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There is no reason to have 4K support on the current generation Apple TV as most content is not yet available in 4K. By the time mainstream 4K content becomes available, Apple will be prepared.

But if Apple did include 4K support it would be Apple leading the way to the future, right?
 
You must be misunderstanding me but I'll try again. :apple:TV4 rolls out with 4K, an app store and some kind of alternative CableTV (subscription) so enticing the masses jump on it like the masses jump on iPhones. Tens of millions sell. Why doesn't a Studio try to see if they can make a profit on a 4K stream to those masses? Would they dare?

But you're oversimplifying it. People still need to buy new TV's. And I for one would not waste 5 cents on those crappy 4K LCD TV's. Plasma and OLED are the only way to watch a good quality cinematic film. Since Plasma is now dead 4K OLED would only make sense if people care about the quality of their TV viewing. And anyone with high standards in TV viewing would only buy an OLED, sadly the 4K OLED is outrageously expensive......which brings me to my point of until 4K sets become the standard to buy content will remain very thin, and that still doesn't matter because people would have to pay extra to get internet connections fast enough to handle it. Apple has thought this through. It's obvious.

LCD TV's are so poor in PQ that it's silly to market 4K on them. Just another way of selling something to the public.
 
"low content" is not the same as "no content" unless you own an AppleTV it seems. Pretty sad that the first update in 3 years and it's already lacking.

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But you're oversimplifying it. People still need to buy new TV's. And I for one would not waste 5 cents on those crappy 4K LCD TV's. Plasma and OLED are the only way to watch a good quality cinematic film. Since Plasma is now dead 4K OLED would only make sense if people care about the quality of their TV viewing. And anyone with high standards in TV viewing would only buy an OLED, sadly the 4K OLED is outrageously expensive......which brings me to my point of until 4K sets become the standard to buy content will remain very thin, and that still doesn't matter because people would have to pay extra to get internet connections fast enough to handle it. Apple has thought this through. It's obvious.

LCD TV's are so poor in PQ that it's silly to market 4K on them. Just another way of selling something to the public.

I actually agree with you regarding the TV's. I'm waiting for more manufacturers (are you listening Samsung) to start producing 4K OLED TV's, because I'm not about to spend 10 grand on the LG that's currently out.

That said, it doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of 4K TV's out there right now in peoples homes and i'm sure these people would appreciate being able to stream 4K content when it's an option. It's a mistake for Apple to not support it. ATV isn't exactly a market leader in this segment and when all the other companies update their devices and have "4K" stamped all over the box, ATV market will only shrink further.
 
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If after you wait those 2 years, you'll wait 2 more, 4K TV sets 4 years from now will be much better by then.

And if you wait 2 more years beyond that, 4K TV sets 6 years from now will be much better by then.

If we'll wait another year or two for every new thing Apple rolls out, it will likely have cheaper pricing, compatibility/future proofing and higher quality. Will Apple Watch 2 be better than 1? How about the next MB? How about iPhone 7 instead of 6s? And so on.

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Your "if you're waiting for something better, you'll wait forever" argument might be valid for computers and smartphones right now, but when it comes to 4K TVs, anyone who buys one right now will probably need to replace it in 3 years. In general, people like to keep their TVs longer than they keep their smartphones or computers. Fortunately for anyone who decides to buy one now or has purchased one recently, the price of a good replacement should be cheap by that point. When it comes to 4K TVs, many of the current models are missing the boat when it comes to future 4K Blu-ray compatibility. That may not matter to you, but it may matter to someone else.

As for Apple Watch 2 being better than Apple Watch 1, the only significant improvement that Apple could introduce with AW2 is better battery life and not much more, maybe one more sensor. The biggest change with the iPhone 7 will be that it looks different with marginal improvements elsewhere. Finally, the retina MB needs a second USB Type-C port and performance similar to the current MBA.
 
4k would be great if streaming services could provide 4K. Heck, they can't even provide real 2K streaming video without horrendous compression. Netflix and others need to focus on being able to stream true blu ray video quality before they even think of 4K. Of course, most consumer are too dumb to demand quality. They actually think the video quality is good.
 
The moment Apple adopt 4K people will start whining for 8K or whatever is the next point in endless and meaningless race for bigger resolution. Same as with modern cameras.
As if you couldn't really enjoy your favorite movie at 1080p on a 60" Full HD TV.
 
4K really doesn't make sense to the regular consumer right now. Just like 3D TVs a couple years ago. Here's why:

http://www.cnet.com/news/why-ultra-hd-4k-tvs-are-still-stupid/
 
This 4K issue is a complete and utter non-issue, except for technophiles who frequent sites like this and complain that Apple isn't catering to them (all 10s of them).

