The 2021 Apple TV 4K should've had an A12X Bionic instead.

[kraiggers]

If you're thinking about a new AppleTV / remote, this may be interesting to some of you...


I've been using a harmony remote with my Sony TV,  TV, PS4, and Mac for more than several years now. It can switch inputs, and has both a mute button and a universal off. ( As you may know, Harmony has been discontinued by Logitech. [shrug] )

I prefer to use the siri remote for the touch pad and scrubbing; the harmony remote is pretty awful at fast-forward and rewind actions. But, not having mute is actually a killer, and I do switch amongst inputs pretty frequently, so I've never been happy with either remote.

However, the new siri remote has an 1) an off-button, and 2) a mute button. So two of my three key harmony features are no longer necessary. If only I could figure out a way to switch inputs, I wouldn't need the harmony remote (and its stupidly complicated admin/setup system) at all…

Site note 1: I wonder why this isn't something you can program into the siri remote somehow — maybe via one or more extra programmable buttons?​

​

Side note 2: Even though HDMI-CEC works fine when turning a device on from the off-state, it doesn't help at all when trying to switch amongst multiple already-on devices.​

Well, it turns out my (new-ish) TV (Sony Z9F) has HomeKit compatibility. I discovered (today!) that one of the few things this can do is set inputs via the Home App. I don't think [yet] you can just say 'hey siri, set my TV input to _____', but what you CAN do is make scenes that set the input, and then name the scene something like 'Switch to Computer' or 'Switch to AppleTV'.

So, I can now use voice command to switch inputs. I can just say, “hey siri, Switch to Computer”… Or, “hey siri, switch to Apple TV” and BINGO. And the new Siri remote can do everything else, I think.

YMMV.

 

[FlyingTexan]

Everyone complaining about the A12 I don’t think is looking at things fully. Remember the 12” MacBook and how the 2015-16 models sucked but the 2017 could edit HD video? It’s because of the added hardware encoding.

It’s like when gaming they test the cpu by running at 1080p and test the GPU by running 4K. The cpu sends the data at a certain rate, once that’s met it’s up the GPU to render it.

The current ATV has been great for me. The A12 isn’t the only upgrade. The question is can the A12 compute the data fast enough the other hardware needs… the answer must be yes. The question is what other hardware was added. They have hdmi 2.1 and added other functionality. This isn’t all being shoved through the A12. There’s new dedicated hardware in there for more hardware decoding. I’ve already ordered mine.

 

[Sxr71]

Vincent Teoh tested this thing and it does not output in HDMI 2.1 signaling format. So it currently can only output HDMI 2.0 bandwidth. No 4:4:4 HDR. What a joke. I'll be keeping my money.

Go ahead watch the video. Get it and connect it to your LG OLED and spam the green button you will see 4:2:2 8B TM. Total joke unless you like to make believe it has extra special Apple hardware that makes it better. It's a product for the believers. If you prefer testing and evidence it is not for you.

 

[-Gonzo-]

Vincent Teoh tested this thing and it does not output in HDMI 2.1 signaling format. So it currently can only output HDMI 2.0 bandwidth. No 4:4:4 HDR. What a joke. I'll be keeping my money.

Go ahead watch the video. Get it and connect it to your LG OLED and spam the green button you will see 4:2:2 8B TM. Total joke unless you like to make believe it has extra special Apple hardware that makes it better. It's a product for the believers. If you prefer testing and evidence it is not for you.

More than likely won’t be activated until tvOS 15.

 

[Heelpir8]

Think I once read some advice that it's better to buy a product for what it can do right now than for what it might be able to do in the future.

 

[Sxr71]

Think I once read some advice that it's better to buy a product for what it can do right now than for what it might be able to do in the future.

Given our old 4K models were supposed to get Youtube 4k HDR support and fixed DV black levels and suddenly they are fixed by this obvious cash grab (gosh those poor guys in Cupertino must be lacking even basic sustenance to have to run this desperate move) and more assumptions made on its future functionality.

You want what we promised you? That be only $179 + tax. Thank you.

Then they will sell you a new one next year. They are loving offloading inventory of outdated chips during this time of electronics shortage and people staying at home bored looking for a new toy to play with. They know people are dying to buy something new. So they release some half baked junk and people are so bored and wanting something HDMI 2.1 for their new 2.1 TV, PS5 sold out, Xbox X sold out.

Ironically it doesn't even support 2.1 HDMI yet. People still buy it. Wow. They even praise it. They go buy it from a company that defaults on its promises thinking it won't happen this time. Look at how half baked it is. That should tell you something right there. Not even the decency to say HDMI 2.1 features will be enabled with an updated firmware. Somebody had to test it and figure that out.

 

[inkahauts]

I’m buying it. No hesitation. Of course I’m upgrading from a 1080p device, not the old 4K one. I’ve been due for an upgrade since I picked up my new 4K tv at Christmas. I just held off a bit.

