Apple TV Refresh to Be Stealth Update, Will Not Affect Product Features

Dwalls90 said:

If the A5X does go into the mini and Apple TV, it will have to be a die shrink anyways. This should mean cooler and more efficient, and hopefully also mean they can overclock it a slightly to keep performance above that of iPad Mini 1.

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Overclock? The A5X and A6X run so hot Apple had to take the RAM out of the SoC package. The iPad mini has no such room for an extra extra RAM chip on the motherboard. It could probably could be jury rigged onto a AppleTV motherboard but then it would be useless for the iPad mini use. That could be ok if just soaking up Samsung wafer commitments they had already bought.


Apple would need to get rid of the heat problem to remerge the RAM back into the SoC package. If the shrink does it fine. If it doesn't then likely iPad mini will get an A6 derivative with a better CPU/GPU combo that runs more efficiently.

rbrian said:

A crappy router that works perfectly with everything except for one single client?

OK, it was a crappy ISP-supplied router... but a brand new Airport Extreme isn't much better. A little, but not a lot. Sometimes it lasts for 20 minutes before dropping out. The problem is a combination of a saturated spectrum and a crappy chip. The crappy chip would work fine with no interference, the interference wouldn't be a problem if the chip was better.

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I had the same troubles with mine due to too many signals in the area, get a netgear n900. Drowns them all out a treat and is much more stable with lots of devices. I have 2 iPhone's 2 iPad's an Apple TV and an iMac all connected at the same time with no issues

Tigger11 said:

Apple didnt do this, this is all Macrumors (and other sites). They came up with the hockey puck was smaller (which its not), and there are three threads all because Apple is replacing the A5 processor with the A5X processor and had to get the FCC to bless the new design.

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Well, they quoted an Apple spokesperson and that's what I was referring...

Peace said:

Why not ?

Some families would like that. That and FaceTime without using an iPad .

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FaceTime requires a camera. What is messages good for? If anything it seems like a distraction from what a TV is supposed to do. Let alone, text input isn't currently feasible.

Compile 'em all said:

FaceTime requires a camera. What is messages good for? If anything it seems like a distraction from what a TV is supposed to do. Let alone, text input isn't currently feasible.

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Text input isn't currently feasible ? then why did the latest update include support for bluetooth keyboards ?

Compile 'em all said:

FaceTime requires a camera. What is messages good for? If anything it seems like a distraction from what a TV is supposed to do. Let alone, text input isn't currently feasible.

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Apple did just add support for bluetooth keyboards...

Peace said:

Text input isn't currently feasible ? then why did the latest update include support for bluetooth keyboards ?

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jhsfosho said:

Apple did just add support for bluetooth keyboards...

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Right. Now imagine for me a setup where this keyboard thing will work. I mean, do you like put the keyboard on the coffee table or what?

It's just not the Apple way. While you could attach a bluetooth keyboard to an iPad, this isn't the typical usage scenario of an iPad.

Messaging most likely will come to the Apple TV in the form of something within Game Center. Other than that, I highly doubt Apple envisions people sitting in the living room with a keyboard on their lap and looking at a screen a couple of feet away.

Elbon said:

In addition to the examples already provided by others, think about the vast number of games and other apps already available for iOS. If Apple can figure out a way to get those apps (which currently require a touch-based interface) to work on the Apple TV, they would suddenly have a VERY compelling product...

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Screen mirroring sucks. Always has.



And games.

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What? I've used screen mirroring on plenty of devices, and it's always worked well. I know so many people who use it and have never complained. What exactly sucks about it?

Peace said:

If you can show me how to mirror safari FULL SCREEN ( takes up the whole screen ) on my HDTV I'd appreciate it.

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From the iPhone 5 in landscape safari uses full screen. From my MBA I can see full screen safari. That's of course because they have 16:9 screens. If you want full screen safari from any device then it's something Apple could implement at the device/Airplay level within safari.

Browsing the web on a TV using a remote just sounds terrible.

Compile 'em all said:

Right. Now imagine for me a setup where this keyboard thing will work. I mean, do you like put the keyboard on the coffee table or what?

