Google TV Streamer is the most Apple device Google ever made

If you’re looking for a cheap 4K streaming device, you can’t do much better than the Chromecast with Google TV. Available for $50 with 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos in a tidy design that plugs into an HDMI port and hides behind your TV, Chromecast is the perfect foil to Apple TV 4K: half the price with most of the basic functionality.

Google’s newest device, aptly named Google TV Streamer, is a different animal. Priced at $99, it competes directly with Apple TV 4K on price and features, with a 32GB device with ethernet and HDMI that also serves as a Matter smart home hub and Thread border router. Apple, by comparison, charges $129 for a 64GB Apple TV 4K with a similar set of features (minus ethernet) and $149 for a 128GB Apple TV 4K (with ethernet).

While it said the new device has 22 percent faster CPU performance than the Chromecast, Google hasn’t divulged the processor used in TV Streamer, but that it’s using the same MT8696 MediaTek chipset used in the 2021 Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max. That means it’s likely slower than the Apple TV 4K’s A15 chip, but otherwise the specs are similar, with 4GB of RAM, 4K HDR, and Dolby Atmos.

By Google’s own admission, the TV Streamer is a direct competitor to Apple TV 4K, with Shalini Govil-Pai, VP and GM for Google TV, saying Google is “trying to take the market up a notch.” Furthermore, it’s going to stop selling the Chromecast with Google TV, effectively abandoning the low end of the market and leaving Amazon’s Fire TV Stick to scoop up any sales. 

So after all these years of people saying Apple needed to compete with Chromecast with an Apple TV dongle, Google surprised us all by going the other way and making a device to compete with Apple TV 4K, Amazon Fire Cube, and Roku Ultra. And it’s doing it in the most Apple way possible, with a device that prioritizes form and is meant to be seen. The Google TV Streamer has an incredibly thin wedge design that rests elegantly on a TV stand. Its low-profile footprint looks like a charging mat and the color options (Hazel and Porcelain) will look great in any living room.

Apple has had the high-end streamer market locked up for so long, that it hasn’t really had to innovate to stay on top. If it had, it’s easy to imagine something like the Google TV streamer. Apple TV 4K is an excellent streaming box, but it’s not eye-catching in any way–the Google TV Streamer most certainly is. And maybe it’s just the pressure Apple needs to take its own streaming box to the next level.