Sony's PlayStation TV vs. Amazon’s Fire TV, Apple TV, And More

Having appeased its core crowd of PlayStation gamers (so far, anyway), Sony is looking to cram everyone else into the proverbial living room—all while doling out more goodies to its devotees. At this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the company revealed plans to release a new version of its PlayStation “micro-console” in North America later this year.

See also: Sony Is About To Launch A Cloud-Gaming War With The PlayStation TV
Although the PlayStation TV looks like just yet another $99 Web TV box, looks may be deceiving. Depending on what you want out of your streaming thing of choice, Sony’s PS TV packs more bells and whistles than much of the competition and—should it live up to its pre-release hype—stands to please hardcore, casual and perhaps even non-gamers alike.

Let's take a look at how it stands up to its current competition.


Sony PlayStation TV: $99

The PlayStation TV (PS TV) is a handsome little streaming box with a lot going on. The tiny gaming console doesn't need to connect to a PlayStation 4, but if you own one, it will enable you to beam your PS4 play to a different TV in the house—a pretty neat trick for settling battles over sofa real estate.

The PS TV will make good use of Sony's upcoming PlayStation Now cloud gaming network, with plants to support "hundreds" of PS3 titles as well as most PS Vita titles and PS1 and PSP classic games, thanks to the respectable specs it shares with the PlayStation Vita handheld console. Beyond that, the PS TV is expected to come equipped with streaming stalwarts like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, TuneIn and others, all already available on the handheld PS Vita, though its broader multimedia talents have yet to be confirmed.

The console works with PlayStation DualShock 3 or DualShock 4 controllers, and will sell as a standalone device or as a $139 bundle that includes a DualShock 3 controller, an 8GB memory card, and a virtual copy of the Lego Movie Videogame.


Amazon Fire TV: $99

For living room streaming, the Fire TV is a compelling, if standard, choice. Naturally, it works best in Amazon’s own ecosystem with Amazon Instant Video, but it also stocks the now-standard streaming line-up (Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, Pandora, Vevo, etc.).

See also: Review: The Amazon Fire TV Is Kind Of A Mess
With its own custom-designed gaming controller (sold separately for $40), the Fire TV might be the only other an hybrid media streaming/gaming box that can be taken seriously. Still, you'll mostly be stuck with mobile games you could play on a tablet, like Minecraft Pocket Edition. Amazon is working on more original gaming content like Sev Zero, so that's something to keep in mind.


Roku 3: $89

Technically, the Roku 3 lets you play games with its motion sensing remix of a classic remote, but with a limited selection and no dedicated controller, the feature comes off as an afterthought. For streaming TV and video, the Roku remains an elegant choice—for gaming though, not so much. Roku also sells the pared-down Roku Stick for $49, but you won't be doing any motion gaming on it.


Apple TV: $99

The Apple TV still makes plenty of sense for anyone neck-deep in Apple's iTunes and App Store ecosystems. Unless Apple ups its gaming game (and it may), the only way to "play" games on the device is to play compatible titles on an iPad, iPod or iPhone and mirror them on the big screen via AirPlay.


Ouya: $99

The Kickstarted Android-based box was an enthusiastic experiment in indie console gaming, but these days, things aren't looking so good. The Ouya comes with a dedicated controller and lets you hack stuff like Netflix onto it, but in 2014, it's purer in theory than execution.


Steam Machine: Price variable, starting at around $549 (Alienware) up to $6,000

Valve's small army of third-party Steam consoles, now delayed until 2015, will run SteamOS and offer a custom controller for its stable of major league, console-level digital games. While the goal of emancipating PC gaming from the PC is noble enough, the pricing makes any Steam Box a truly niche device for dedicated console-averse PC gamers.


Google Chromecast : $35

If you want a price can't be beat and just need the core set of streaming entertainment apps, there is no reason whatsoever to not buy a Chromecast. It's $35 and streams music and video from a growing selection of compatible mobile apps to your TV, but it's no game console.

See also: Google's Chromecast: Complete Coverage
The PS TV looks to set a new bar among streaming boxes with smaller dreams, but we'll have to see it to believe it. Unfortunately, that means waiting until this fall while Sony builds out PlayStation Now and refines its little micro-console. 

