New Apple TV and Chromecast: 5 Things You Should Know

If you’re deciding between the new Apple TV and Chromecast, here are five things you need to know about both devices.

Apple has opened orders for the new Apple TV, allowing buyers to purchase the new set-top box. However, if you’re in the market for a new streaming box for your living room, it’s always a good idea to do some research and see what the other options are.

Maybe you’ve seen the low price of the Chromecast and are wondering what the difference is between it and the new Apple TV. After all, the Chromecast is over $100 cheaper than the new Apple TV, so if you’re looking to save some money, you might want to consider Google’s own streaming device.

However, it’s a good idea to know the differences between the new Apple TV and Chromecast, as not all streaming devices are created equal, especially when there is a huge difference in price.

Here are five things you should know about the new Apple TV and Chromecast, and which one would be a better buy for you.

remote controls

One of the big differences between Apple TV and Chromecast is that one has a remote and the other doesn’t.

The new Apple TV comes with a stylish remote with a built-in glass trackpad and motion sensors for gaming. While Apple TV relies entirely on the remote to work, Chromecast does things a little differently.

Instead of Chromecast, which has its own remote, your smartphone, tablet, or laptop acts as a kind of remote. So instead of pointing at a remote and telling Chromecast what to play, you select something on your smartphone and beam it to your Chromecast to play it.

It’s an interesting concept and quite popular. Why shouldn’t the set-top box UI be the smartphone itself?

Device Support

The new Apple TV can stream all kinds of content, but it can act as a sort of intermediary to beam content from a mobile device or computer to your television. This is called AirPlay.

However, not every device is supported by AirPlay. Actually, only Apple products support AirPlay; this means you need an iPhone, iPad or Mac to beam content to your television via Apple TV.

With Chromecast, both iOS and Android devices are supported, as are Mac and Windows machines. Not only can you stream content to Chromecast, you can also mirror your device’s screen to your television, which is a great add-on feature.

Application Selection

The new Apple TV will come with its own App Store just like iOS. This allows users to download and install all kinds of apps made by third-party developers.

It’s unknown how many apps will be available for Apple TV at launch, but the selection probably won’t be incredibly large initially. However, it’s safe to say that the number should increase exponentially over the next few months.

On the other hand, Chromecast thousands of apps available. It works a little differently though. Instead of Chromecast, which should support streaming apps, apps just need to support Chromecast; This means that Chromecast is much easier to support apps as developers only need to add functionality to their apps.

Almost any streaming app you can think of supports Chromecast, so if app selection is your biggest concern, Chromecast has a slight advantage, especially some apps like Amazon Instant Video will probably never come to Apple TV.

General features

The new Apple TV’s features on Chromecast are a handful of great features. For starters, Apple TV has game support that allows users to turn the set-top box into a regular game console.

Plus, the new Apple TV comes with Siri, which lets you perform any type of voice search to easily and quickly find a TV show or movie you want to watch.

The Chromecast is pretty basic and doesn’t have all of those fancy features. It’s really just a device that lets you beam streaming content from a smaller screen device to your television and nothing more.

However, that’s not entirely a bad thing, especially if you’re paying a fraction of the price for the Chromecast, which brings us to just that.

Price

The new Apple TV starts at $149 for the 32GB model and costs $199 for the 64GB version. That’s pretty expensive compared to most set-top boxes on the market right now, and Chromecast is completely on the other end of the spectrum.

The Chromecast costs just $35, making it one of the cheapest streaming device solutions on the market right now.

However, the low price is marked by a lack of features and core functionality, but the fact that some users don’t need much more than that makes the Chromecast a great buy for many users.

However, if you want the full package, perhaps the new Apple TV is better suited for you.