Apple TV adds Ted Talks galore with new app update

By Kyle Wiggers March 25, 2015

Apple TV — Image used with permission by copyright holder

With the announcement of a price drop to $69 from $99 earlier this month, the Apple TV became a pretty good value proposition. But its app selection still pales in comparison to other streaming hardware on the market, most notably Roku. Still, as evidenced by the arrival of TED, Tastemade, and Young Hollywood apps, its catalog isn’t finished growing.

For the uninitiated, TED is an organization that hosts influential speakers at conferences across the globe. Some of these are published on TED’s YouTube channel, but the official app grants access to a much larger archive — more than 1,900 Ted Talks and over 200 curated playlists, to start. For those with TED.com accounts, the app will also sync your web bookmarks.

The other two additions, Tastemade and Young Hollywood, are fairly self-explanatory. Tastemade is a video network of food and travel programs, and Young Hollywood is a tabloid-style channel of celebrity and music news. For comparison’s sake, Roku has TED and Tastemad but lacks Young Hollywood. Amazon’s Fire TV is missing all three.

Absent for now is HBO Now, which is expected to launch next month. And you won’t find any hints of Siri integration or an App Store, both features of the radically refreshed Apple TV rumored to be unveiled at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference. Luckily, occupying yourself until then won’t be too difficult — start working your way from the top of TED’s library and you might get a quarter of the way through by June.

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Kyle Wiggers is a writer, Web designer, and podcaster with an acute interest in all things tech. When not reviewing gadgets…

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