Update: The launch is now official, with a range of products now on sale – see end of piece.
Photos of what appear to be Roku smart home products have been posted, supported by shipping manifests. It follows the company branching out into audio with speakers intended for use in home theater setups.
A photo on Reddit shows a smart light strip similar to the Hue Lightstrip, and another site has posted images of a range of other Roku-branded products …
After adding support for Apple TV+ back in 2019, Roku is expanding the availability of Apple services with the addition of Apple Music. The streaming company announced today that the full Apple Music experience is now available on Roku devices, including streaming players, Roku TV devices, and Roku premium audio devices.
Apple TV competitor, Roku announced today a new operating system update, version 11. This software is set to bring voice-enabled keyboards to a few languages and supported regions, Roku Photo Streams feature, and more.
Earlier this week, Roku made some Apple-related announcements including HomeKit and AirPlay 2 coming to its HD streaming devices and a dedicated Apple TV+ button coming on the Voice Remote Pro. However, it looks like early buyers of the remote won’t necessarily see that change due to a last-minute deal between the companies.
Short-form video service Quibi may be no more, but some Quibi content will live on. Roku has now confirmed an earlier report that it has agreed to buy the content library …
Roku has poached a senior Siri manager from Apple, as first reported by Bloomberg. Brian Pinkerton joined Roku this month as the company’s senior vice president of advanced development after spending nearly three years as a Siri chief architect at Apple.
Back in September, Roku announced that it would add HomeKit and AirPlay 2 support sometime this year. The new features are now rolling out to 4K Roku streaming devices as well as Roku TV models.
Roku has announced that it will add support for Apple’s HomeKit and AirPlay 2 platforms later this year. This marks one of the biggest expansions of HomeKit and AirPlay 2 capabilities that we’ve seen, particularly in the set-top box market.
Roku streaming devices gained the Apple TV app last month for viewing Apple TV+ shows as well as content from HBO, Showtime, and other Apple TV Channels. Now Roku customers are gaining a convenient new way to control the viewing experience from the Apple Watch.
Roku’s CEO today sat down with CNBC to discuss Apple bringing its refreshed TV app along with its two new streaming services to third-party platforms. The move is a departure for Apple as the company normally keeps its software and apps limited to its own hardware.
At its Services focused “It’s show time” event at Steve Jobs Theater today, Apple shared that it is expanding its TV app bringing it to the Mac and even further with deals with Roku, and Amazon.
Citron Research took to Twitter today with a decisive message: “ROKU stock is uninvestable now”. Immediately after, the stock plunged nearly 10%. This comes after a tremendous 25% gain just 24 hours prior, when newly released strong Q4 streaming numbers boosted the stock drastically.
Roku has today announced that it will start offering over 20 different paid premium subscriptions within its Roku Channel app. These new options like Showtime and Starz add to Roku’s library of over 10,000 free TV shows and movies.
YouTube TV – a $35/month live TV package aimed as a replacement for cable TV – is now available on Roku, and YouTube has said that the Apple TV app is ‘coming very soon’ …
September delivered us a handful of new 4K streaming media players from Apple and Amazon both. Today, Roku is kicking off October with a fresh 4K streaming stick alongside a host of other set-top boxes. Roku typically updates its lineup in the fall and continued that trend following its successful IPO last week.
Along with today’s new releases, the top-of-the-line Roku Ultra is getting a fresh price drop along with the unveiling of OS 8. Full details just below.
According to recent data released by Parks Associates, Apple TV currently is the fourth most popular streaming media device based on 2014 sales, down from third place in 2013. Roku, according to the data, is the most popular streaming media device manufacturer with 34 percent of the market, while Google’s Chromecast accounted for 23 percent of sales.
Apple plans to hold one of its annual fall media events on Wednesday, September 9th to introduce the new iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus with Force Touch, and after many fits and starts, it appears that the long-awaited next-generation Apple TV will also be unveiled. We’ve been reporting on this upcoming model since 2014, as Apple has been planning to update its set-top-box with support for an App Store for quite some time.
