by Jason Snell
New Apple TV to debut with universal search
Speaking of John Paczkowski, he reported today that the new Apple TV will cost $149 and offer universal search as a major new feature:
Sources familiar with Apple’s plans say that a cornerstone of the the company’s new set-top box is a universal search feature that will enable searches across multiple streaming video services as well as Apple’s iTunes Store. Instead of searching the catalogs of multiple video services one at a time for a particular movie, you’ll now be able to search all — or most of them — at once and then choose the service on which you’d like to watch it. You’ll also be able to search for actors and directors, and run other more targeted searches as well — all with Siri.
My TiVo has a unified search engine, and it’s quite convenient. Adding universal search to Apple TV, and tying it in with Siri, should make the device a huge improvement over the current model.