Seems to be a reason to charge people more for the same thing but slap the AI label all over it. But that's just first impressions.
Edit: and apparently the TV Streamer thing is twice the price of the Chromecast.
If Apple were run like Google, the iPhone would have been cancelled half a dozen times only to be resurrected as Apple Phone++ and Pocket AI, repeatedly investing in and torching brand awareness while distracting resources from product development to internal promotion and marketing the newest brand at the top of the escalator.
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-tv-streamer-processo...
heh...
Single core:
Fire Stick - 140
Shield TV - 279 (99% faster, twice as fast).
Tensor G1 (Pixel 6 Pro) - 1007 (619% faster, seven times faster)
A15 (Apple TV) - 1684 (1103% faster, 12 times as fast).
Multi-core:
Fire Stick - 491
Shield TV - 971 (98% faster, twice as fast).
Tensor G1 (Pixel 6 Pro) - 2541 (418% faster, five times faster)
A15 (Apple TV) - 4489 (814% faster, nine times as fast).
We're going to be seeing a lot of this in the next year or two.
The "best devices" lineup has been the nvidia shield pro, Roku ultra, and Apple tv 4k, with Roku being the cheapest at $99.
If you don't care about decoding support for all the different video formats, HDR10, dolby xy and z, etc., then these sorts of devices might not be for you.
The Shield is literally the only streaming device on the market that I'm aware of that does this. Without it, I wouldn't get the Atmos/DTS:X information passed on to my receiver when watching blu-ray rips.
For audio it says it supports "Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Atmos", so I guess we can only assume that means DTS-X is missing.
But supporting HDR10+ a nice win over the shield, and it also does support the necessities like HLG, H.265, H.264, VP9, and AV1.
The current generation Chromecast (Chromecast with Google TV (4K)) was fast and responsive when it launched, but software updates have made it almost unusually laggy over time. Obviously the best solution here would be “just make the software fast again”, but not all the relevant software is written by Google, and the third party apps need to be fast even if they are not well-optimized. The previous hardware wasn’t up to the task, and the dongle form factor makes thermals a challenge regardless of what chip you put in. A set top box format + more capable chip + the general trend in higher component costs = a higher BOM cost. I think Google has correctly judged that many consumers are willing to pay a higher cost for a more responsive device.
The name change just makes sense, because the previous name was terrible. “Google Chromecast with Google TV (4K)” is… a mouthful. The “Google Chromecast” branding is also associated with the “casting” UX flow that was the only way to interact with the first 3 generations of Chromecast devices. The majority of interaction with the current generation devices is probably through the remote (including the voice search feature on the remote). “Google TV Streamer” conveys the use case much more clearly.
I get as frustrated as anyone else when Google kills products I use, but this clearly isn’t a case of that. They’re just releasing a new generation with some changes that plausibly meet consumer demand a bit better than the old version.
> Although the specifications for the MT8696 haven’t been published by MediaTek anywhere online, Amazon [which also used it in the past] says that the MT8696(T) variant of the chipset in the 2nd Gen model features a quad-core CPU clocked at up to 2.0GHz. The core design is ARM’s Cortex-A55
> The 2020 Chromecast with Google TV (4K) utilized Amlogic’s S905X3 SoC with four ARM Cortex-A55 cores clocked at up to 1.9GHz
Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41171393
So both use 4 x Cortex-A55. The alleged "22% faster CPU performance" does sound strange, as the maximum clock speed is merely ~5% higher. Though it does have more RAM (4 GB instead of 2 GB).
They could have used a more recent SoC instead of the Mediatek from 2021, which would have been more efficient, but also more expensive. Making it a box instead of a dongle could also be motivated by better audio recording ability (for AI assistants), perhaps.
At the same time, the current generation Apple TV will absolutely smoke this thing in performance, even though the Apple TV is at the end of its refresh cycle.
At their original price point, Chromecasts were pretty great, but why on earth would I pay the same as an Apple TV for something containing an SoC from 2021? I wasn't able to find reliable numbers, but performance seems to be lower by 1-2 orders of magnitude.
Though if you lose your remote in the cushions or whatever note that your iPhone can be used as a "hotter hotter colder colder" method to find the remote. Was surprised to find this feature. https://support.apple.com/en-ca/108371
It also supports a wide variety of wireless gaming controllers (including PS and xbox ones). The games aren't as good as a Switch or PS4, though.
Most usage is via a Chromecast Ultra. I have a Chromecast 4K with TV (i.e. newer device) but it was a backwards step from an experience perspective (covered by others elsewhere).
The chat mess with Google Talk, Hangouts, Meet, Duo, etc. was quite sad to watch because Talk was a great product.
I hope they're happy with the zoo they have.
The sale of Domains was also massive imo. No reason for half of this and their internal incentivization needs dramatic revision.