Earlier this year, Apple had locked in a June WWDC debut for both the new Apple TV hardware and software upgrades, but the company ultimately decided to delay the introduction until the fall. While some had speculated that the announcement was pushed back due to a lack of content deals, we are told that the delay was internally attributed to a concern over compromising iOS 9 engineering resources, as the latest OS release is focused at least as much on polish as on new features.
Why would the new Apple TV potentially take away resources from iOS 9? According to sources, this new Apple TV model, codenamed J34, will be the first model to run a full-blown iOS core. Specifically, the new Apple TV operating system will be a TV-optimized version of iOS 9. In addition to the new hardware inside, running iOS 9 will give the new Apple TV a series of benefits over the current model. Below, we explore what users can expect from Apple’s next-generation living room product.
Apple TV doubled its share of premium viewing in just three months, from 5% in Q4 2014 to 10% in Q1 2015, according to data from the Adobe Digital Index. Roku’s share increased by only 1% in the same time period, from 7% to 8%. Principal analyst Tamara Gaffney told TNW that Apple’s growth was unprecedented.
Apple TV devices doubling their share of premium video viewing quarter over quarter (QoQ) from 5% to 10%–overtaking Roku […] That’s huge. We never see double in quarter-over-quarter in something that’s been around for a couple of years. We expect Apple TV to take off even more.
Why the spike? Apple dropped the price of the Apple TV to $69 and it grows a few new channels every month but the survey didn’t offer any guesses. Adobe also noted that iOS devices account continue to dominate mobile video viewing, representing 82% of non-subscription viewing … Expand Expanding Close
Just so there’s no ambiguity on this point, I’m definitely an Apple TV fan. The first-generation model was a (literally) hot mess, but Apple did a much better job with the streamlined second- and third-generation versions, which I use every day and have strongly recommended for years. If you have an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, the Apple TV is one of the top three accessories you can buy for under $100, and nearly a no-brainer at Apple’s recently announced $69 price point.
Even as a fan, though, I give Apple TV’s chief competitor Roku great credit for developing compelling alternatives. According to reports, Roku is the number one seller of media streamers, and has been outselling the Apple TV for some time now. While it’s true that sales don’t necessarily reflect quality, Roku has earned its numbers by frequently iterating on its products — ironically unlike Apple, which has spent years letting an old Apple TV design chug along as a “hobby.” The difference in Roku’s and Apple’s approaches became starker yesterday when Roku released the new Roku 3 with Voice Search ($100) and new Roku 2 ($70), updates to two of its already-successful devices. These media streamers include several of the key features Apple should be adding to the Apple TV, including voice search, downloadable apps, games, and more…
The AllCast media streaming app–which allows photos, music and video to be beamed from a mobile device to an Apple TV, Roku, Xbox, FireTV and a range of smart TVs–has now made it to iOS, following the release of the Android app last month (shown in the above video). It’s compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, and is optimized for iPhone 5 and up.
The app works in a very similar way to the Chromecast stick–or, as the developer puts it, “no setup necessary, it just works like magic” … Expand Expanding Close
A new report compiled by Parker Associates and discovered by Gigaom revealed that the Apple TV has lost some U.S. market share to competitors like the Roku and Chromecast last year, causing it to become only the third most popular device in the category.
According to the report, Google’s Chromecast and the Roku streaming device each sold around 3.8 million units in 2013—though the figure is more impressive in the case of the Chromecast, which was only introduced in the second half of the year. Apple, on the other hand, reportedly moved 2 million devices, putting it just below the others.
CNET is reporting that Roku CEO Anthony Wood described Apple TV as an ‘iPad accessory’ at Re/code’s Code/Media conference. Until recently, even Apple characterised the product as a ‘hobby’. The Apple TV box has not changed much since its major revamp in 2010. More controversially, Wood followed up by claiming that the Apple TV actually loses money for Apple – which would immediately seem strange since Rokus have similar hardware and cost less.
“Apple TV is essentially an accessory for the iPad. They lose money, which is unusual for Apple,” he said Thursday, speaking at the Recode conference here. “If you’re losing money, why would you want to sell more?”
Roku Streaming Stick w/ remote (refurb) 
