Just over a year after the service launched, live TV streaming service DirecTV Now has topped 1 million subscribers, Variety reports. To celebrate, DirecTV parent company AT&T has announced a batch of new features that will come to the service in 2018.
When DirecTV Now launched last year, it wasn’t a particularly smooth rollout. At the start, the service was plagued by performance issues, but a number of promotions, including offering an Apple TV for those who pre-paid for three months of service, allowed the service to gain more than 200,000 subscribers in its first month.
With the issues since smoothed out, the service has continued to pick up steam. Part of this is due to ongoing promotions, like a 4K Apple TV for those who pre-pay for four months of service, or a free Roku Streaming Stick for those who pre-pay for one month. AT&T also credits its aggressive efforts in adding local broadcast channels, of which the service now offers more than 200.
Earlier this year, DirecTV Now announced new features including a cloud DVR and offline viewing, both of which have yet to arrive on the service but are said to be on the way. In the case of the cloud DVR, the streaming service has rolled out the feature in beta form for certain customers, but with the end of the year quickly approaching, it seems like most customers are going to have to wait until 2018.
AT&T has announced other new features coming to the service in 2018, with perhaps the biggest being 4K and HD quality video. Other newly announced features include user profiles, which some competitors like PlayStation Vue and Hulu already offer, though others like Sling TV don’t. The company also announced it was carrying more than 35,000 on-demand titles, as well as more concurrent streams – a vital feature since the service currently limits customers to two simultaneous streams.
To celebrate its first birthday, DirecTV Now is currently offering new customers their first month of programming for $10 when using the promotional code BDAY2017. To see how the service holds up against its competitors, make sure to check out our comparison of the current major streaming services.
Instagram is making its way to yet another screen, and this time, Apple TV is getting a taste of the Reels rabbit hole. The company has launched a dedicated Instagram app for Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos, and live shows to the big screen. So, if watching one quick clip on a phone somehow turns into an hour of scrolling, there's now a much larger screen for that.
Instagram brings Reels and more to Apple TV
Audio-Technica, a brand well known for making some of the best studio and professional headphones on the market, has just come out with the ATH-AWX7000, which the company itself claims to be its "finest headphones ever." The new flagship closed-back headphone has debuted at an eye-watering price of $3,799. It combines hand-finished Japanese woodwork with a newly developed 58mm driver.
The earcups are made from Kiso cypress, a prized wood historically used for Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Each housing is finished by hand with traditional Echizen lacquer, which brings out the grain and is expected to darken over time. The frame and sliders are finished in a deep navy kachi-iro shade traditionally associated with samurai.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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