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Apple Announces New Apple TV 4K With A15 Bionic Chip and HDR10+ for $129
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It was a flop, as admitted by Steve himself.
The price was cut (less than a year after it was introduced) from $299 to $229, and still wasn’t selling so that model was completely discontinued and replaced with a $99 version that *only* did streaming, basically the opposite of the previous model.
It was just as much of a failure as the original HomePod, and if the cheaper streaming focused model wasn’t introduced, it would’ve been discontinued.
I think it would have been better to charge $20 more for the base model then offer a $20 redux for no port. Would have been consistent with apple’s usual keeping prices constant, and be a better look than charging for something that’s considered a base need by many.
Precisely my point on Apple TV; the puck was Steve learning his lesson and making one simple product that was easy to explain and justify. Though even so, the nature of digital content at the time at least justified the two-tiered storage lineup somewhat; bear in mind that was pre-streaming and App Store, when we all still had downloaded media libraries if we had anything. This applies in some ways to many of the examples you cited; storage as a differentiator ten years ago was a bigger factor, particularly on devices released in a non-streaming world, particularly in the early days of flash storage when space was at a premium.
I’m not saying Steve always got it right, and he certainly had some gaffs here and there, but he had a tendency of learning his lessons and quickly course-correcting.
My complaint here is also comparing a $129 product and a $149 product that are otherwise essentially the same; not to mention storage on Apple TV hasn’t been a source of problems. Muddling the lineup for a $20 up sell on a product that has already struggled to find a bigger market is a mistake and plain silly, especially when comparing to the competition.
He called ATV a hobby, not a flop. If I am incorrect, please link a source.
They also sold millions of them, probably more than the HomePod., all in a time that Apple wasn't nearly as popular as they were when the HomePod launched.
Knew they were going to take out ethernet on a lower end model. I thought they would try to hit the sub $100 pricepoint tho.
Funny to think they were selling an ATV with an A8 chip in it for $150 on their website yesterday?!?!? and they did so with a completely straight face. Not even one smirk.😐
Funny to think they were selling an ATV with an A8 chip in it for $150 on their website yesterday?!?!? and they did so with a completely straight face. Not even one smirk.😐
Dear god can they not add a sound signal like the AirTag so we can find it
The games run fine because they cant get better if they wanted too, the CPU/GPU power was holding them back. With more power now games can get even better.
Should hear about the watch s3 fiasco
If you bought one JUST this year it’s now already end of life
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Apple's getting obsessively sadistic at taking things away.
First they came for the headphone jack and recently eSIM. Then it was ethernet port with iMac M1 and now Apple TV both as an upcharge.
To be fair - for lots of people these are non issues all together that's why they 'get away' with it. I don't need an ethernet on my Apple TV I dont use it wired unless my consoles and smart TV, but that's for me. And still as a matter of principal I don't like to see it.
Facetiously- Next on the chopping block is the charge/data port all together with no upcharge to opt out... then in a few years the screen. No foldable because no need for a screen. Siri will just tell you everything and iPhone will become like Scarlett Johansson in Spike Jonze's Her.
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efficiency. like the article said, it's 30% more efficient. also in terms of games, obviously a faster chip means more games are possible on the system. (albeit no fan takes some of that away.)
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A few questions:
1) VPN
Still no VPN support with tvOS 16?
If not, does Apple at least give you the option to “Limit IP address tracking”/“Hide IP address” in settings like they do on their other devices?
2) A15
Is this the regular chip or the one with the extra GPU core (13 pro/base 14s)?
3) Playing with the Siri Remote
I have PlayStation controllers, but can you play with the Siri Remote? How’s the experience?
1) VPN
Still no VPN support with tvOS 16?
If not, does Apple at least give you the option to “Limit IP address tracking”/“Hide IP address” in settings like they do on their other devices?
2) A15
Is this the regular chip or the one with the extra GPU core (13 pro/base 14s)?
3) Playing with the Siri Remote
I have PlayStation controllers, but can you play with the Siri Remote? How’s the experience?
Faster gaming performance for the seven people who play games on their Apple TV 👍
I don’t find the two current Apple TV versions particularly confusing or muddled but even under Jobs there were two versions of Apple TV.
Also, look at how many iPod models there eventually were under Jobs. You had the iPod shuffle, iPod nano (in two storage sizes), iPod classic, and iPod touch (in three storage sizes) plus numerous iPod suffle and/or nano and/or classic and/or touch add-ons/accessories.
And by the way? Apple TV take 2… didn’t do much better.
Commercially produced 120Hz content doesn't exist. Even YouTube is capped at 60fps.
Not to even mention, the several limited edition/special edition versions over the years.
Anyone remember the iPod photo? Which was basically a fourth generation iPod with a colored screen, but still different than the fourth generation iPod.
Or the iPod color?
The answer: because most people have no idea what they're talking about, like requesting 120Hz output.
My friend just got T-Mobile (he's an IT admin - servers, desktops, WiFi, Modem, expert, etc...) and he just got the T-Mobile 5G Internet and the Apple TV that he has won't connect to the T-Mobile device. He had to use his previous router to hook up to the new internet.
If he would've gotten this new Apple TV and had the same issue, ethernet would've been the way to go.
Ethernet sometimes is better when your WiFi can be wonky or limited at times with a lot of devices.
For me, I was able to hook up my own Apple TV to my T-Mobile 5g - but I think I had to set the T-Moible device to use 2.4ghz & 5ghz as the Apple TV that I have I believe is 2.4ghz, as well as the Firestick that I had before.
It's nice to have options! Ethernet to an old router sometimes can save the day!
People always joke about gaming on the Apple TV. But with a 128GB version more than seven people might start gaming 😉
Apple Arcade actually has many great games but they take a lot of space if you install a lot of them. I’m seriously considering buying the 128GB version and have it just as my Apple Arcade “console”.
Well no wifi in the base ATV is not equivalent to moving on from older technologies in other products.
They aren't moving on from ethernet. They just made a cheaper version of the ATV. Not having ethernet allows this. And a huge portion of ATV users don't use ethernet anyway. Remember the streamer market is comprised largely of $40ish sticks with wifi only.
but yeah your S3 example is another good example of an old product to avoid that Apple was selling for too high of a price with a straight face.
A8 chip in the ATV HD was pretty old tho. It first appeared in the iPhone in 2014. Then a year later in the ATV. SAme year Apple came out with the Watch.