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New Apple TV model

It’s much better than the Sky Stream/Xfinity (in USA) box as they can only run their own software whereas the Apple TV box can add the EETV functionality effectively as another App, and i bet it could add in the Sky OS too but Comcast want to retain control of the whole thing instead of releasing an App.
JulianL said:
I'm not saying it's the same thing at all but just as a point of curiosity/interest, there is already one case that I know of of Apple licensing the entire Apple TV box which includes TVOS of course.

There is a major UK TV provider in the UK - not a TV channel but maybe something more like a cable TV provider in the USA - that has been licensing the Apple TV box (ATV) for some years now. It (EE TV, formerly BT TV) provides all the free TV channels and various optional paid-for channel packages (sports, movies etc) all delivered via IPTV through EE's own interface (e.g. electronic program guide for all of the live TV channels). In the same way that (I assume) you need the providers cable TV box to get cable TV in the USA you need a streaming puck from EE to get its service but there it gets interesting because EE offers either its own very cost-engineered box or you can instead choose to get a 4K Apple TV box (the wired Ethernet A15 Bionic version) when signing up. In both cases EE doesn't charge anything for the box. If you choose the ATV option you get an EE branded box with the EE software locked in some way (MAC-locked maybe) to the specific box that EE provides.

I think it's a really interesting model and I see it as something of a vote of confidence for Apple TV that EE thinks it is enough of an advantage to offer this option that it is willing to fund the price it pays to Apple out of its ongoing subscription fees for the TV service rather than charging extra to choose the ATV option. Honestly I'd be more than happy to pay an extra £50 for the ATV option although since I'm not a customer I don't know if maybe there are other locks on the ATV that EE provides that means it isn't a full ATV box.

I'm currently with one of EE's competitors - Sky TV - and I'm very likely to leave and do everything via individual apps on my not-yet-purchased ATV but if Sky offered the same ATV option as EE Tv I might well be tempted to keep my Sky subscription because one of my biggest complaints with my current Sky service is how appallingly slow and under-powered the streaming puck that Sky provides is.

I have no connection with EE, not even as a customer, but if anyone is interested EE's info page about its ATV option is here - https://ee.co.uk/tv/apple-tv-4k
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an Apple TV HDMI Stick could still be powered by a USB C cable
plugged into a wall outlet and not a TV, JUST LIKE 99% OF THEM,
very few HDMI Streaming sticks actually plug into a TV for power.
 
wilderkun said:
It wouldn’t run the full system because you’d need active cooling. The stick absolutely wouldn’t be able to run the full tvOS, at best it could run Netflix or Hulu, but there’s not a way to get it run a game like the current one does.
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Not that I think a stick is coming, but a stick wouldn't have to deal with the heat from the power supply that is in the current Apple TV box. Never understood why Apple didn't take that out and use a USB-C 20 W power adaptor that they already mass produce - it would allow them to make a smaller box and potentially even ship it without a power adaptor as they have started to do with Macs
 
sublunar said:
The current 3rd Gen AppleTV 4k doesn't have a fan - the 2nd gen does. Apparently although the two boxes look the same there are differences in width. depth, and height.

I can't see Apple doing a stick version of Apple TV though,
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wilderkun said:
Weird thought it was this generation with the fan lol
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The ATV4K1 and ATV4K2 has active cooling, the current generation, ATV4K3 has passive cooling.

But, it’s worth noting that the current generation, and its A15 chip, thermal throttle is like crazy for games. In many games, the older generation actually out performs the current due to the A12 having a fan.
 
Juicy Box said:
The ATV4K1 and ATV4K2 has active cooling, the current generation, ATV4K3 has passive cooling.

But, it’s worth noting that the current generation, and its A15 chip, thermal throttle is like crazy for games. In many games, the older generation actually out performs the current due to the A12 having a fan.
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Not having a fan is pretty counter productive for gaming purposes, I wonder why Apple would go to the expense of a new case to save money on a fan. Especially if they knew that later generation cpus could run as hot if games were being played.
 
sublunar said:
Not having a fan is pretty counter productive for gaming purposes, I wonder why Apple would go to the expense of a new case to save money on a fan. Especially if they knew that later generation cpus could run as hot if games were being played.
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Because no one is playing games on the Apple TV.
 
