| Cult of Mac

How the 2020 Amazon Fire HD 8 stacks up against the iPad mini

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Amazon Fire HD 8 takes on Apple iPad mini 5
The Amazon Fire HD 8 certainly costs less than iPad mini 5, but has other advantages too.
Photo: Amazon/Apple

Amazon significantly upped the specs of the latest Fire 8 tablet, with a faster processor, more storage, USB-C and even wireless charging. But how does this inexpensive 8-inch slate stack up against the 7.9-inch iPad mini 5 released in 2019?

Apple TV+ is live. Here’s how to sign up.

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AppleTV+
Even Roku can get Apple TV+.
Photo: Roku

Apple TV+ is here, and anyone can test it out for a week for free. After that, the $5-per-month charge will be billed automatically, just like any other Apple subscription you may have. Unless, of course, you get to watch Apple TV+ for free. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Apple’s new TV subscription service is pitched as a rival to Netflix, Amazon Prime and so on. It works on Apple devices. Plus, you can watch Apple TV+ on Samsung TVs, Roku boxes and in pretty much any web browser. Signing up is absurdly easy, but a few tips will help you get the most out of the service.

Facebook is making a video app for Apple TV

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Facebook
Facebook is coming to Apple TV.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Mark Zuckerberg wants to take over your television.

Facebook revealed today that it is planning to build an all-new video app for set-top-box devices like Apple TV and Amazon Fire. And if it’s successful, it could cause big problems for YouTube.

Amazon Surges Past Apple In Streaming Video Stats

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amazon_rank_slide

Amazon’s Prime Instant Video service is on fire in the United States — and that growth happened before Amazon even introduced its $99 Fire TV set-top box.

According to a new report from online-video delivery and caching solutions provider Qwilt, streams on Prime Instant Video have almost tripled over the past year — and in the process have passed both Apple and Hulu in terms of volume of video streaming traffic. The data was gathered from MSO broadband providers that use the Qwilt systems.