First look: Apple TV 4K with tweaked Siri remote design
If you owned the previous fourth-generation Apple TV with Siri remote, you'll be hard pressed to find any differences with the new fifth-generation Apple TV 4K, aside from a white, raised ring around the Menu button on the remote.
While you can't really tell in pictures, the ring around the Menu button is slightly raised above the rest of the button (but is a part of the button, so it all presses in).
This is helpful when picking up the largely symmetrical remote, allowing a user to feel for the appropriate button and figure out orientation in the dark, much like the raised bumps on the 'F' and 'J' keys on a keyboard let users know where to place their index fingers for typing.
The only other external change to the hardware is on the back of the Apple TV itself, where Apple has removed the USB-C diagnostic port.
The set-top box retains an ethernet port, which has now been upgraded to full gigabit. It also maintains an HDMI port as well as power, and there is no optical audio output.
Also in the box is a Lightning cable, which is used for recharging the Siri remote, and a power cable.
Setting up the Apple TV is about as simple as can be -- tvOS prompts the user to hold their iPhone near the device with Bluetooth enabled and home Wi-Fi connected, and the pairing process begins almost instantaneously. If you have a previous fourth-generation Apple TV and have home screen sync enabled, your TV apps and games will all automatically download and organize in the same way they were before.
Powered by the same beefy A10X chip as the latest iPad Pros, the new Apple TV 4K feels snappier when navigating and launching apps. And services like iTunes and Netflix offer gorgeous 4K content with HDR, taking advantage of newer television sets with high quality picture capabilities.
AppleInsider will have much more on the Apple TV 4K in the coming days and weeks, including our in-depth review.
While you can't really tell in pictures, the ring around the Menu button is slightly raised above the rest of the button (but is a part of the button, so it all presses in).
This is helpful when picking up the largely symmetrical remote, allowing a user to feel for the appropriate button and figure out orientation in the dark, much like the raised bumps on the 'F' and 'J' keys on a keyboard let users know where to place their index fingers for typing.
The only other external change to the hardware is on the back of the Apple TV itself, where Apple has removed the USB-C diagnostic port.
The set-top box retains an ethernet port, which has now been upgraded to full gigabit. It also maintains an HDMI port as well as power, and there is no optical audio output.
Also in the box is a Lightning cable, which is used for recharging the Siri remote, and a power cable.
Setting up the Apple TV is about as simple as can be -- tvOS prompts the user to hold their iPhone near the device with Bluetooth enabled and home Wi-Fi connected, and the pairing process begins almost instantaneously. If you have a previous fourth-generation Apple TV and have home screen sync enabled, your TV apps and games will all automatically download and organize in the same way they were before.
Powered by the same beefy A10X chip as the latest iPad Pros, the new Apple TV 4K feels snappier when navigating and launching apps. And services like iTunes and Netflix offer gorgeous 4K content with HDR, taking advantage of newer television sets with high quality picture capabilities.
AppleInsider will have much more on the Apple TV 4K in the coming days and weeks, including our in-depth review.
Comments
an M-processor for detecting motion. Will be great for games and fitness apps.
Taptic Engine for smooth feedback and gaming.
3D touch for functions and (again)gaming.
I was looking at the ring on my iPhone when it hit me...
I believe that ring on the Apple TV Remote was originally placed for TouchID which may have been cancelled last minute.
This complain in every TV discussion...
why don’t you guys get a remote cover? They’re awesome looking, customize your remote, add protection and fix the orientation problem %100.
There’s some with straps, magnets, bumpers for protectinon and some even glow in the dark!
Also, you can switch from 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 for some additional clarity if your TV and cables can handle it. Made a noticeable difference. My TV screen is too small 48” to really benefit much from 4K but the HDR is stunningly better. With the new AppleTV 4K I can skip using the horrible built in Roku UI.
Edit: Also Netflix charges an extra couple of bucks for 4K HDR but again, I think it is worth it.
Apple asks you out of the box during setup whether to try HDR -- which of course everyone wants to do, because that's what Apple is selling: "spectacular HDR". But this sets the ATV to 4K HDR and upscales and converts all sources to 4K HDR, whether originally encoded in HDR or not. I'm also not thrilled with Apple upscaling everything to HDR either. As a result, Apple is forcing my TV to think everything is a 4K HDR signal, and so my TV performs none of the usual tricks it uses to improve a picture. And since most sources aren't real HDR, my TV doesn't know that, so it applies my carefully calibrated settings to present the HDR content, which in many cases os completely wrong. Bypassing it is rarely better, and often worse.
The ONLY way currently to see the source material in the proper format is to turn off 4K HDR. But then, whenever I watch a movie in HDR, I not only have to know how it's encoded, but also have to tunnel down through several menus and select the correct settings. Basically the default is 4K 60Hz HDR. I've got it set to 4K 60Hz SDR now for most non HDR content. But when I watch a 4K movie, I want it set to HDR, so into the settings I go. I had hoped that Siri would be able to do this, but no dice -- she just tries to show me movies she thinks I'm looking for. I also want to be able to view 1080p content in it's native source to let my TV upscale it -- not only be cause my TV has a state of the art upscaling engine, that so far seems to do a better job than ATV, but it also allows me to adjust the picture dimensions, something I can't do with a native 4K signal. And the jury is still out on how well the Apple TV handles 24p, vs. my TV.
Bottom line is, this really fantastic device, may be going back to Apple before the return window closes, especially since it doesn't yet have the Amazon App, and I'm using the built-in Android TV App currently. Hopefully Apple will fix this, but I sort of expect they won't. They've been doubling down lately on some of these decisions like this, and it's sort of unthinkable that they left it off to begin with. Most people with 4K TVs now, bought them for a reason, so if Apple isn't catering to them, then they're likely planning for the 4K TV Holiday upgrade that's coming this Christmas, and the masses of customers who aren't as discerning as those on the front lines of picture perfection. Not that I am, but I don't want non-HDR content altered to emulate it, when it wasn't intended or mastered that way.
I have to say I’m my case this is a plus. My 4K Tv (Philips Ambilight from 2016) is shockingly awful at upscaling, so the new 4K makes everything, even ancient SD content look immeasurabley better.