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New Apple TV model
- Thread starter gadget123
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I was feeling the same about the new HomePod minis. All of the points that you make, along with limited supply with many retailers (and some like B&H) reporting them "discontinued" made the imminent release a real possibility.
Because of the Youtube tv dispute last month with ESPN, we moved back to Directv & got the boxes out of the closet. The picture is better than the app on Apple tv! Faster navigation, channel numbers, backlit remote , previous channel etc. Only using Apple tv for other apps, Apple music now and now NOT in a hurry for a new model. You missed your sales window with me Apple..
Doing a bit of stock checking on Apple TV models and HomePods here in the UK just to see if there are any signs of new models and things are looking somewhat promising, although we were saying that in November.
Apple TV 4K
Apple.com - 64GB model in stock, ships immediately. 128GB model severely constrained, doesn't ship until 19th-22nd January. Earlier in the week it would not ship til 10th February. Interestingly 10th February is when the new Apple Home architecture is mandatory.
John Lewis - 64GB model in stock online, 128GB out of stock and stores with few models in stock.
Argos - Both models in stock for delivery and collection.
Currys - 64GB out of stock. 128GB not sold.
iStore (Apple Reseller) - Both models on order with availability in 2-4 weeks.
KRCS (Apple Reseller) - Both models out of stock with no restock date, and their 3 physical stores also out of stock.
HomePod
Apple.com - Both colours in stock and available for delivery and collection. Some stores out of stock but will be restocked in the next few days.
John Lewis - Both colours out of stock online. Midnight unavailable in all stores and white in short supply in stores.
Argos - Midnight unavailable for delivery or collection. White readily available for delivery and collection.
iStore - Both models on order with availability in 2-4 weeks.
KRCS - Both models out of stock online with estimated restock in 1-2 weeks.
O2 - White in stock but down to the 'last few'. Midnight can be ordered but delivery can take up to 4 weeks.
HomePod mini
Apple.com - All colours in stock and shipping immediately. Some stores out of stock but will be restocked in the next few days.
John Lewis - All colours unavailable online. Stores have very little stock, some just with one model of each.
Argos - All models unavailable for delivery or collection apart from white. White available for delivery but not for 5 days.
Currys - Currys only list the white model and it's out of stock.
iStore - Orange and yellow out of stock. Midnight and white out of stock and ship within 2-4 weeks. Blue out of stock and ships within 4-6 weeks.
KRCS - All models out of stock with estimated restock in 1-2 weeks.
EE - All models out of stock.
Apple TV 4K
Apple.com - 64GB model in stock, ships immediately. 128GB model severely constrained, doesn't ship until 19th-22nd January. Earlier in the week it would not ship til 10th February. Interestingly 10th February is when the new Apple Home architecture is mandatory.
John Lewis - 64GB model in stock online, 128GB out of stock and stores with few models in stock.
Argos - Both models in stock for delivery and collection.
Currys - 64GB out of stock. 128GB not sold.
iStore (Apple Reseller) - Both models on order with availability in 2-4 weeks.
KRCS (Apple Reseller) - Both models out of stock with no restock date, and their 3 physical stores also out of stock.
HomePod
Apple.com - Both colours in stock and available for delivery and collection. Some stores out of stock but will be restocked in the next few days.
John Lewis - Both colours out of stock online. Midnight unavailable in all stores and white in short supply in stores.
Argos - Midnight unavailable for delivery or collection. White readily available for delivery and collection.
iStore - Both models on order with availability in 2-4 weeks.
KRCS - Both models out of stock online with estimated restock in 1-2 weeks.
O2 - White in stock but down to the 'last few'. Midnight can be ordered but delivery can take up to 4 weeks.
HomePod mini
Apple.com - All colours in stock and shipping immediately. Some stores out of stock but will be restocked in the next few days.
John Lewis - All colours unavailable online. Stores have very little stock, some just with one model of each.
Argos - All models unavailable for delivery or collection apart from white. White available for delivery but not for 5 days.
Currys - Currys only list the white model and it's out of stock.
iStore - Orange and yellow out of stock. Midnight and white out of stock and ship within 2-4 weeks. Blue out of stock and ships within 4-6 weeks.
