Third-Generation Apple TV 4K Now Arriving to Customers in New Zealand and Australia

[Jim Lahey]

A few hundred bucks for a hard drive that holds hundreds of titles isn’t a huge expense, especially compared to the rest of the a/v gear.

True, true. But it’s a consideration if one intends to host a really large digital movie collection completely uncompressed from retail. The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition UHD Blu-ray titles tip the scales at over 100GB each just for the movie track. The casual user would probably be looking at a 1TB disc just to hold those six movies. It can quickly become a non-trivial expense. Of course the seasoned experts build and maintain multi-terabyte RAID NAS units but that was kind of my point.

I definitely agree in principle that disc is superior but there are instances were, personally, all things considered, I would prefer to either stream, or store my own compressed file on the LAN. I often rip my own discs but rarely keep the retail bitrate on drive unless the movie is either very old or very important to me. To each their own of course. My only point is that streaming vs. retail is nuanced and subjective. Not always a clear advantage on either side 👍

 

[pesos]

True, true. But it’s a consideration if one intends to host a really large digital movie collection completely uncompressed from retail. The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition UHD Blu-ray discs tip the scales at well over 100GB each. The casual user would probably be looking at a 1TB disc just to hold those six movies. It can quickly become a non-trivial expense. Of course the seasoned experts build and maintain multi-terabyte RAID NAS units but that was kind of my point.

I definitely agree in principle that disc is superior but there are instances were, personally, all things considered, I would prefer to either stream, or store my own compressed file on the LAN. I often rip my own discs but rarely keep the retail bitrate on drive unless the movie is either very old or very important to me. To each their own of course. My only point is that streaming vs. retail is nuanced and subjective. Not always a clear advantage on either side 👍

A "casual user" is not going to own LOTR anything, much less a UHD collection, so you're not really selling your argument here

18tb drives go onsale for less than 3 hundo all the time and will hold a couple hundo of the largest titles - and many are more in the 40-60gb range.

I think we are mostly on the same page though. I rip movies I care about and on an 83" oled at the viewing distance I'm at and with the sound system I'm using UHD via an oppo clone makes a significant difference over streaming. I still very much appreciate the ATV streaming quality for atv+/hbo/netflix/d+/hulu/etc and for one-off movie rentals it's great. And on the 55" with tv speakers in my office... very different considerations. It's still 4k though and the ATV gives it a fantastic picture.

 

[Jim Lahey]

A "casual user" is not going to own LOTR anything, much less a UHD collection, so you're not really selling your argument here

18tb drives go onsale for less than 3 hundo all the time and will hold a couple hundo of the largest titles - and many are more in the 40-60gb range.

I think we are mostly on the same page though. I rip movies I care about and on an 83" oled at the viewing distance I'm at and with the sound system I'm using UHD via an oppo clone makes a significant difference over streaming. I still very much appreciate the ATV streaming quality for atv+/hbo/netflix/d+/hulu/etc and for one-off movie rentals it's great. And on the 55" with tv speakers in my office... very different considerations. It's still 4k though and the ATV gives it a fantastic picture.

That was sort of my point exactly. The ‘casual user’ is going to stream Lord of the Rings. And even at a third of the UHD retail bitrate it will still look great to them. Great enough that if you suggested they instead buy the discs and rip them to a hard drive, they would just glaze over.

But yes I think we agree on more than we disagree, and in any case this is probably somewhat off topic to the article 👍

 

[Chupa Chupa]

As a 2021 ATV 4K owner, is there any good reason for me to get this?

Yes, if you have money burning a hole in your pocket. Otherwise, probably not.

Best I can see, an upgrade could be beneficial if
1) you play games from iTunes on your ATV
2) you have a TV capable of HDR10+ -- not HDR10 -- 10+, and also watch channels that support it.
3) The 2021 ATV is a few mm too thick or few .oz too heavy for your shelf.
4) You've been waiting for the day when Apple would finally put it's logo on the top

If none of these are you then the 2022 is more of a downgrade (at least the base 64GB model) with the deletion of Ethernet port and Thread support. I will also add that, yes, the 2022 is also fan-less, I never realized the ATV had a fan b/c I never heard it kick in - I suspect the fan was mostly for long periods of gaming.

(I just bought a couple 2021 models @ $99 to upgrade older 2017 4Ks which have started to get a touch pokey w/ iOS 16. So, I do put my money where my mouth is).

 

[Spotlighter9]

Yes, if you have money burning a hole in your pocket. Otherwise, probably not.

Best I can see, an upgrade could be beneficial if
1) you play games from iTunes on your ATV
2) you have a TV capable of HDR10+ -- not HDR10 -- 10+, and also watch channels that support it.
3) The 2021 ATV is a few mm too thick or few .oz too heavy for your shelf.
4) You've been waiting for the day when Apple would finally put it's logo on the top

If none of these are you then the 2022 is more of a downgrade (at least the base 64GB model) with the deletion of Ethernet port and Thread support. I will also add that, yes, the 2022 is also fan-less, I never realized the ATV had a fan b/c I never heard it kick in - I suspect the fan was mostly for long periods of gaming.

(I just bought a couple 2021 models @ $99 to upgrade older 2017 4Ks which have started to get a touch pokey w/ iOS 16. So, I do put my money where my mouth is).

