More on online TV and fresh food from the north

By | November 27, 2017
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As you probably know, I live up in Cumbria. It’s a lovely place (which is why I live here) but not famous for any hi-tech online businesses.

Well, one localish company has just done a deal with Amazon – and you might hear a lot more about them from now on.

It’s not a hi-tech, cutting edge, digital company, though, it’s Booths – the supermarket. Now, I know they’re not technically a Cumbrian company (their HQ is in Preston in Lancashire) but they’re certainly not the kind of company you’d expect to be talking about along with Amazon. (Some people call them “The Waitrose of the North” – I’m not sure how they take that but they do sell some good food!)

But Amazon want to get into delivering food – fresh food, not just preserved or tinned. So from now on you’ll be able to buy Booths food from “Amazon Fresh” – as long as you live in one of the southern postcodes that Amazon Fresh covers.

Not up here, though, so I’ll just have to go to the actual store.

A couple of bits about watching online TV on your TV
Last time I wrote about how to watch online TV on your actual TV, instead of just on your tablet or laptop. And there a couple of other things I thought I’d mention this time.

First of all, a couple of people have asked me about Apple TV. It does a similar job to the Google Chromecast I talked about, but is made by Apple (the name gives it away a bit).

I didn’t mention it for a couple of reasons – first the price. It’s about £150 vs the Chromecast’s £20 – and remember this doesn’t actually play the TV programmes, it just lets you show what’s on your device’s screen on the TV, so you still have to play the programme on your tablet, laptop or whatever.

The other reason is that it’ll only work with Apple devices – iPads, iPhones or Apple Macs. If you have a Windows laptop/PC or an Android tablet or phone, you’re out of luck.

That also means if you have Apple TV and then later on you want to get a new tablet you’re either stuck with getting another Apple one or you won’t be able to use Apple TV with the new one.

Of course, if you already have an Apple TV and you’re happy with it, that’s fine. But it’s not what I’d recommend to most people.

The other thing is about the remote controls with some of these devices – the Amazon Fire for example. They don’t work like a “normal” remote control, where you point it at the TV and a little LED sends a signal in a straight line to the TV. If you look at the end of the remote, there’s no little LED there.

So it doesn’t matter if the gadget you’re controlling is plugged in behind the TV, out of sight – it’ll still work. And you don’t even need to point the remote in the right direction – it doesn’t make any difference which way you point it.

I can’t help it though – I still automatically point ours at the TV every time I go to use it. Habits die hard!

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