 

[Homme]

It is amazing how many articles, YouTube videos, and comments in the MR forum are calling the A12 a performance upgrade. At best it I would consider it on par with the A10.

Well, Apple claims it provides a "significant boost in graphic performance", so maybe it is some variant of the A12 or takes advantage of having a fan and not limited to the power of a battery. Or maybe it is just bull.....


When talking about the stuttering, was this during only the cutscenes or during actual gameplay? I only experienced this during the cutscenes, and while it was annoying, it definitely didn't ruin the game or was worth lowering the resolution.

Also, was it a long while ago? Or somewhat recent? I know there was an update that increased the graphic quality a while back, and maybe there was bugs related to that.

The only reason why I bring it up is because Oceanhorn 2 has been the only game that I have seen performance related issues on, and even then it was only on the cut scenes (at least for me), and I always wondered if it was a problem with the game and not a limitation of the A10X.

Like I already said, more me the actual gameplay of Oceanhorn 2 in full rez was flawless when it came to the HW performance.

Are you serious in saying A12 is on par with the A10…. I can’t even

6 cores which are simultaneously operating with in one another compared to A10s 4 cores which are not operated simultaneously

ANE on A12, an extra 5 trillion operations per second compared to A10 which has no ANE

Purely 64bit chip A12 is. No 32 bit code improves the performance

Except what device has Apple actually ”overclocked”? The M1 mini has much better cooling than the Air or 13” Pro but any improvement is marginal and only in sustained workloads. I’m not sure the A-series chips are really designed to be “overclocked”. There are examples of them running slower in thermally constrained models but AFIAK there are no examples of the reverse. If it has a vanilla A12 I’m very skeptical it will perform meaningfully better than the iPad.

only one iDevice…. And that is the iPad Mini 4. Released a year after the 6 and 6 plus it is overclocked by 100mhz to 1.5Ghz

iPad mini 4 uses overclocked A8 processor faster than 2014 iPhones | AppleInsider

Apple has engineered the iPad mini 4's version of the A8 processor to make it slightly faster than the original chip used in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, a report said on Tuesday.

www.google.com

You're getting a bit too hung up on the word "overclocking." It's not that Apple overclocks anything if that term means going above a permissible limit, but the chip is set to run at certain clock speeds based on the needs of the device in balancing power, efficiency, and thermal profile.

There are examples. Take the A10 for example: On the iPad 2018 and iPhone 7 the CPU cores ran at 2.34ghz, but on the iPad 2019 it was clocked slightly lower to 2.32ghz, and the 7th gen iPod Touch it was clocked much lower to 1.63ghz.

The thermal profile is important. All these chips are designed to slow down when at the top of their allowed temperature. The longer it can stay under that limit, the longer it can run at full power. As you said, active cooling thus can run allow it to run sustained workloads for longer, or indefinitely if the cooling is good enough. That alone can make the end-user performance better than

on the iPod Touch though it has more compromises than a severely underclocked CPU, even the GPU is underclocked badly around on par with A9 via metal,

I’m actually surprised 7th Gen iPad is underclocked

To the OP, A10X is best compared to A11 rather than A12,😊

 

[gnomeisland]

You're getting a bit too hung up on the word "overclocking." It's not that Apple overclocks anything if that term means going above a permissible limit, but the chip is set to run at certain clock speeds based on the needs of the device in balancing power, efficiency, and thermal profile.

There are examples. Take the A10 for example: On the iPad 2018 and iPhone 7 the CPU cores ran at 2.34ghz, but on the iPad 2019 it was clocked slightly lower to 2.32ghz, and the 7th gen iPod Touch it was clocked much lower to 1.63ghz.

The thermal profile is important. All these chips are designed to slow down when at the top of their allowed temperature. The longer it can stay under that limit, the longer it can run at full power. As you said, active cooling thus can run allow it to run sustained workloads for longer, or indefinitely if the cooling is good enough. That alone can make the end-user performance better than the iPad.

Better than the iPad in sustained performance? Sure, I'm not questioning that. The relevant comparison is between the A10X and A12 AppleTV and both models have active cooling. Any advantages the air cooled A12 gets in the AppleTV chassis the air cooled A10X already got so comparing iPads with those chipsets seem reasonable unless Apple has made the (unlikely) decision alter the A12 silicon.

Ergo, the A10X AppleTV will have better metal performance. It seems the other bits of the SoC matter here as the new TV enables ARC/eARC and (guessing from codec support) seems to have better video decoders. It really is a side-step and not a clear upgrade—especially for the price.

At this point, the device is in the wild. IRL benchmarking is possible. If the A12 is doing magic things in the new AppleTV 4K we'll soon find out and I'll be happy to be wrong. (I may end up buying one for the ARC support now regardless...)