KRCS - All models out of stock with estimated restock in 1-2 weeks.
EE - All models out of stock.
think its time to get this moving again as the rumour mill has started back up, at speed.
I predict a WIFI only 'Apple TV SE' (Special Edition - A18 64gb HDMI stick) Sub 100 price point &
an 'Apple TV Max' box with Ethernet (easier to do 1 version with the A19 & 2 storage sizes 128gb & 256gb)
both having a Matte Black finish & the N1 Chip, i don't see any advantage or reason for a redesign even though it would be nice - AAA gaming, AI features, 120Hz refresh rates, Dolby Vision 2)
some useful sound upgrades such as improvements to Audio passthrough
I do not see them doing a Pro box but if they did i think would need to be something special such as 3D & 8K support and HDMI 2.2 and more future thinking but Apple would not be so ambitious.
updated Homepods & Homepod Minis are a definite with the latter having several colours (around 5)
& will be great especially when pairing and mixing and matching as speakers for either of the Apple TV's
I predict a WIFI only 'Apple TV SE' (Special Edition - A18 64gb HDMI stick) Sub 100 price point &
an 'Apple TV Max' box with Ethernet (easier to do 1 version with the A19 & 2 storage sizes 128gb & 256gb)
both having a Matte Black finish & the N1 Chip, i don't see any advantage or reason for a redesign even though it would be nice - AAA gaming, AI features, 120Hz refresh rates, Dolby Vision 2)
some useful sound upgrades such as improvements to Audio passthrough
I do not see them doing a Pro box but if they did i think would need to be something special such as 3D & 8K support and HDMI 2.2 and more future thinking but Apple would not be so ambitious.
updated Homepods & Homepod Minis are a definite with the latter having several colours (around 5)
& will be great especially when pairing and mixing and matching as speakers for either of the Apple TV's
There is not reason why Dolby Vision 2 needs a new Apple TV box - surely it would just need support to pass the Dolby Vision flag & metadata through to the display. It's more the TVs that need new hardware to interpret and process the metadata. Add in to this, none of the "high-end" TV brands look to be supporting DV2 this year (only Hisense, TCL and Philips have announced support in 2026 models).
They aren't going to use different chipsets in the 2 models if they have a WiFi only model. There isn't enough volume to justify doing that.
I really hope your speculation turns out to be accurate re an updated HomePod but I'm not optimistic about that.
I think it would definitely make sense to align the updates for the HomePod family of products so that the generations are consistent across the range in terms of release year and processing power however, while as I understand it code leaks have revealed internal product codes for as-yet-unreleased products one of which can be fairly confidently attributed to a new HomePod Mini based on its numerical relationship to the product code for the current HomePod Mini, no such highly indicative new product code has been leaked that suggests an updated full-size HomePod is on the way any time soon.
Is your speculation that both existing HomePod products (Mini and full-sized) will be updated based on sharing my thinking that it would be more sensible and elegant to do those upgrades at the same time or are there specific rumours, ideally based on code leaks, that do actively suggest that an update to the full-sized HomePod is also likely this year?
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The only reference I have seen regarding a new HomePod is a line at the bottom of this story from MacRumors in August. But that also said a new Apple TV was coming in 2025 so... yeah.
www.macrumors.com
I'm still holding out hope that we see a new model given the stock shortages I laid out above. I think having them on the same update cycle makes sense, because if they do bring Apple Intelligence to the HomePod line, I would imagine they'd want feature parity across both models.
It will also be curious to see how Apple split the Apple TV models feature wise. If both models have the N1 chip which supports Thread, then that leaves just storage size and ethernet as the differentiators between models.
New Apple TV Still Launching This Year
Apple is still on track to release a new Apple TV model later this year, according to a reliable source speaking to MacRumors. According to a source familiar with the company's plans, Apple is highly likely to replace the current Apple TV 4K with a new model later this year. The current model...
www.macrumors.com
I'm still holding out hope that we see a new model given the stock shortages I laid out above. I think having them on the same update cycle makes sense, because if they do bring Apple Intelligence to the HomePod line, I would imagine they'd want feature parity across both models.
