An Apple TV Refresh is Coming in 2025 - Here's What You Should Know

I wonder why Apple doesn't make this product significantly smaller..... I feel like they pack so much more tech in an iphone + a battery in a much thinner package.... Is it due to heat dissipation? another technical reason? or just Apple's M.O. of milking the same design for many many years?
 
I have the past two Apple TV 4K boxes (one of each). Both stream everything I want smoothly and flawlessly, and allow me to bypass the “smart” sections of my 4K TV sets. I find myself with no interest in the next-gen Apple TV. I clearly don’t require a more-powerful chip nor upgraded wifi - at least not yet. And I kind of like the idea that neither box has enough RAM for Apple Intelligence.
 
If you're not playing games with your AppleTV, I would say that the wifi upgrade, BT upgrade, and CPU upgrade are probably not going to affect your experience at all, so it seems like there's very little to upgrade if you already have the current 4K version, or even the version before that.
 
My naive self got the upgraded to the current Apple TV thinking it could play games good, it can barely play my favourite kart racer game and the Dualsense connectivity is appalling. I’ve said it before that they need to put an M-series chip in the tv and make it a console. I’m not looking at any new Apple TVs and until that happens. In the meantime, I’ve got no one to bequeath my current one to anyway.
 
Rradcircless said:
My naive self got the upgraded to the current Apple TV thinking it could play games good, it can barely play my favourite kart racer game and the Dualsense connectivity is appalling. I’ve said it before that they need to put an M-series chip in the tv and make it a console. I’m not looking at any new Apple TVs and until that happens. In the meantime, I’ve got no one to bequeath my current one to anyway.
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It's not a bad idea, but given that many using an ATV don't do games with it nor want to, it wouldn't be good if the price went up for features that the non-gamers wouldn't want, so maybe they should keeping making the regular ATV and add a new Apple TV Game edition or some other decent name and market it as specifically for gaming, plus all the other features of the regular ATV are still there. Then drop the various storage sizes which seem pointless for the base ATV, and just have a single ATV with 64GB and the ATV gaming edition with 256GB. Something like that. Maybe to market it as a real gaming-specific thing and not just a renamed ATV with higher storage, they need to develop their own bespoke controller to include, but still support other stuff via BT. Given the history of ATV remotes and apple mouse designs over the years, this honestly doesn't seem like Apple's strong suit.
 
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Honestly the only thing I wish is for them to bring the Snoopy screensavers to the older models. We have an older model Apple TV and there's no reason to upgrade. It streams everything great, and I can airplay from my Mac or my iPhone for any other gaming.
 
GazzaP said:
Been waiting years. I have a 2nd gen 4k Apple TV. Been waiting a long time to upgrade. Every time I think about it, there’s rumours of a new one about to be released. Never happens of course. Is 2025 actually going to be any different?
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You could have bought the 3rd gen 4K! Been out since Nov 2022. If any of its upgrades vs. the 2nd gen were something you were looking for, it's got them.
 
I wonder... what will the power consumption be of this new 2025 AppleTV. We have two 2017 ATV 4K and these are amazingly power efficient.


com.B said:
Unless they add the cooling fan back (current Apple TV starts overheating after merely half an hour of play), and allow games on tvOS to actually save your progress permanently (instead of only a temporary cache + iCloud, which often fails and erases your progress), it's still going to be useless for gaming.
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Wow, overheating??? What model do you have? Our 2017 64GB AppleTV 4K never gets hot at all when we play games.
iCloud syncs well too (wired network). Only very large Apple Music playlists (+3000 items) causes a long freeze of the app.


code-m said:
I am finding it hard to understand why Apple keeps investing time and money when it puts no effort into making the AppleTV competitive. With a $30 GoogleTV dongle I can add Ethernet, SD card and external storage options via USB-C for under $50. Have access to AppleTV+ including all the other Big Name streaming services and more so. Plus I can add a web browser and use it as an ultra portable computer in a pocket.
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Yeah, I see what you mean, but I'd say you need a mini Linux PC instead if you want all that flexibility. Those GoogleTV dongles, had them and they're horrible. Dangling on the back of the TV, slowly breaking the HDMI board connector. It's cheap all right, including the firmware. Just like those cable company media boxes, the UI always feels slow, never-finished.
 
code-m said:
These are niche use cases. Most TV manufacturers install Roku, FireTV or GoogleTV.

