what’s impressive to me is that it’s $70 less than what I paid for my 64 GB TV 4K 3 years ago.
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New AppleTV is impressive
- Thread starter jwolf6589
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I don't have a dog in the fight. The existing AppleTV was fine for what it is mainly used for. I am curious about what Apple thinks the device needs 128gb of storage for.
Not a clue since I don’t play games. But many here have complained about the previous generation being slow and low on disk space.
Gaming has been a total bomb though. TVOS doesn't provide a platform that makes it easy for developers to port big games and the user base isn't big enough to make that effort to do so worthwhile. Even the earlier ones are more powerful than a Switch so it could do quality appealing games from a power pov but it's basically just a glorified mobile phone from a gaming pov right now as that's what the games we get are.
It's the same mistake Amazon made, if you are going to try and sell a streaming device also as gaming device you need to make the box as cheap as possible to get a big user base and throw money at developers to port their games over.
I believe that this is an indication that Apple has bigger ambitions for gaming on Apple TV. tvOS updates were pretty boring in the past 3 years, Apple could be preparing more exciting stuff in the next months
Some of it I feel is TVOS fault, even the original ATV4 (Or ATV HD as it was renamed) spec-wise competes with a Switch and its still largely better speced than the top of the line devices from the rivals in the space outside of lacking some of the newer ports or features that require specific chips that weren't common when the original came out; so there is no reason there should be any lag. It could for example certainly do a better job of caching data, even its own apps struggle with that, just open your iTunes movie library and if you have a reasonable number it can be so slow to populate the thumbnails which could and should be cached better rather than seeming to need to be reloaded everytime you close the app down and go back into it. Sure it makes it easier for many users as they don't have to worry about clearing the cache if there is a cache-related issue but pulling the data locally is always going to be quicker than fetching it from the internet.
Apple also locks their systems down tighter than most of their rivals and sure that has benefits but I suspect it also can cause bottlenecks. Also I wonder if maybe if maybe TVOS is just a little bit too bloated. I'm not sure how big it is but the download takes much longer than it takes to download an Firetv or roku update which makes sense as there is much less storage for these to play with. And if you look at things like a Switch or Playstation or Xbox they want to keep their os lean as anything wasted on the os is lost fps. So maybe the OS could be more streamlined and efficient.
Final thing is the worst offenders do seem to be those that don't commit fully to adopting Apples interface, Apples own apps generally load equivalent things quicker while 3rd party apps that do commit to Apples interface and especially those in the preferred partner group while not as good as Apples do work better. So maybe those preferred partners who fully commit are getting better access while those who want to do their own thing because they don't want to fully develop an interface just for ATV users as they want a consistent interface and easier development are not getting access to some things that would make their apps work better
For most of us the technology in streaming devices is not of much consequence. I have a 4k ATV in my office and I do like the integration with Apple Music, Photos, etc. We still have Rokus on our other TVs and in terms of everyday use there's just not much real difference. I may pick up one of these and replace the Roku in our family room, but other than adding better integration with other devices it's not going to be a very exciting upgrade. Just a device where new tech isn't all that exciting or transformative.
I agree, I didn't expect A15 and 128GB, pretty nice.
My AppleTV (64GB) is full, I have many apps bit especially co-op games and other games which takes a lot of space.
I just bought a 32GB Gen2 Apple TV 4K (ie the A12 version) last week for $109 during Amazons prime day sale. I haven’t even opened the shipping box as I suspected an updated release of the Apple TV this week.
I think I’ll just return it to Amazon and pick up the 64GB A15 version for $129. Although I imagine I won’t see any major improvements in performance, etc with my use case (ie just watching Netflix, YouTube TV and movies on my 4K TV). I don’t need the Ethernet port as I always have my Apple TV’s connected via Wi-Fi anyway.
I think I’ll just return it to Amazon and pick up the 64GB A15 version for $129. Although I imagine I won’t see any major improvements in performance, etc with my use case (ie just watching Netflix, YouTube TV and movies on my 4K TV). I don’t need the Ethernet port as I always have my Apple TV’s connected via Wi-Fi anyway.
They claim to be doing a big gaming push every single time they upgrade the spec though and never do anything to actually make those words a reality. A device to play your iPhone games on the big screen isn't enough to sell it as an actual gaming device, and neither are some exclusive games that are really just phone games that they have had in the past.
At the same time is 128GB enough to make the kind of games they really need to sell it as a gaming device when there are no other storage options. Other consoles allow external storage be it USB drives or games on physical media and/or come with much bigger storage than 128GB. With the OS and the TV apps you use how many AAA level games are you going to fit on 128GB
That’s true but then also I don’t think it ever had a chip that was this recent. This is literally the same in the non Pro iPhone 14s.
As a current latest Apple TV owner though, I just wanted the new one to have more RAM. I am feeling my Apple TV suffering switching between apps like Infuse, YouTube TV and YouTube. I don’t think I am even close to using 32 GB on my 64 GB.
Ethernet too. I rely on Ethernet sometimes so I feel forced to get the 128 GB model when the 64 GB is more than just good for me.
I’m the same. I only just removed my ethernet switch from my home set up, as I recently used a PVR that didn’t have wifi. But I still have Ethernet at my TV point if I want it.
Apple could be taking steps towards an eventual gaming platform through tvOS.
Yes, it does seem uncharacteristically a lot for Apple to add for only $20 extra.
Apple Arcade is clearly a bust. They don't talk about it, the price hasn't increased (even with all the other inflation/forex price rises) and the rumours are subscriber numbers were disappointing. We've even seen games be removed from Apple Arcade by their publishers - presumably because they believe they would get more revenue through the App Store. If Apple wants to push gaming, it's going to need a big investment and a big announcement. These kind of announcements developer, content announcements typically come at WWDC in the Summer so I don't get why they launch the hardware now, before there is any drive to utilise it. If there was a big gaming /Apple Arcade push next year then it's likely the Apple TV could have benefitted from an A16 (or even A17) chip for the same price as this new model with everything moved on a year. Apple have noted that Resident Evil Village and No Man's Sky are coming to Mac, but Resident Evil needs an M1 for 1080p and a 'Mac Studio' for 4k (so M1 Max/Ultra). Potentially, it could do 1080p on an A15 (which also supports Metal 3), but with half the GPU cores of the M1, I'm not sure.
