The Xbox 360, an under-appreciated media streamer in its own right, has had unified search for awhile. And it’s actually better than Roku’s; Roku requires you to use the Roku remote, which is kind of awful, to very slowly and painfully navigate to each letter on the on-screen keyboard. The Xbox lets you use the Kinect and just yell out loud in the direction of the TV that you want to watch eight episodes of The West Wing, right now. But Roku’s works well otherwise: it searches quickly and shows you all the available options, including both paid and free, and whether they’re in HD or only standard-def. If you search for a TV show, it’ll let you narrow your search to just the specific season you want. Remote notwithstanding, it works very well. And anything that makes the sometimes-difficult world of media streaming easier to use is something that takes us one step closer to our connected-TV future.
