I was looking for a simple way to play music all around my house. Our house has an amplifier and we have the new XBox One and the Apple TV. I knew both devices could play music and I was curious to see which device would be the easiest to play on our home amp.

I first tried the combination of Microsoft’s Surface 2 and the Xbox One. Then I tried Apple’s iPad with the Apple TV.

Experiment 1: The Xbox

My first experiment with the Xbox turned out to be a long process. It was really slow and painful and in the end I had to turn on the projector, which I definitely would not want to do every time I play music!

The Microsoft console is cool because I like the Smart Glass app for the Xbox One.

Xbox does some annoying things such as:

• It does not have Spotify or Pandora
• It plays an advertisement on the Surface sometimes
• It made me turn on the projector for the Xbox One and then I had to log out my dad and log myself in (I could not do this with the Smart Glass App)
• It restarts my song back to the beginning, when it switches from the Surface to the Xbox One
• The volume control on the Surface does nothing

Here is my video… it took 4 minutes 59 seconds.

Figure: Part 1 – Playing music around the house with the Microsoft Surface and the XBox One

Experiment 2: iPad

On the other hand when I tried playing music all around the house with the iPad and the Apple TV it worked instantly. No turning on the projector!

And even better the Apple TV:

• Does not have advertisements
• The song continues at the same spot
• The volume on the iPad works on the apple TV

Here is my video. It took just 1 minute 32 seconds.

Figure: Part 2 – Playing music around the house with the Apple iPad and the Apple TV

I think that Apple has won this battle because it is Easy Peasy! Although I won’t throw out the Xbox One because I love Tomb Raider.

Ruby