicated to not just being one more box on the market but a leader. Competition is good for the consumer but the market is starting to become crowded between the discount Android boxes and the big names like, Roku, Google, Apple, and Amazon. Amazons Fire TV is off to a good start but with its main draw being voice search leaves us wondering if it can stand out enough to make a major dent in the market place against the established Roku and Apple TV.