LAS VEGAS—Everyone's been waiting for Apple to presto-change-o its Apple TV set-top box into an actual Apple television set for years. Well, Roku just beat Apple to the punch.
On Sunday at the Consumer Electronics Show, Roku announced Roku TV, which is the Roku streaming service built right into smart TVs, starting with a range of 32- to 55-inch models from TCL and Hisense.
These sets will have the all the same streaming content as a Roku set-top box—more than 31,000 movies and 1200 channels. Users can navigate the whole thing with a simplified 20-button remote control, or use the Roku apps for iOS and Android.
"We don't expect these TVs to be expensive," Roku CEO Anthony Wood told IDG News Service in an interview, although final prices, specs, and release dates are still unannounced. Both Hisense and TCL will show the models at CES starting Monday, and the TVs are expected to ship in fall 2014 in the United States and Canada. Wood also said that six manufacturers would release Roku TV models; TCL and Hisense are the first two to be announced.
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