That, and all the clueless people who have started to buy 4K TVs (that are now pretty common in stores), just because it's a bigger number and 'the next big thing' to go along with the other useless gimmicks like 3D and curves.

At least 4K is useful if you have a big enough display and sit too close, but it's going to be a LONG time until the content catches up at the rate things are going... IF it even should go that direction. As other's have mentioned, I'd rather have an excellent 1080p source than a highly compressed 4K one, and we're not even close to having that quality in 1080p streams yet.
 
It's Buzzfeed, so take with a grain of salt.

I think a 4K Apple TV would make a lot of sense if the upgrade cycle for it is as slow as it has been for this product line since it launched. In the next few years more and more 4K televisions will go into people's homes so the market will grow. Also, even if it is too soon to expect significant 4K video libraries in online video services and broadband performance is lacking in many areas, users could still view their better-than-4K photos and personal 4K videos on the new Apple TV; cameras that can do 4K are not expensive today and more will support that resolution soon.
 
This reminds me of the old digital camera megapixel wars. 4k will come eventually, but it's not the killer feature right now. Turned out that the killer feature for a camera was being in a smartphone (and being attached to social networks and the Internet in general). Something similar will probably be true of set-top-boxes.

An App Store that causes a version of the blooming that happened for Indie developers, but for the tv would be amazing. What does an app that can take over a screen, or a portion of a screen mean for tv? Could you watch a movie with imdb style pop up video running underneath? What about a gameshow that you can play with friends? Tv shows with buy buttons? Dashboards or menu apps for restaurant menus are easy. What about a security centre for your house? A hub for your HomeKit stuff? The indie games would be great.

The high resolution 4K stuff can probably wait about 5 years, at which time Apple will probably just sell their own TV, for the "optimal :apple:TV experience. I know I'd probably buy it.
 
That, and all the clueless people who have started to buy 4K TVs (that are now pretty common in stores), just because it's a bigger number and 'the next big thing' to go along with the other useless gimmicks like 3D and curves.

At least 4K is useful if you have a big enough display and sit too close, but it's going to be a LONG time until the content catches up at the rate things are going... IF it even should go that direction. As other's have mentioned, I'd rather have an excellent 1080p source than a highly compressed 4K one, and we're not even close to having that quality in 1080p streams yet.

4K Blu-Ray players and content will be out at the end of 2015.
http://www.cnet.com/au/news/ultra-hd-4k-blu-ray-what-we-know/

Maybe the people you dismiss as "clueless" are future-proofing with their tv purchases and have the money to afford it.
 
I think a 4K Apple TV would make a lot of sense if the upgrade cycle for it is as slow as it has been for this product line since it launched. In the next few years more and more 4K televisions will go into people's homes so the market will grow. Also, even if it is too soon to expect significant 4K video libraries in online video services and broadband performance is lacking in many areas, users could still view their better-than-4K photos and personal 4K videos on the new Apple TV; cameras that can do 4K are not expensive today and more will support that resolution soon.

My thinking exactly!
Let's get started with our own 4k content now. I have a 65"4k display since some month and boy is this image quality an improvement over any HD screen I've ever seen before. The sad thing is that I'm only able to look at my HiRes pictures when I plug an USB stick in the TV. Having Apple TV support 4k pictures would be reason enough for me to buy one, just to avoid the hassle to copy pictures to a stick.
The 4k video streaming might be not possible with the currently available A8x chips, but in some places of the world the internet bandwidth is certainly not the limit any longer. (I live in a 6000 people village and get 100MBit bandwidth).
 
“4K is great, but it’s still in its infancy,” said one source familiar with Apple’s thinking.

Enabling 4K video support in Apple’s first major overhaul of Apple TV in three years might seem like a smart bit of future-proofing — particularly given reports that the A8 chip in the guts of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is 4K-capable. But it’s arguably an unnecessary one at this point."

Thats what Apple said about 1080P 3 years agoo, while te rest of the world HAD 1080P. And WHY marked a FIVE K imac?
What happend to the "innovative company" ??
We will get it when the rest of the world has 8K already?

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But if Apple did include 4K support it would be Apple leading the way to the future, right?

If it's so "infantile" WHY do apple sell 5K imac's? Why did the prepare Final Cut Pro for 4K editting 2 years agoo?
 
I realize content is low, but still somewhat disappointing. Maybe next year.

Just remember that you're commenting on a rumour. The new Apple TV will likely be able to support 4K video from a technical standpoint, but they won't have the feature enabled. Could you imagine some granny getting a bill in the mail for exceeding their bandwidth quota after watching a couple of movies? Basically 4K is ahead of the game.