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bozzykid said:
Because no one is playing games on the Apple TV.
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Apple will be able to crunch the numbers on that. One suspects the AI features of the A17pro and later chips will raise the heat produced and might yet force another redesign (or perhaps even a return to the slightly bigger fan enabled case of the second generation a12 Apple TV 4K if the Apple TV could be more of a home hub going forward).

For me, what might pique game developers going forward is if tvOS 28 could run on any arm hardware going forward as a long term solution to older kit losing support from mainline macOS - ie m1 generation products from 2020 and 2021.

If for example, they released something called homeOS that would have a more limited feature set for longer term support that could run tvOS games, support matter radios (m2 and upwards I believe), be a NAS or server, etc
 
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The new price increase isn't ideal. If you want to buy the current model you may have to pay extra. And when the new model finally releases it will be with outdated chip and a higher price featuring Siri.
 
every sign looks bad with this one
the usual shills will be sayings how overpowered it is for a streamer
and keep saying it will be the fastest streaming device on the market

but for what it needs to do, and if its all about Siri, then it will be woeful if it is given the worst possible "Siri chip"

Siri's base chip is the A17 Pro and this box has been delayed for its Siri capabilities
apple, and im paraphrasing obviously, is saying that we will have the worst or most basic of all the siri advancements

from what the rumours are now saying is
the box will be the same size colour everything
and there will be no camera

there will be advancements inside with the N1 chip which is looking like the flagship improvement
including what Siri can actually do
the A17 Pro chip is so so so uninspiring
not because of the chip itself
just the optics to anyone that its a chip that was in the iPhone 15 Pro
and they will be showing off the A20 Pro most likely at the same event
so it will be 3 years out of date on day 1.

but hey if your reading this then you, like me, are most likely going to buy it anyway.
 
DJHB1980 said:
every sign looks bad with this one
...

but for what it needs to do, and if its all about Siri, then it will be woeful if it is given the worst possible "Siri chip"

Siri's base chip is the A17 Pro and this box has been delayed for its Siri capabilities
apple, and im paraphrasing obviously, is saying that we will have the worst or most basic of all the siri advancements
...
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I'm not so sure. I do agree with your basic comments about streaming, Siri etc. For a while now I have been a believer in the vision that Apple TV evolves beyond a simple streaming box and is also positioned by Apple as an AI hub for a smart home where reasonable-sized LLMs can run to process some of the requests that HomePods can't handle locally rather than having to send everything up to Apple's cloud servers.

While this is just my dream and there are no definite signals (that I've seen/heard) that Apple is considering this I don't believe that "every sign looks bad". In a perverse way I see some potentially positive signals in the price rises just announced, in particular the fact that the percentage price increase applied to the Apple TV line-up (+54% for the lower-end model and +67% for the Ethernet model) are so much higher in percentage terms than the price increases for the Macs (apart from Mac Studio) and the iPads.

This makes me wonder if just maybe the higher retail pricing for the Apple TVs is not only to adjust for component pricing based on current RAM sizes but is also in anticipation of even more extra component costs about to be incurred because the RAM sizes are going to be increased for the next ATVs when we finally (my guess is in October) get to see them released. There might even also be some of that anomalously high price increase reserved to reflect the fact that the next generation ATVs, or at least the top-end one, might also be getting something better than an A17 Pro.

Perhaps the very high percentage increase in ATV pricing now is because Apple didn't want to implement 2 price increases for ATV in relatively short succession, one now purely to adjust for increased component costs for the current specifications and then again if/when the next ATVs are announced to adjust for increased RAM sizes and maybe a bigger-than-rumoured bump in the A-Series SoC generation.
 
JulianL said:
I'm not so sure. I do agree with your basic comments about streaming, Siri etc. For a while now I have been a believer in the vision that Apple TV evolves beyond a simple streaming box and is also positioned by Apple as an AI hub for a smart home where reasonable-sized LLMs can run to process some of the requests that HomePods can't handle locally rather than having to send everything up to Apple's cloud servers.

While this is just my dream and there are no definite signals (that I've seen/heard) that Apple is considering this I don't believe that "every sign looks bad". In a perverse way I see some potentially positive signals in the price rises just announced, in particular the fact that the percentage price increase applied to the Apple TV line-up (+54% for the lower-end model and +67% for the Ethernet model) are so much higher in percentage terms than the price increases for the Macs (apart from Mac Studio) and the iPads.

