The more foolish among us are sold bold as to say what Apple will do. The Internet - that is folks who likely spend too much time on it - loves nothing more than to speculate about what Apple may do. New Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED displays art, senses your presence More than 100 Amazon Originals head to Amazon FreeveeĪmazon Fire TVs can stream directly to hearing implantsĪmazon Echo Show 15 is getting the full Fire TV update today TV dialogue is getting harder to understand. And even though we’re talking real first-world problems here - it’s not like clicking a remote a few times inside an app to toggle captions is all that difficult - it could go a long way toward, well, something.Īt least getting a couple of cranky old writers to settle down. Amazon and Roku - and all the other platforms, for that matter - could tell the various video services “You need to code your apps so that if a button press tells an app to turn captions off or on, your app will do so.” It’s a little more complicated than that, of course, especially when you get into the differences between subtitles and captions.īut it’s doable. There’s a reason developer standards exist, and this is precisely why. That’s something the platforms actually could take care of. It’s pretty clear that while captions and subtitles are included in all the apps where you’d expect them, there’s not one standard implementation of them within the apps themselves. So, too, are Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV. There may well be other apps on which it works, too - these are just some of the bigger ones I tried.īut it also fails to work on some pretty major apps. It also works on Max, the streaming service formerly known as HBO Max, as well as with Paramount+. It also works on Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ - three apps all owned by Disney and which should be using the same tech stack. It works as intended with Roku’s own video offerings, such as anything you watch on The Roku Channel. Setting one of the programmable buttons gives you the option to turn captions off, have them always on, have them on if you hit the replay button on the remote (which takes you back a few seconds), or when the TV is muted. (Though I couldn’t get that part to work for some reason.) But unlike Amazon, one of those options happens to be “Closed captions.” You also can program a voice command, the same as with the Alexa remote, which gives you another avenue to turn on captions or subtitles. Like the Alexa Voice Remote, Roku gives you a few options from which to program one of the buttons. But if you have it, you have two programmable buttons at your disposal. Again, this remote doesn’t come with the least-expensive Roku streaming devices, which is a shame. Things are slightly better when it comes to the Roku Voice Remote Pro. In other words, a custom function that really only works in a single app isn’t much of a custom button at all. (And that includes the Amazon-owned Freevee.) Only one problem here: That scheme works great in the Amazon Prime Video app, but it doesn’t work in every other streaming app I tried. I then did the same thing for Button 2, programming it to “Turn captions off.” It’s a little clunky, but it works great. So I hit the Alexa button, said “Turn captions on,” and then held down Button 1 and set it to repeat that action. That means you’re not limited to the options presented on the screen when you first attempt to program one of the buttons. The programmable Alexa Voice Remote can be tasked to repeat a voice command, too. The good news? There’s a pretty easy workaround, though it does require you to use both buttons. That’s a shame and something Amazon should be able to fix relatively easily if it wants. The bad news is that there isn’t an obvious “Toggle captions” option for the buttons. There’s good and bad news when it comes to captions, however. It’s really good, from the form to the feel to the options. In our Alexa Voice Remote Pro review - yes, we reviewed a little remote control - we were unequivocal in saying that it should just be included in the box of all Amazon Fire TV devices. Here’s the state of play when it comes to the programmable buttons and captions: Amazon Alexa Voice Remote Pro Roku will start making its own Roku TVs and OLED reference design Amazon Fire TV Channels brings even more free TV to the platformĪmazon celebrates 200 million Fire TV devices by launching more
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