How to Enable AirPlay Mirroring in iOS 7 to Stream an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch Display Wirelessly

AirPlay Mirroring sends exactly what is on the iPhone or iPad screen wirelessly over to an Apple TV or a compatible AirPlay receiver app on a Mac or PC like Reflector orXBMC, including the audio stream if one is available. This mirroring feature is great for demonstrations, presentations, picture slideshows, watching video on a larger screen, gaming on a bigger display, recording an iOS device screen, and so much more.

While iOS AirPlay Mirroring is simple to use, how it works can cause some confusion and lead some users to believe it’s not working at all. Furthermore, AirPlay and Mirroring is hidden by default in iOS, and you’ll need to meet a few basic requirements before finding the feature available for usage on any iOS 7 device. This makes it a bit different than how it works from a Macwhere it’s always visible but not necessarily usable, but once you learn how to use it on your iDevice, you’ll find it’s not complicated.

AirPlay Mirroring Requirements for iOS

• An AirPlay receiver / server – this can be an Apple TV,Reflector, or XBMC, etc
• The iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch must be new enough to support AirPlay Mirroring, running iOS 7 or newer
• Both the sending iOS device and the receiving AirPlay device must be on the same wi-fi network

Assuming you meet those basic requirements, you can get started streaming the iOS screen over to a bigger display.

How to Use AirPlay Mirroring in iOS 7+

Before doing anything else, be sure the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch is on the same wireless network as the AirPlay receiver, this is necessary otherwise the two devices won’t be able to communicate with one another.

1. Power on the Apple TV, or launch the AirPlay Receiver app on a computer
2. Swipe up from the bottom of the iOS screen to bring up Control Center
3. Tap the “AirPlay” button
4. Choose the name of the AirPlay receiver device from the menu, then toggle “Mirroring” to ON to send the iOS screen to the receiver

The iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch screen will now instantly appear on the Apple TV, or the Mac or PC if they are running an AirPlay receiver app.

Using an iPhone mirrored over to a Mac running the Reflector app as an example, this is what it will look like:

It’s important to note that the AirPlay option will not be available if the receiver device is not found. Thus, if “AirPlay” is not visible in Control Center be sure the AirPlay receiver is online and active (meaning, if it’s an app that the app is open and running on the computer), and double-check that both AirPlay streaming devices are on the same wireless network.

These are the two most significant errors encountered with using AirPlay and AirPlay Mirroring in iOS, and fortunately are extremely simple to resolve. If you find that only audio is streaming over and there is no screen display showing up on the receiver device, you probably simply forgot to toggle the “Mirroring” option ON from the Control Center, so just swipe up again and enable it as described in step 4 above.

Sending an iPhone or iPad display mirrored over to an Apple TV will just display the home screen or open app, with the remainder of the TV having black bars. While AirPlay Mirroring is active, the titlebar of iOS will often turn blue to indicate that mirroring is enabled, I say ‘often’ because it doesn’t happen all the time with all devices, thus it’s not reliable enough to be a guaranteed indicator of AirPlay activity.

As of now, Apple only supports AirPlay Mirroring output to an Apple TV, but if you don’t have an Apple TV yourself you can still use the feature and try it out yourself by utilizing third party apps that run in OS X, Linux, or Windows, like the aforementioned Reflector, or XBMC. The latter app is free, whereas the other two options are paid with free trials, all of which make for excellent apps that are well worth exploring for those interested in wireless streaming of the screen of an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Turning Off AirPlay Mirroring in iOS

Finished mirroring the iOS screen to another display? Disabling AirPlay Mirroring is super simple:

1. Flip up from the bottom of the screen to open Control Center again
2. Tap on the ‘AirPlay’ button (it should be in white) and select the devices name from the list (for example, iPhone or iPad)
3. Tap “Done” to close out both the AirPLay and the mirrored stream instantly

Simply swiping the “Mirror” option to OFF will turn off the display while keeping the AirPlay audio stream active, thus you’ll want to tap onto the device name to turn off the entire feature.

Of course, the AirPlay streaming feature isn’t limited to mirroring, and the same technology can also be used tostream music and much more.

 mirroring to Macs, not iOS devices.