This makes me wonder if just maybe the higher retail pricing for the Apple TVs is not only to adjust for component pricing based on current RAM sizes but is also in anticipation of even more extra component costs about to be incurred because the RAM sizes are going to be increased for the next ATVs when we finally (my guess is in October) get to see them released. There might even also be some of that anomalously high price increase reserved to reflect the fact that the next generation ATVs, or at least the top-end one, might also be getting something better than an A17 Pro.

Perhaps the very high percentage increase in ATV pricing now is because Apple didn't want to implement 2 price increases for ATV in relatively short succession, one now purely to adjust for increased component costs for the current specifications and then again if/when the next ATVs are announced to adjust for increased RAM sizes and maybe a bigger-than-rumoured bump in the A-Series SoC generation.
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Whilst I agree that the next Apple TV i4K s likely to be an AI-request processor for HomePods, I'm not sure that Apple will heavily push it as they will be likely to put the bulk of their marketing behind the actual Home Hub ("HomePad") that will likely be launching at the same time.

The cynical part of my brain that can read Apple's penny-pinching ways is now starting to think that the reason the new Apple TV 4K and HomePods were held back despite being ready was because they knew this price rise was coming and thought that people who wanted the AI/hub features would buy it at the higher price anyway - especially if there are warehouses full of A17Pro Apple TV 4Ks and next gen HomePods already made with chips purchased at the pre-crisis prices.

Personally, I will be waiting for the following generation (unless I see a great refurb/used deal on the A17Pro model) - An A19Pro or A20 version in 18 months or so would allow the use of the advanced dictation & Siri voice features, which I think is much more important for a primarily voice driven system, which is what Apple's Home devices will be.
 
I was waiting and waiting and waiting for the release of the new Apple TV until Apple decided to jack up the prices of the 4 years old one yesterday. I was able to get the WiFi+Ethernet model at Costco for $139 and bought many for all my TVs. No mater what Apple updates on the new release will justify the price gouging. I only use the device to stream Netflix, YoutubeTV, etc... so it is more than enough for my needs.
 
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BMox81 said:
I did tell everyone not to wait…
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Well, for someone that did not have an immediate need like me, I was willing to wait a few more months to get the newest model vs a 4 year old one. After being hostage of Comcast for many years, last week I was finally able to move into fiber internet which allowed me to switch to YouTubeTV so I was ready to get the new Apple TV for all my TVs. But I could not justify paying so much more for it.
 
MN7119 said:
I was waiting and waiting and waiting for the release of the new Apple TV until Apple decided to jack up the prices of the 4 years old one yesterday. I was able to get the WiFi+Ethernet model at Costco for $139 and bought many for all my TVs. No mater what Apple updates on the new release will justify the price gouging. I only use the device to stream Netflix, YoutubeTV, etc... so it is more than enough for my needs.
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Yup, same here
Replacing a Gen 1 4k from 2017, it had a good run :apple:
 
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Apple should cut the storage of the base Apple TV to make it cheaper. I only use it for media consumption and don’t need 64-128gb ram.

I own the first Apple TV 4K. It has 32gb and Ethernet. It works brilliantly. Crazy that Apple force you to buy a 128gb model for Ethernet.

WiFi is fine but Ethernet noticable reduces latency especially for scrubbing and skipping.
 
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bozzykid said:
You are confusing RAM with storage. The Apple TV 4K 3rd gen has 4gb of RAM. You can't go any lower. AI is going to require more RAM in the next version.
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Why does the Apple TV need alot of RAM. Sure it has Siri but for a simple streaming device I don't think it's worth slapping on $75-150 additional cost for more ram given that Siri will under perform.
 
Macalicious2011 said:
Why does the Apple TV need alot of RAM. Sure it has Siri but for a simple streaming device I don't think it's worth slapping on $75-150 additional cost for more ram given that Siri will under perform.
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Apple requires 8GB of RAM on iOS devices for Apple Intelligence. So it is assumed that it will need more RAM for the next gen and likely will be 8GB (unless tvOS requires slightly less than iOS).
 
bozzykid said:
Apple requires 8GB of RAM on iOS devices for Apple Intelligence. So it is assumed that it will need more RAM for the next gen and likely will be 8GB (unless tvOS requires slightly less than iOS).
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Fair enough. If apple wants devices to have apple intelligence parity then 10-12gb will need to become a norm.

Bad for consumers who don't need to find apple intelligence useful.
 
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