You forgot USB-C now on the Siri Remote!🤣

I similarly grabbed the 2021 32GB on Amazon during the Prime Day sale a few weeks ago...got it for $75 ($104 Amazon flash sale + an extra $30 off using Citibank card Amazon promotion) figuring I'd wait to see what a new 2022 ATV would bring before keeping it. However, at the $75 price point (and seeing the lack of substantial new features in the 2022 ATV, at least for my use case) it is worth keeping, as it does also come with a $19 charging cord (which I needed anyway...all of mine are splitting at the ends ).

 

[fbr$]

It does have WebKit internally. The issue is likely just that Apple doesn't think the browser experience for most sites is compelling enough with just a remote control/game controller.

But Safari on Apple TV could help Apple sell more mice, trackpads and keyboards.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Good thing this model is fanless so you no longer have to worry about the coriolis effect making it turn the wrong way.

 

[Juicy Box]

Is Apple TV still considered a hobby to Apple?

I believe they stopped calling it a hobby once it had an App Store.

It is ironic that when Apple considered it a hobby, the ATV has much higher market share and outsold all other competitors combine for few of those years (2010-2014ish).

Now the tvOS hardly even has a slice in the market share pie chart.

 

[PsykX]

Interesting. So the 2022 should easily beat both of them.

Yes, the new model is clearly much better in every way possible.

 

[name99]

Now with more ads and promotions hiding the content you want to watch.

Stupid Apple. The ad industry is toxic. sooner or later, it wrecks every great great product and company.

That's Apple TV the APP not Apple TV the box.
I never touch Apple TV the APP, so I have seen none of this stuff.
Honestly I see no reason to touch Apple TV the APP. I don't care about TV+ (the SERVICE) and it does everything else worse than native Prime or NFLX or whatever.

 

[Juicy Box]

I never touch Apple TV the APP, so I have seen none of this stuff.

I never use the Apple TV app either.

The "TV" button on the Siri Remotes on all my ATVs goes to the Home Screen (like it originally did prior to the TV app) instead of the TV app.

 

[BWhaler]

That's Apple TV the APP not Apple TV the box.
I never touch Apple TV the APP, so I have seen none of this stuff.
Honestly I see no reason to touch Apple TV the APP. I don't care about TV+ (the SERVICE) and it does everything else worse than native Prime or NFLX or whatever.

The box defaults to showing promotional content in the banner bar. Outside of the app. You can turn it off, but the default, even if you copy over settings, is to show you AppleTV+ ads.

 

[name99]

The box defaults to showing promotional content in the banner bar. Outside of the app. You can turn it off, but the default, even if you copy over settings, is to show you AppleTV+ ads.

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.
On MY home screen
(a) what's shown above the apps is controlled by the currently highlighted app, not by Apple. So if Netflix is highlighted, I will see whatever Netflix wants to put there. Which is the same as it has always been.
(b) but it's moot anyway, because I always have the home page scrolled up one row so I don't see that top banner bar; and this scrolling seems to persist as long as I want it to. I certainly don't notice Apple aggressively scrolling me up so I am forced to see that banner bar every time I return home.
(c) I've arranged the items on the Home page to meet my needs, which means, among other things, that TV.app is squirreled away at the bottom along with the other detritus I might touch twice a year, so there's not much chance of it even being highlighted by mistake.
(d) Even the above is all moot because, under normal conditions, why would you even return to the home screen? It's far faster to double-click home to get the app-switcher, and then scroll through the (probably not very many) active apps to switch between Prime and Netflix, or whatever.

To me this looks like that old internet standard, the angry rant that is TRIVIALLY fixed by the application of 30 seconds of effort?
Gee, it's amazing that people have so much contempt for the fury of the internet when such important things are discussed in such apocalyptic terms...
I'm all for comfort and am all for things (like IoT) that make life better, even in small ways. BUT my patience runs out when something CAN be fixed, but people would prefer to complain about it that actually implement the fix.

 

[BWhaler]

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.
On MY home screen
(a) what's shown above the apps is controlled by the currently highlighted app, not by Apple. So if Netflix is highlighted, I will see whatever Netflix wants to put there. Which is the same as it has always been.
(b) but it's moot anyway, because I always have the home page scrolled up one row so I don't see that top banner bar; and this scrolling seems to persist as long as I want it to. I certainly don't notice Apple aggressively scrolling me up so I am forced to see that banner bar every time I return home.
(c) I've arranged the items on the Home page to meet my needs, which means, among other things, that TV.app is squirreled away at the bottom along with the other detritus I might touch twice a year, so there's not much chance of it even being highlighted by mistake.
(d) Even the above is all moot because, under normal conditions, why would you even return to the home screen? It's far faster to double-click home to get the app-switcher, and then scroll through the (probably not very many) active apps to switch between Prime and Netflix, or whatever.

To me this looks like that old internet standard, the angry rant that is TRIVIALLY fixed by the application of 30 seconds of effort?
Gee, it's amazing that people have so much contempt for the fury of the internet when such important things are discussed in such apocalyptic terms...
I'm all for comfort and am all for things (like IoT) that make life better, even in small ways. BUT my patience runs out when something CAN be fixed, but people would prefer to complain about it that actually implement the fix.

exactly the point. You’ve changed it to hide the ads. By default, the Apple TV app is in the top dock, showing promotional content and is selected by default. as Steve talked about, it’s the defaults that show the intent of the company. This is what people are worried about...Apple is choosing default settings to ad content which is apple centric, not user and customer centric. Being the later is what used to make apple, apple. (And most people return to home, not app switcher. )

not sure what you meant by the rest of you post After (a) - (d) … seems a little unhinged, but maybe I don’t get what you’re trying to say.