It will also be curious to see how Apple split the Apple TV models feature wise. If both models have the N1 chip which supports Thread, then that leaves just storage size and ethernet as the differentiators between models.
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I am also very interested to see what Apple does re different models for Apple TV (ATV).
In theory there are lots of things that could differentiate models in terms of their electronics. I would be surprised if all models don’t share the N1 chip and same A-Series SoC. You that just leaves storage size and Ethernet as differentiators. I suppose it depends on how you are defining “storage” in your post but if you weren’t including RAM then I would add that to the list at least for the purposes of discussion.
I still wonder whether Apple might broaden the scope of ATV beyond just a streaming device. Now that the next version almost certainly has a SoC with much more powerful AI processing capabilities I wonder whether Apple might also position ATV more prominently as a hub (AI brain) for a smart home where HomePods can offload certain complex tasks to an ATV on the local network without needing to go to the cloud. Some (maybe all) video analysis could also be done locally if Apple does release the rumoured Apple security camera plus maybe also a doorbell.
Were that to become the future direction of travel for ATV - not only a streaming device but also potentially a smart home AI hub - then perhaps another possible model split might be…
Base ATV - Streaming & simple AI hub (does basic AI hub stuff but not really up to too much video processing etc).
ATV Pro - Spec as above with extra storage and some extra RAM
I didn’t mention Ethernet because personally I think a 1Gbps port should be on all models now. Those interfaces are cheap - just look at how cheap a USB Ethernet dongle is on Amazon - so the cost to a company with Apple’s scale for the connector and PCB components should be extremely low and I think that anyone buying a streaming box at the ATV price point should be given the option to hardwire it for maximum connection stability.
I’m not saying the above is what we will see, just throwing it out there as another possibility.
At this stage I'm leaning towards the new Apple TV being a hub for new HomePods allowing them to support Apple Intelligence, as all signs point towards the new mini at least still using an Apple Watch SoC. Perhaps the N1 allows them to do processing on the Apple TV at a lower latency than old WiFi/Bluetooth tech.
Will be curious to see if they can do offload to Apple Intelligence capable phones, as it could leave a lot of people who just want a speaker missing out as they don't have an Apple TV.
Will be curious to see if they can do offload to Apple Intelligence capable phones, as it could leave a lot of people who just want a speaker missing out as they don't have an Apple TV.
I would absolutely love an external connected storage option for playing videos. I've struggled with Plex, and would prefer a USB port with the ability to just play the videos, not unlike how the original ATV functioned, albeit without the internal hard disk.
I would love it to have a 4k blu ray drive accessory and a 4k blu ray drive app. (not ever happening, but could be a 3rd party thing)
It has to be an AI brain, with the VERY Latest Pro chip, on the main basic or Pro box
and the accompanying HDMI sticks for around the home on other tv's
as we cant have only 1 tv with a decent interface (i need/want a main box & 3 sticks)
some sort of new updated 'Airport' type NAS from Apple would be amazing!!!!
It has to be an AI brain, with the VERY Latest Pro chip, on the main basic or Pro box
and the accompanying HDMI sticks for around the home on other tv's
as we cant have only 1 tv with a decent interface (i need/want a main box & 3 sticks)
some sort of new updated 'Airport' type NAS from Apple would be amazing!!!!
There's literally no reason for a stick. If you have the stick, you'd be unable to run 90% of the apps, and 99% of new tvs have the Apple TV app installed, a good amount have access to your library. If you had a stick you'd only be able to access those two things. There's no point in it, and people think it's gonna happen, but it won't. Please stop beating this horse.
A stick isn't for apps, it's to Airplay from your device to non-AirPlay TVs, which is the vast majority of TVs out there in homes, hotels, etc. People and businesses infrequently upgrade their TVs so even if many new TVs have built-in Airplay, it might be decades until the vast majority of TVs out there in use will have AirPlay. But the vast majority of TVs do have HDMI. So there is a reason for an ATV stick and there will be for awhile. Will it happen? Who knows except Apple.
Almost all TVs have airplay as an option already. Same with Apple TV (steamer) and iTunes purchases
Almost all new TVs--yes, you said that in your first post, and I responded to that in my post.