Menel
Suspended
What? AppleTV outputs lossless... LPCM. You don't get higher resolution than that.
What's New in tvOS 16 for Apple TV: Features and Enhancements
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DaPizzaMan
macrumors 6502a
A few of these are hardware changes/additions - controller, camera, storage options. All seem like good ideas though. I feel like they added some support for connecting to hotel Wi-Fi recently, no?
Menel
Suspended
Makes no sense, AppleTV+ app/video service is a small fraction of what the ATV is used for.
Music, podcasts, homekit hub processing.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
All of them do. The "pattern?" seems to be about one seemingly bigger announcement at each WWDC. One year, the big announcement was the Amazon Prime app, which had to be about 90% Amazon effort (to create) vs. anything much from Apple's own efforts.
However, HDR10+ is a "biggie" for those with TVs that have that but not Dolby Vision. That's not exactly a small number of TVs. For example, anyone with ANY Samsung TV- including very high rated, top of the line TVs from them- do not have Dolby Vision but do have HDR10. They are not the only manufacturer opting for HDR10 over DV either.
To your point though, I can readily support the underlying sense that Apple could do so much more with this part of the business... and share a wish that they would go at this like Roku goes at trying to do everything & anything they can with their version of this. In their case, this IS their whole business, so they focus on trying to deliver as much value as possible. To Apple, AppleTV still seems to be in "hobby" status in spite of Apple having far more money and thus Human Resources than relatively tiny Roku such that they could easily compete toe-to-toe (and then some) with dedicated talent, effort, energy if only they would.
I'd love to see much more effort given to this product. All things considered, I think of it as one of Apple's very best offerings... with so much more potential.
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matttarantino
macrumors member
Given there are rumors of a new Apple TV coming, I have a feeling they are going to hold out any major updates until the new ATV is released. Similar thing they do with new watch features until the new watches drop
Juicy Box
macrumors 604
Yes, but it still requires an additional device, iPhone or iPad. Compare this to other streaming boxes and consoles that do not, making connecting to a hotel wifi much more seamless and easier.
Juicy Box
macrumors 604
I hope you are right, but I have my doubts.
The ATV and tvOS rarely get any attention.
I think it was last year at the WWDC or some other event that tvOS/ATV got less time in the Keynote than the hand washing part of the Apple Watch section.
This year, tvOS/ATV was barely even mentioned.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
There's still lots of great software features from earlier TVs not yet resurrected in tvOS too. For example, earlier versions of AppleTV supported the Show tag. If you ripped your movie collection and then used a common name for the Show tag, the list of your movies could gather serialized movies (Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, James Bond) into a single line item instead of leaving them all as individual entries.
Movies like James Bond series now has 25 films. Scroll down to what would now be a single entry for "James Bond" in what would become a shorter list of your movies. If you wanted to watch one of the Bond movies, you click that one entry to then display the 25 films, much like submenus in menus of any computer app. So many movies that people collect has sequels and some have many sequels. This simple little option was a GREAT feature to shorten the list of "all" movies in a collection while allowing an easy way to still get to exactly what one wants.
The modern workaround to this is to use the GENRE tag, so in my own collection I have GENREs called James Bond, Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, etc. That works about as well but obviously is not really what GENRE is supposed to be... and using another tag- SHOW- that is already there facilitates grouping even those with fewer sequels like Austin Powers and other such trilogies instead of making 2-3-4 film groupings become GENRE names too.
Another little one that bugs me to death is why does an AppleTV with PLENTY of on-board storage have to reload all poster art every time? Why can't it store that all on board and notice by file change dates when it might need to check and possibly reload new poster art for a newly modified file? I'm all wired with a FAST network and that's a time drag because I have a good-sized collection of ripped content. With most of the on-board storage EMPTY, retaining the posters in some of that space- even if as a user-selected option- would be a very nice, speedier-experience touch.
There's plenty of opportunity to improve this little box- from bigger ones like some in the list you shared- to small like resurrecting some simple little niceties like making the Show tag work as it used to work... to pretty meaningful ones like pure audio passthrough, the DTS codecs, etc.