It's just not the Apple way. While you could attach a bluetooth keyboard to an iPad, this isn't the typical usage scenario of an iPad.

Messaging most likely will come to the Apple TV in the form of something within Game Center. Other than that, I highly doubt Apple envisions people sitting in the living room with a keyboard on their lap and looking at a screen a couple of feet away.

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While I agree with that logic I simply cannot see myself using the keyboard connected to my ipad or even mirroring until the HDTV screen is filled . With mirroring the iPad you don't get that full screen capability.

Besides if you're mirroring your iPad to the tv there is no reason to have the Apple TV do Bluetooth support for keyboards since you are mirroring the iPad .

Mike MA said:

Well, they quoted an Apple spokesperson and that's what I was referring...

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Only by the 3rd article, at which point, this site (and others) had shrunk the product, made it much more powerful, etc all for what Apple intended as a stealth release ala the iPad 2 with the 32nm A5 last year.

I love my AppleTV... i could even buy to this stealth upgrade if there is some noticeable improvements in WiFi or performance.

I don't get why they use A5x chip if you can't have apps on AppleTV, if this is really a stealth upgrade they will not really use A5x power over A5. Probably they are just testing new production for a future iPad mini or iPod touch

ikir said:

I love my AppleTV... i could even buy to this stealth upgrade if there is some noticeable improvements in WiFi or performance.

I don't get why they use A5x chip if you can't have apps on AppleTV, if this is really a stealth upgrade they will not really use A5x power over A5. Probably they are just testing new production for a future iPad mini or iPod touch

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Apple isn't contracting any more A5 SoC so the Apple TV gets the A5X . Pretty simply supply chain economics.

Peace said:

Apple isn't contracting any more A5 SoC so the Apple TV gets the A5X . Pretty simply supply chain economics.

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Yup. But they'd better unveil some new content deals along with this "upgrade". A new chip with no improvement in the TV OS or added content is going to upset a lot of people.

flux73 said:

Yup. But they'd better unveil some new content deals along with this "upgrade". A new chip with no improvement in the TV OS or added content is going to upset a lot of people.

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Why? Its the same device doing the same thing. The chip change is just due to supply change. As long as the price and function is the same why would any buyer recent or previous give a rats tail which chip it has?

ikir said:

I love my AppleTV... i could even buy to this stealth upgrade if there is some noticeable improvements in WiFi or performance.

I don't get why they use A5x chip if you can't have apps on AppleTV, if this is really a stealth upgrade they will not really use A5x power over A5. Probably they are just testing new production for a future iPad mini or iPod touch

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In mid run Apple did put a 32nm A5 processor in the iPad 2. It gave the iPad 2 better battery life over the 45nm A5 in the iPad 2. So putting the A5X in the Apple TV is not surprising to me.

The A5 had a dual core PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU clocked at 1 GHz. The A5X has a quad-core PowerVR SGX543MP4 GPU clocked at 250 MHz with doubled memory subsystem (4 x 32-bit memory controllers).

Now the question is will the A5X GPU that will be put in the Apple TV be a quad core or will some of the cores be deactivated because they are rejects.

Dorje Sylas said:

No iPhone. Apple's still being rather stupid about letting iOS devices ad-hoc network in general.

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I managed that briefly under a beta, the hardware is capable of doing this. Opens up a whole lot of stuff.

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Peace said:

While I agree with that logic I simply cannot see myself using the keyboard connected to my ipad or even mirroring until the HDTV screen is filled . With mirroring the iPad you don't get that full screen capability.

Besides if you're mirroring your iPad to the tv there is no reason to have the Apple TV do Bluetooth support for keyboards since you are mirroring the iPad .

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Maybe Bluetooth is simply for easier browsing when using Safari?

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flux73 said:

Yup. But they'd better unveil some new content deals along with this "upgrade". A new chip with no improvement in the TV OS or added content is going to upset a lot of people.

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Realistically, no-one is going to get upset. More and more people are buying this cheap little box and enjoying what they get out of it.