 

[gnomeisland]

Are you serious in saying A12 is on par with the A10…. I can’t even

6 cores which are simultaneously operating with in one another compared to A10s 4 cores which are not operated simultaneously


only one iDevice…. And that is the iPad Mini 4. Released a year after the 6 and 6 plus it is overclocked by 100mhz to 1.5Ghz

iPad mini 4 uses overclocked A8 processor faster than 2014 iPhones | AppleInsider

Apple has engineered the iPad mini 4's version of the A8 processor to make it slightly faster than the original chip used in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, a report said on Tuesday.

www.google.com

To the OP, A10X is best compared to A11 rather than A12,😊

Good find on the iPad mini 4. I wasn't aware, thanks.

The heterogenous compute CPU on the A12 is only 15% faster, in the best case scenario, than the A10X while the A12 GPU is 25% slower. The faster single core speed of the A12 (~25%) may help the UI feel a hair more responsive but I don't think it changes the evidence that the A12 AppleTV 4K is only a bit better and also a bit worse than the outgoing model. Disappointing for an update after four years, no price drop, and many more powerful SoCs available.

 

[Juicy Box]

Are you serious in saying A12 is on par with the A10

To be fair to myself, I meant that "at best" the A12 would be on par with the A10X.

Otherwise, I think that the A12 is a downgrade to the A10X when it comes to gaming performance.

Considering that the performance differences between the two chips isn't considered an upgrade, the storage size is the same, and that Apple is selling the ATV4K2 at the same price, the new one is just a turd of an update for anyone that currently has the ATV4K1.

 

[Donar]

Took me some time to remember, but the discussion is similar to the one people had when discussing the 10.5" A10X iPad Pro vs. The iPad Air 3 (A12). I think for performance measurements you can look at these two devices.

 

[bniu]

My opinion of the update to the A12 chip is more a case of Apple desiring to shut down the A8/A10 production lines.

A8 HomePod was discontinued, A8 ATV HD probably sells at a slow trickle, and Apple's probably got enough A8 chips on hand to support it for another 6-12 months before it goes into "while supplies last". Apple probably also has enough A10 chips on hand to support the slow trickle of iPod touch sales, and when it runs out, we'll see the first A12 based iPod touch.

A12 currently is in production with the 8th Gen iPad, 5th Gen iPad mini, iPhone XR, and now ATV 4K.
A13 is in production with the iPhone SE and iPhone 11.
A14 is in production with the iPhone 12 series and iPad Air 4.

iPhone XR will probably go away this fall, I'd bet 5th Gen mini sticks around as a low cost mini iPad to hit a $269 price point, and a new A14 based iPad mini 6th gen gets introduced. iPhone 12 and 12 mini and iPad Air 4 would also keep the A14 line up and running. A13 would stay healthy with the iPhone SE and 11. With the XR going away, it's logical that the ATV 4K would be able to slide right in and keep up the line along with a new iPod touch 8th gen when A10 chips run low. New iPhone 12S series would be running on A15 chips.

Also keep in mind A12X hasn't been around for almost a year already, and A12Z was just discontinued, so it looks like Apple wanted to simplify A12 production around the base A12 chip rather than needing a separate sub-line for A12Z just for an Apple TV.

I could also see a next gen HomePod Pro being A12 powered as well.

These are just my predictions with how I would do it based off of optimizing production capacity.

 

[Homme]

My opinion of the update to the A12 chip is more a case of Apple desiring to shut down the A8/A10 production lines.

A8 HomePod was discontinued, A8 ATV HD probably sells at a slow trickle, and Apple's probably got enough A8 chips on hand to support it for another 6-12 months before it goes into "while supplies last". Apple probably also has enough A10 chips on hand to support the slow trickle of iPod touch sales, and when it runs out, we'll see the first A12 based iPod touch.

A12 currently is in production with the 8th Gen iPad, 5th Gen iPad mini, iPhone XR, and now ATV 4K.
A13 is in production with the iPhone SE and iPhone 11.
A14 is in production with the iPhone 12 series and iPad Air 4.

iPhone XR will probably go away this fall, I'd bet 5th Gen mini sticks around as a low cost mini iPad to hit a $269 price point, and a new A14 based iPad mini 6th gen gets introduced. iPhone 12 and 12 mini and iPad Air 4 would also keep the A14 line up and running. A13 would stay healthy with the iPhone SE and 11. With the XR going away, it's logical that the ATV 4K would be able to slide right in and keep up the line along with a new iPod touch 8th gen when A10 chips run low. New iPhone 12S series would be running on A15 chips.

Also keep in mind A12X hasn't been around for almost a year already, and A12Z was just discontinued, so it looks like Apple wanted to simplify A12 production around the base A12 chip rather than needing a separate sub-line for A12Z just for an Apple TV.