What would be disappointing is if we still received MPEG-2 video because the codec technology wasn't quite with us yet. The reality is that it is with us, and it's ahead of what we can realistically consume in our households.
 
4K will come.

But for the time being I'd be happy if I could play my self-made iPhone 6 videos (1080p 60fps—which looks great) via AirPlay on Apple TV/HDMI without waiting time.

When I start a 1 minute clip (on iPhone) I'll have to wait for at least 20 seconds until the video shows up (starts) on the tv set. WiFi: Apple AirPort Extreme, latest hardware version.
 
People... geeze.

How many people said cell phones were stupid and were a waste when they first came out? Now darn near everyone has a cell phone. If the first people who got one took the advice of the nay sayers, we wouldn't have cell phones.

Same with HD TVs. When they came out, same BS argument was made. Why? There is no HD content out there. People who buy one are stupid. It's pointless. You can't see a difference anyway unless you get a 40+ inch. By the time content comes out you will need a new TV anyway. Yet people bought them, and now we have HD content. All of our over the air channels are in HD, I stream everything in HD, I watch Blu-Ray in HD. If no one bought the early TVs, then we would have none of this.

Content providers aren't going to spend money on something no one has. You have to start somewhere, right? People buy 4K TV because hey, shiny. Content providers say "Hey, people are buying this, maybe we should start producing, but start small and ramp up as needed". If no one bought a 4K TV, then no one would even bother with content at all. It takes time to ramp up, just like HD TV did. Just like color when color TVs came out.

Also, screw this absurd mentality that some have shown here. "I can't have this, so no one should have this." Good god, the world doesn't revolve around your tastes. What a waste to have heart surgeons, I don't need a new heart. Right?

As for the person who said that net neutrality will bring data caps, ugh. Take your tin foil hat off and quit feeding on the bull that your ISP fed you. Are you freaking serious?!?! Two things:

1. We've had data caps for YEARS. Comcast even advertises it as a freaking feature, like we should be happy to have this. Numerous other ISPs have data caps as well. Damn liberal agendas, robbing poor near monopolistic companies of money, forcing them to implement data caps or they will starve... oh, wait, you mean they've been already doing that while making billions in profits? Oh my.

2. This is a United States thing, not a world thing. Last I checked, the United States isn't the only country in the world, nor the only country that Apple operates in. Even if we end up with 1 GB data caps and 56K internet speeds, it doesn't mean the rest of the world will. Again, just because you can't doesn't mean others shouldn't.

For the people saying you can't see the difference anyway, either YOU can't or you haven't actually bothered. 4K YouTube looks better on my 4K monitor than on my 1200p monitor. I sold TVs a year ago - there is a clear difference between 720p and 1080p, regardless of distance. There is a very clear difference in DVD and Blu-Ray, regardless of distance. Regardless of TV size. We would play the same movie, on the same model TV, side by side on the display - one was DVD the other was Blu-Ray. There was a very real difference. My couch sits roughly 12' from my TV, and there is a huge difference between the 720p TV that sat on my wall and the 1080p that sits there now.
 
Also, screw this absurd mentality that some have shown here. "I can't have this, so no one should have this." Good god, the world doesn't revolve around your tastes. What a waste to have heart surgeons, I don't need a new heart. Right?

That is basically what people say on the comments section of most sites whenever Apple release a new product. No-one will admit that they can't afford a 20K watch but most commenters will agree that anyone who wears one is vain or worse. Twisted logic but it helps them feel better about themselves I guess.
 
People... geeze.

How many people said cell phones were stupid and were a waste when they first came out? Now darn near everyone has a cell phone. If the first people who got one took the advice of the nay sayers, we wouldn't have cell phones.

Same with HD TVs. When they came out, same BS argument was made. Why? There is no HD content out there. People who buy one are stupid. It's pointless. You can't see a difference anyway unless you get a 40+ inch. By the time content comes out you will need a new TV anyway. Yet people bought them, and now we have HD content. All of our over the air channels are in HD, I stream everything in HD, I watch Blu-Ray in HD. If no one bought the early TVs, then we would have none of this.

Content providers aren't going to spend money on something no one has. You have to start somewhere, right? People buy 4K TV because hey, shiny. Content providers say "Hey, people are buying this, maybe we should start producing, but start small and ramp up as needed". If no one bought a 4K TV, then no one would even bother with content at all. It takes time to ramp up, just like HD TV did. Just like color when color TVs came out.

Also, screw this absurd mentality that some have shown here. "I can't have this, so no one should have this." Good god, the world doesn't revolve around your tastes. What a waste to have heart surgeons, I don't need a new heart. Right?

