Amazon Fire TV Adds Unified Voice Search for Several Apps
It’s Gary Busey’s lucky day.
Amazon’s Fire TV has just added several new content partners for the streaming box’s unified voice search feature, including Hulu Plus, Showtime Anywhere and Crackle. Users looking for something to watch will now be able to search across those services, as well as the libraries of both Amazon and Vevo.
A bit of bad news, though; Netflix, arguably the most popular streaming content service available, still doesn’t support unified voice search. In order to look through Netflix’s library of available movies and TV shows, you’ll have to open the app and search manually using the on-screen keyboard.
It’s a bummer that Netflix isn’t on board yet, but I can’t imagine it won’t happen soon.
At least the Netflix app is present and accounted for on the Amazon Fire TV, though. The HBO GO app is still missing, and with Game of Thrones returning to cable two Sundays ago, it’s an app that a lot of Fire TV owners would probably love to have.
The highly touted voice search feature is one of the standout features of the new Amazon Fire TV. The majority of the streaming set-top boxes on the market use a remote input, which isn’t all that friendly when having to type a movie title character by character.
The fact that the search is unified across many — but not all — services is also very useful. Unified search is a staple of the Roku family of streaming boxes, and it’s also present on the Xbox One console. Having used both, I can say that being able to find a certain show or movie without having to search multiple apps is a blessing. It’s kind of like having the wonderful canistream.it built right in.
We’ll be keeping an eye on the Amazon Fire TV for any updates on new apps or features. In the meantime, what do you think about Amazon adding support for more apps in unified voice search? Leave your thoughts below.
[h/t Mashable]