Peter Cao
If you own any Fire TV products, Amazon is giving the user interface (UI) a fresh coat of paint. In addition to a new look, you’ll be getting a few new features including User Profiles and an improved Alexa experience. The new UI is rolling out to the Fire TV Stick (third-gen) and Fire TV Stick Lite in the coming weeks, and on everything else sometime next year.
While it’s not available on every streaming stick out there yet (looking at you Chromecast and Roku), user profiles makes for a pretty seamless experience especially with improved Alexa integration. The voice assistant will now be able to both recognize and switch to your profile as well as search for TV shows, movies, and more. Alexa also takes up less on the screen when asking for basic tasks such as asking for the time. It will appear at the bottom, versus taking up the entire screen.
The new UI is pretty neat too. There’s a new “home bar” near the top of the screen. That houses your Library, Home, Find, and Live tabs in addition to a list of your most used-apps to the right. The Find tab is the most interesting as search has been revamped to better recommend you movies and TV shows.
In addition, the new update also includes picture-in-picture support, letting you continue to watch your video uninterrupted while doing other things.
Amazon’s Fire TV lets you watch TV and movies from all the major streaming platforms, including HBO Max and YouTube TV. As we mentioned at the top, the rollout is a bit weird. The Fire TV Stick (third-gen) and Fire TV Stick Lite will be getting the update first, and everything else will see it early next year.
via The Verge