As for the person who said that net neutrality will bring data caps, ugh. Take your tin foil hat off and quit feeding on the bull that your ISP fed you. Are you freaking serious?!?! Two things:

1. We've had data caps for YEARS. Comcast even advertises it as a freaking feature, like we should be happy to have this. Numerous other ISPs have data caps as well. Damn liberal agendas, robbing poor near monopolistic companies of money, forcing them to implement data caps or they will starve... oh, wait, you mean they've been already doing that while making billions in profits? Oh my.

2. This is a United States thing, not a world thing. Last I checked, the United States isn't the only country in the world, nor the only country that Apple operates in. Even if we end up with 1 GB data caps and 56K internet speeds, it doesn't mean the rest of the world will. Again, just because you can't doesn't mean others shouldn't.

For the people saying you can't see the difference anyway, either YOU can't or you haven't actually bothered. 4K YouTube looks better on my 4K monitor than on my 1200p monitor. I sold TVs a year ago - there is a clear difference between 720p and 1080p, regardless of distance. There is a very clear difference in DVD and Blu-Ray, regardless of distance. Regardless of TV size. We would play the same movie, on the same model TV, side by side on the display - one was DVD the other was Blu-Ray. There was a very real difference. My couch sits roughly 12' from my TV, and there is a huge difference between the 720p TV that sat on my wall and the 1080p that sits there now.
Everything you say is right, but because Apple hasn't got it, everything you say is wrong.
 
4K video is not on radar now.
In 2 years, maybe, depending on internet infrastructure.
Then you will have new update for AppleTV.
As simple as that.
 
For the people saying you can't see the difference anyway, either YOU can't or you haven't actually bothered. 4K YouTube looks better on my 4K monitor than on my 1200p monitor. I sold TVs a year ago - there is a clear difference between 720p and 1080p, regardless of distance. There is a very clear difference in DVD and Blu-Ray, regardless of distance. Regardless of TV size. We would play the same movie, on the same model TV, side by side on the display - one was DVD the other was Blu-Ray. There was a very real difference. My couch sits roughly 12' from my TV, and there is a huge difference between the 720p TV that sat on my wall and the 1080p that sits there now.

Unless you have much higher than 20/20 vision, your not going to see the difference between 720P and 1080P at 12 feet on a 50inch TV if both TV's are the same, and the same content has been encoded for that specific resolution. If you're 1080P encoded content is outputed at 720P, you're not playing the same thing on both TV's and thus not running a proper test.

If you're telling me that everyone sees this difference on any size at any distance, with similar content. I'll have to call you a liar, which obviously discredits everything else you say.

BTW, I specifically put a link from an industry blog that says precisely why its a big problem convincing content providers to get on board (i.e. money made vs money spent) in my previous posts. That should respond to the rest of your rant.
 
Do you know if it is a software or hardware limitation? Btw I'm not going to have any 4K device in the near future, and even my fiber internet connection isn't enough for that kind of streaming.

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How about us non-Americans who do have more than necessary bandwidth? I live 2 miles outside of a town of 24000 people, and my choice is 100M or 1G :)

I'm disappointed in Apple, they used to be forerunners....
I'm under a fiber 100 Mbit connection, but I hardly can get more than 50 ... I don't think it's enough for 4K streaming, since sometimes isn't perfect for 1080P.

I can't imagine most of the people around me with 6 Mbit ADSL......
 
Unless you have much higher than 20/20 vision, your not going to see the difference between 720P and 1080P at 12 feet on a 50inch TV if both TV's are the same, and the same content has been encoded for that specific resolution. If you're 1080P encoded content is outputed at 720P, you're not playing the same thing on both TV's and thus not running a proper test.

If you're telling me that everyone sees this difference on any size at any distance, with similar content. I'll have to call you a liar, which obviously discredits everything else you say.

BTW, I specifically put a link from an industry blog that says precisely why its a big problem convincing content providers to get on board (i.e. money made vs money spent) in my previous posts. That should respond to the rest of your rant.

You're a liar. Which obviously discredits everything you have said. Damn, this arguing thing is easy! But thank's for telling me that I can't see a difference, even though I can.
 
Disappointing. I have a 4K tv and I was hoping that the new Apple TV would support it. Those saying the content is low apparently haven't been on Netflix or YouTube in the past year. And how else to encourage content expansion than by providing the hardware to support it? The tv's are out there, and they are NOT as expensive as people think they are. 4K is growing MUCH faster than 1080p HD did, yet there are those companies that are a little slow to the punch, and Apple is one of them.
 
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