Apple TV's Killer Feature? It Blows Competitors Out of the Water on Search

We know Apple is decent at search. But we were surprised at just how good the new Apple TV search appears to be, based on the company's announcement today at its event. "Show me James Bondfilms with Sean Connery." "Find that episode of Modern Family with Edward Norton." "Game of Thrones. Just the new ones."

If you own a Roku or other set top box, you're used to painfully tapping in the title of your desired show or movie into Netflix's painfully picky search interface. Voice control is available on some Samsung TVs (although they may be eavesdropping on you) but no one has nailed the commands (contrast barking "channel up" and "Smart Hub" at your supposedly smart television with asking your TV to recommend a movie the same way you'd ask your roommate.

This is part of Siri on Apple TV, which does some other nifty stuff. Didn't hear what a character said? Ask Siri to rewind and replay the last 15 seconds with captions. Want to know the weather or a sports score? Siri can display this over whatever you're watching. As long as you don't accidentally set off your iPhone while you're trying to talk to your TV, it'll be pretty convenient for iPhone users who are used to voice control.

The other buzzy announcement today: the App Store.

Compared to the older Apple TV older model, which hasn't been significantly upgraded for three years, this new model runs a derivative of iOS 9 called tvOS that supports a dedicated App Store for the first time ever.

It also includes 32GB ($149) or 64GB ($199) of built-in storage for all those downloaded apps and a Nintendo Wii-like motion controller that will almost certainly be useful for playing home console-like video games. It ships in October.

The inclusion of a dedicated App Store is the singular most important thing to happen to the Apple TV since Apple decided to go all-in on streaming over the internet directly from iTunes back in 2010. (Before this, all movies and TV shows had to be completely downloaded from iTunes before they would play. It was barbaric!) The pattern is familiar for longtime Apple watchers: the iPhone launched in 2007 but didn't gain an App Store until 2008, eventually leading to the proliferation of popular apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Uber that leveraged the power of a tiny, internet-connected computer tucked away in your pocket.

The hope is that the same thing happens to Apple TV, as developers are finally able to create apps for the largest screen in your house. Periscope is already on board, and it's easy to guess which apps available for competing platforms like Amazon's Fire TV, Google Chromecast, and Roku will make the jump to Apple TV. If I had to guess, I'd say apps like Plex, which streams all those DVD rips you made back in the day from your home network to your TV, are a shoe-in.

But it's the apps that haven't yet been developed that are most exciting. Who looked at an iPhone in 2008 and could have ever envisioned something like Uber or Snapchat? Fast forward a few years from now, and will we be asking ourselves how we ever managed to live without "Televisionr," an "Uber for TV" that we totally just made up that lets cord cutters watch, on demand, a broadcast or cable channel for the price of a microtransaction?