Beyond the software, in a new hardware box, I'd love a resurrected AUX jack to support zone 2 audio (receivers) without having to lean on dongles for the same and a resurrected, fully-functional USB jack so that those who might want to attach storage and sync their media to the AppleTV- just like the original one could- could do that again. We already have the ability with iOS to readily use attached external storage. Bring the same to tvOS and resurrect the file sync option for those that want to do that (again). OR, build in a SSD/m.2 storage option for anyone interested to thoroughly expand the on-board storage. Local storage for synching was such a great feature of AppleTV 1.
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TigerNike23
macrumors 65816
I think we'll hear more in September. Frankly, tvOS does just about everything I throw at it.
markfc
macrumors 65816
Can't believe this wasn't added. Seems an insane omission.
somnolentsurfer
macrumors regular
Does this mean Apple TV will reliably remember which Netflix/Disney/Prime/YouTube profile is associated with which user? Great! Does it also mean we can have separate logins per user for streaming services that don’t support profiles, like BBC iPlayer? That would be even better. If there could also be some way to tell it who’s watching at any given time so the plays and recommendations would update for everyone in the room not just the person holding the remote, that would be best.
For me, I can't think of much else I need it to do. If anything, different hardware is what I want most - a stick-shaped Apple TV would be great for hiding behind the TV or for travel. My gripes with ATV would more so be with individual apps.
However, I can think of plenty of things I wish iOS and macOS would do.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I'm going with the idea that is IS there but just wasn't announced. Based on how it appears to work, I don't see anything that would make it NOT work with tvOS. And since tvOS is mostly iOS, whatever is being done in iOS to make it work probably easily (not quite but almost) "pastes" into tvOS to do the same.
Since it's wireless, I suspect the bulk of the actual transfer is airplay iOS device to Mac. And since iOS airplay to AppleTV works just fine too, why can't AppleTV stand in for Mac for this purpose?
In short: I just don't see any reason it can't work. Even the Belkin clip itself seems like it will have to be pretty flexible to work with any monitor and TVs are basically just bigger monitors.
So if it doesn't show up in tvOS 16, I am placing my bets on the "one big killer feature" rolled out at WWDC 23 for tvOS now. Hopefully, those interested won't have to wait for a year though. If anyone has any real input at Apple, please put the suggestion in. I think someone there must have already thought of this for AppleTV too, assuming there is anyone else still on an AppleTV team not distracted by AppleTV+ work to do something like this.
paulovsouza
macrumors 6502
I’ve seen a lot of features on iOS 16 that can easily be translated into an AR glasses. But tvOS would be the best place to try implanting aspect of what we’d see in AR glasses. Especially since there’s no finger input, ramping up the gestures and voice controls.
HDR10 and HDR10+ are different. Every tv with HDR support has HDR10, it’s the baseline. Every Dolby Vision encoded video also has HDR10 as a fallback, it’s backward compatible. HDR10+ is on Samsung, TCL and Hisense, no others. It’s also absent virtually any support in streaming services. Paramount+ and Amazon. It’s really not important, but a little check mark they can add.
deuce sluice
macrumors newbie
I think the current incarnation of AppleTV hardware and tvOS is so close to being perfect and so far ahead of any other alternative I also struggle to come up with what I'd ask for if I had the opportunity. "Do something cool that no one has thought of" is certainly everyone's expectation for Apple and I'm sure at some point they'll overhaul it in a way that blows everyone's mind but for now it's just about as good as I can imagine it getting.
The addition of HDR10+ is big for me, as I (stupidly) went for a Samsung Q90 over LG OLED early last year and can't bring myself to switch yet. The profile thing is great too - it'll be a lot nicer to switch profile between me and my wife at the OS level and then have all the apps switch vs. switch profile in each app individually.
Facetime from the TV would be excellent. If that existed my parents and brother would buy one immediately.
I suppose at this point the aTV is already more powerful than a Switch, but it probably needs a bit more storage space (or a way to expand it) to be a real viable console alternative for bigger games.
