New Delhi: Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook unveiled a new version of its Apple TV product with an app store and a voice-controlled remote control, part of a trio of announcements aimed at revamping its product line.
The redesigned Apple TV box relies on a system that revolves around apps and voice controls. Its price will start at $149, more expensive than competing devices from competitors such as Roku, Amazon's Fire TV and Google's Chromecast that already have been offering some of the same features that will now be available in the new Apple TV box.
The 32 GB Apple TV is priced at $149, and the 64 GB model at $199. It will be available in late October.
Cook described the new Apple TV, a product which the company long called a 'hobby', as the future of television, offering personalisation and ease of use.
The new Apple TV has new capabilities such as voice controls and non-video apps, including games and shopping. Even video apps will have more capabilities, including baseball stats and the ability to watch two games at once side by side.
Demonstrations of the new Apple TV showed tricks to make viewing easier: digital assistant Siri, which is behind the voice control, can rewind a video for 15 seconds and turn on subtitles, when a viewer asks something like "What did she say"?
"We've been working really hard, and really long," on TV, Cook said, emphasizing the word 'long' in a nod to the time it has taken the company to produce an ambitious TV product.
The main Roku 3 and Amazon Fire TV devices cost about $100, though cheaper versions with fewer features are available — as low as $39 for the Amazon Fire TV Stick. Google also sells a Chromecast device for $35.
Maynard Um of Wells Fargo Securities has said that to justify a higher price, "Apple will have to provide significant innovation and functionality."
It remains to be seen whether consumers will consider those capabilities to be enough.
The company will continue selling the existing model for $69, a price that had dropped from $99 in March.
(With inputs from Reuters and Associated Press)
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