Those that had their own OS have mothballed it, Roku is being replaced with GoogleTV as the default Smart TV OS of choice by many manufacturers and FireTV is just a custom skin of GoogleTV. Amazon is the primary driver for FireTV as TizenOS is for Samsung. In this space the present clear winner is GoogleTV for tv manufacturers and with that comes developer investment.

I am sorry if Apple is unable to innovate in this space why even bother, if a consumer is on a budget and many are, do you think those consumer will opt for a plus $100 set top box from Apple or just use what’s built-in the TV which is GoogleTV with AirPlay included. Many consumer just play mobile games and the built-in hardware spec do a fine job. If anyone is into serious gaming it’s either a dedicated gaming console or a PC, Apple is high on its own smoke and drunk on its own Kool-Aid.

At this point it might as well cut deals with TV manufacturers to have it run TvOS as a form of advertising but Google beat them to the punch.
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You're making a different argument than the one I was engaged in with what I wrote. I was replying to someone saying that the Apple TV is way behind other STBs like the Shield. It's not, it's different. What you wrote is an argument for why so many people aren't buying STBs to begin with.

The answer is the same though...

Just like Apple isn't going to launch a product like the Shield which prioritizes things other than streaming/subscription content, Apple isn't going to develop tvOS for 3rd party TVs. They don't do this with PCs, with phones, watches, tablets or anything else they do.

The Apple TV remains, by far, the best box in terms of UI and UE for the Apple ecosystem and online streaming/subscription services and also is better in that regard than anything built in to smart TVs. That's the niche they've carved out of the market and they're not going to deviate from that anytime soon.

Want games: Playstation, Xbox.
Want high-end audio from remuxed Blu-Ray: Shield.
Want best video options, best UI, and best UE if in Apple ecosystem: Apple TV.
Want to be cheap about all of this: use what's built into your TV.
 
None of those changes really matter to me and they're all I use. I'd like to see additional codec support. True Atmos and HD audio, AV1 support. It still likes to microstutter at times with Plex. An issue in the past was it not having hardware support but was powerful to software transcode until it caused overheating so active cooling would be nice.
 
Rradcircless said:
I’ve given this some thought already, they should call it the Apple Arcade or the Apple Arcade Pro.
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They could call it Mac Mini running Front Row 2… because it would likely be priced so close to Mini that few would probably bother to choose it instead of Mini.

Best path to these kinds of wishes is Front Row 2 app. Subbing in a M4 or M5 is automatically going to add hundreds to the price. Apple premium-priced RAM & storage? Mac Mini!
 
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AxiomaticRubric said:
Good luck getting any big game studios to offer titles for tvOS, but it’s good to know what is possible.
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Even on iPad Pro M4, console gaming is pathetic at best. The hardware is good enough for average gaming, but mobile users won’t spend a penny for expensive AAA games.

wccftech.com

Resident Evil 2 Remake Has Not Even Crossed 10,000 Sales On iOS; New Report Claims That Quadrupling The Price On Apple’s App Store Caused Purchases To Nosedive

A new report claims that Resident Evil 2 Remake has not been a financial success when arriving for iOS, as it has failed to cross 10,000 sales
wccftech.com wccftech.com
Just look at Mirage or RE2 remake sales on AppStore? Lol
 
JohnC1959 said:
It would be nice if they would allow a USB camera so one could use FaceTime without requiring use of an iPhone's camera.
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Apple's way of looking at this is "If someone uses a USB camera with the Apple TV, then they wouldn't be using an iPhone with it."
 
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