One tiny thing I'd love is if you could enable the touch jog wheel for scrubbing but NOT the directional touchpad on the new remote. The touchpad is still too touchy, I have it set up to click only, but the jog wheel is nice.
The addition of HDR10+ is big for me, as I (stupidly) went for a Samsung Q90 over LG OLED early last year and can't bring myself to switch yet. The profile thing is great too - it'll be a lot nicer to switch profile between me and my wife at the OS level and then have all the apps switch vs. switch profile in each app individually.
Facetime from the TV would be excellent. If that existed my parents and brother would buy one immediately.
I suppose at this point the aTV is already more powerful than a Switch, but it probably needs a bit more storage space (or a way to expand it) to be a real viable console alternative for bigger games.
One tiny thing I'd love is if you could enable the touch jog wheel for scrubbing but NOT the directional touchpad on the new remote. The touchpad is still too touchy, I have it set up to click only, but the jog wheel is nice.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Are you sure about this? Because I've been led to believe those are competing standards, not cooperative ones... much as Windows is not a fallback to macOS or vice versa.
It would be real news to me if that is true. Admittedly, I haven't been following the topic over the last year or so. When I was really digging into it, they were competing options... even described by many sources as a modern "format war."
ThisBougieLife
Suspended
It doesn’t output sample rates higher than 48khz, streams from Apple Music will be capped at that rate (hi-res is defined as higher than that rate).
ipedro
macrumors 603
You make it sound like the Apple TV app on most smart TVs was involuntary and against Apple's wishes. Apple has deliberately decentralized AirPlay, the TV app and HomeKit away from the Apple TV box. It's also clear that they've shifted the name to an experience, rather than a box.
Apple doesn't make any significant revenue by selling Apple TV boxes. The value is in enabling all of their other devices iPhones, iPads, Macs and Watches – that do generate all of Apple's revenue – to have seamless access to big screens around the home, office and out in the world.
The Apple TV (the box) has its days numbered.
HDR10+ is a Samsung proprietary format, their answer to Dolby Vision has and claims to be an enhancement of HDR10 itself. There is very little content in that format. Samsung’s reasoning for creating it was lame, they didn't want pay the licensing fees for Dolby Vision. Dolby Vision is by far the most popular format.
So no, HDR+ is not a biggie except for Samsung and Panasonic TV owners.
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kiranmk2
macrumors 68000
On physical disks HDR10 is required to be present. Dolby Vision can be there as well, but HDR10 is required. For digital films I think it's the same, but haven't tested as my TV supports Dolby Vision.
I would love it to work like this but my worry is that you would need separate accounts with the streaming services (e.g. I have a Netflix account that has profiles for myself and my wife - I'm worried that for this feature to work both my wife and I would need separate accounts)
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Actually, the reverse. HDR10+ is the royalty-free, open standard and Dolby Vision is the royalty-required, proprietary format. HDR10 is akin to "open source" while Dolby Vision is akin to "walled garden." One of the reasons various manufacturers embrace HDR10 is to not have to pay the royalty premium for Dolby Vision.
And it is used on TVs other than only those from Samsung, so this is definitely not a (hate everything from) Samsung thing. But even if some of us might want to do that, Apple themselves is embracing it in the next release of tvOS, so apparently Apple sees something in it to do so.
I respect it is no biggie to you... but I happen to have a terrific Samsung TV and welcome the addition. It is a biggie to me. I'm confident I'm not the only one around here with a Samsung television. They make some of the best-rated TVs in the world. I'm certainly thrilled with mine.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I don't think it's the same with digital films but am open to learn something new from someone who knows for sure.
I suspect the Dolby Vision tag for iTunes Store movies will soon be accompanied by a HDR10+ tag for movies encoded that way... and that might lead to some flip: some movies having HDR10+ but not Dolby Vision. Why? Primarily, DV requires a royalty while HDR10+ is royalty-free. Perhaps Apple is looking at saving some royalty costs here? AppleTV will "know" if the TV it feeds supports both or one vs. the other, so every stream that can sub in HDR10+ instead of DV will- presumably- saving Apple (or maybe that's a Studio fee?) the royalty cost.
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