I could also see a next gen HomePod Pro being A12 powered as well.

These are just my predictions with how I would do it based off of optimizing production capacity.

A12X hasn’t been around for almost a year, it’s been out for over 2 years and I believe Apple is simplifying the A12 like the A8/A10 before that as you mentioned

also with A13 there are rumors of 9th Gen iPad getting it though besides SE/11.

yeah I think 6-12 months is enough time for TV HD to be sold though it’s a bit odd that you had to preorder a new one years after it’s release all for the new Siri Remote

 

[bniu]

yeah I think 6-12 months is enough time for TV HD to be sold though it’s a bit odd that you had to preorder a new one years after it’s release all for the new Siri Remote

I think it's more a marketing call to pause the TV HD for a few weeks and then "re-launch" it with the new Siri Remote. Perhaps they didn't have the Siri Remote ready yet, so didn't want to deal with the few weeks of "but I didn't get a new Siri Remote" complaints, and probably also wanted to uniformly launch availability of the new Siri Remote.

 

[Juicy Box]

Someone started a thread saying that they just replaced their ATV3 with the new ATV4k2, but was disappointed finding out that they are unable to play any Apple Arcade games with the new remote.

Evidently, all the games in the tvOS's Apple Arcade library require the Siri Remote or a controller to play.

 

[Icelus]

 

[Juicy Box]

Thanks for posting that.

The creator of the video says that he might do a comparison video between the ATV4, ATV4K1, and ATV4K2 soon, so I subscribed and am looking forward to that.

The few comments that he made in the above video comparing the gaming performance of the new ATV to the old ATV4K seem to be basically what a lot of us already suspected, the new A12 ATV4K is on par or worse than the A10X ATV4K, but overall better than the A8 in the ATV4. He did say that maybe optimization could improve things for the A12, although the same could be said about the A10X or even the A8 in some cases.

He also mentioned about how the new remote doesn't work (or work right) on most of the games, some of which were better to play with the Siri Remote than a controller (according to him).

His conclusion was interesting as he says something that I have been talking about for years, that the ATV and tvOS has a lot of potential, but no developer support. He also mentions that if someone is thinking about getting the A12 ATV4K, that maybe they should wait for the rumored gaming-focused ATV.

Not surprising though, as the A12 isn't really worth the upgrade over the A10X for gaming.

 

[Icelus]

The A12 has a somewhat better feature set, but I doubt we’ll really see a difference between the A12 and A10X.

https://developer.apple.com/metal/Metal-Feature-Set-Tables.pdf

 

[Juicy Box]

The A12 has a somewhat better feature set, but I doubt we’ll really see a difference between the A12 and A10X.

https://developer.apple.com/metal/Metal-Feature-Set-Tables.pdf

So if a developer designs the game to take advantage of the better feature set of the A12, we might see some games looking better than the A10X counterparts. I wouldn't think that the feature set of the A12 would improve metrics like fps over the A10X though. Maybe I am wrong about that last part.

 

[AL2TEACH]

Vincent Teoh tested this thing and it does not output in HDMI 2.1 signaling format. So it currently can only output HDMI 2.0 bandwidth. No 4:4:4 HDR. What a joke. I'll be keeping my money.

Go ahead watch the video. Get it and connect it to your LG OLED and spam the green button you will see 4:2:2 8B TM. Total joke unless you like to make believe it has extra special Apple hardware that makes it better. It's a product for the believers. If you prefer testing and evidence it is not for you.

yeah, I seen that vid and my head hit the floor because I had already ordered one. Then I thought nothing a software update can't fix. Apple has been fairly deceitful or not honest in their product advertising.

 

[AL2TEACH]

What I’m missing, and hoping someone here can explain, is what the real life benefit of hdmi 2.1 is for most content on an Apple TV. Other than gaming, it seems like most movies are 24fps? I have a tv with Dolby vision and hdr10. I’m truly asking, a bit of a novice here. I have an Apple TV 4K and have it set to match the source frame rate and source for hdr content.

For me it's earc.

 

[AL2TEACH]

After reading all of this there's one thing for certain. There will be two Apple TV units, one for movies and etc and one with gamers in mind.

 

[MhaelK]

After reading all of this there's one thing for certain. There will be two Apple TV units, one for movies and etc and one with gamers in mind.

Yes, that is my though as well. Apple would be stupid not the release a gaming Focused ATV with their new powerfull CPU/gpu.Then it would make sense to have to ATVs in the line-up. The a12 being the basic model, perfect for almost all media consumption needs and a new beast ATV to take on the console world.

 

[comphelp]

If Apple are to release a gaming version, I think we'll have to wait a while for that. Given a bunch of people have just purchased this "new" A12 version, I can't see Apple wanting to upset them all by releasing a new model in under 12 months.