Any chance that the A5X might allow apple to start renting movies using H.265 compression, instead of H264? Halving the bandwidth would seem to have great appeal to them (even if people with enough bandwidth now wouldn't notice much change).

Also potentially offering 4k content instead of 2k/1080p might be interesting.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/29/h265_signed_off_by_itu/

moobatticus said:

Maybe Bluetooth is simply for easier browsing when using Safari.

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Apple did not put the Safari browser on the Apple TV 2/3. I suspect that the bluetooth keyboard capabilty is for searching the iTunes library on the Apple TV.

Macist said:

The most pointless Apple product I have. Okay, it's useful for one or two things but I assumed there'd be a jailbreak to make it into a proper media centre but it never came for the ATV3.

If they gave it an Appstore at least it could have iPlayer, 4OD, Lovefilm, etc.

The £25 Raspberry Pi with XBMC is better.

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Well it's not... it's not exactly smooth is it with big MKV's

ctdonath said:

Sorry, how many TVs have been sold? What's the sales curve? How does that compare to other set-top boxes?

It hasn't "failed" because sales are increasing, and it was never promoted hard. If anything, it's an exploratory product: build a simple cheap box that does something interesting and leverages content provided for other products, see how it sells, and use the experience to identify what customers really want. Opposite of "failure", it's a pretty darned successful "hey, what if we..." hobby.

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Who calls a product a hobby?

Are you seriously saying that this amazing contraption is a hobby?

"Hey man what's that on your tv?"

Oh that's my hobby

Apple TV

Get real

Seriously?!

Hobby

Okay. Sure man

chrmjenkins said:

So Tim Cook didn't know how iPad 3's would sell and didn't know it was going to be replaced early? Sorry, don't buy it.

Makes more sense to sell the excess inventory as refurb rather design a whole new motherboard for the ATV just to accommodate a bigger die.

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Apple is astoundingly good at As required manufacturing. It's was mentioned in Job's books and various other places - they went from 2 Months from production to warehouse to 1 week! Pretty important these days. I am sure the 5x orders are exactly in line with what is required at any given time.

Expect updates a more more often now for the iPad. It is a mature product now. I am sure that's why they removed the number designation. Like the iMac. You don't have to update unless you begin to find it slow on the latest software. It also means incremental updates to out perform android devices without major Releases.

Not sure why they didn't on the iPhone 5... It was iPhone, 3g, 3gs, 4, 4s, 5 - no 2 or 3. Technically we are on the 4th design. It's a bit nuts.

I know some people clamor for new designs every year. But that is crazy. It's the screen and internals that matter. There is only so much that you can do. In 10 years it's going to be a 2-4mm thick sheet and that's it.

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Radio said:

Who calls a product a hobby?

Hobby

Okay. Sure man

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To be fair... It was Steve Jobs and Tim Cook that called it a hobby

http://www.cultofmac.com/146316/tim-cook-explains-why-the-apple-tv-is-a-hobby-and-hints-why-the-rumored-itv-might-not-be/

my wallet's ready

marc11 said:

Why? Its the same device doing the same thing. The chip change is just due to supply change. As long as the price and function is the same why would any buyer recent or previous give a rats tail which chip it has?

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I think a lot of people watching Apple is waiting for SOME kind of evidence that they are making headway in negotiations for the product that everyone is waiting for - Apple TV. And we all know that a huge part of its success is going to hinge on content deals. Adding just ESPN would be huge. HUGE.

But beyond that, Apple TV is kind a quiet product. It has an advantage over the other media box makers only because of Airplay. But let's see apps, or an improved interface. Something to show some progress is being made. I don't count enabling Bluetooth keyboards as progress. That probably required the same effort as flipping a toggle.

I want them to add some memory to it and pre-buffer a short segment of every show and movie you buy, that way they start instantly. With H265 coming, this would work even better.

arkmannj said:

Interesting that Apple wouldn't want to at least put a "upated" banner on them or something. Why not take the nearly free marketing where you can on something you spent some engineering time on?

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The last Airport Extreme update was a "stealth" update, too.