Let’s hope this one supports hires lossless audio…
Why wouldn’t it?
Current AppleTV supports 24-bit/48 kHz audio. The specs on the new one don't get specific enough, but it could conceivably support 24-bit/192 kHz audio. There are some biological and mathematical arguments that there's no perceptible difference, but there you go.
I have the first gen 4K model and really don’t plan to upgrade. Yes Thread and Matter is nice, but the A10X is still a beast. I don’t really game on it so the bigger storage doesn’t matter to me that much. I have a HomePod Mini that I can use for Thread.
The more Thread devices throughout the home, the more reliable the network.
To be fair, that's true of most dedicated home automation standards. For example, Thread isn't superior to Zigbee in that regard, which is why Philips Hue has managed to stay on top of the game for so long. The reason people have had such low opinions of home automation devices in general and tout the superiority of Thread so much is the huge number of cheap and unreliable WiFi connected devices out there, and the fact that the more WiFi devices you have on your network, the worse all of them work thanks to collision domain issues.
Let’s hope this one supports hires lossless audio…
Why wouldn’t it?
Current model supports lossless but the hope is the new version supports Hi-Res Lossless. I have to dedicate a laptop to my music system for this reason. Which is still not the best solution because the Music app on iPads and Macs work differently. iPads will dynamically change to match the resolution of the music, whereas Macs are fixed. Even though you can set a Mac to 24/192, it upscales lower resolution audio instead of matching it. I use a Mac instead of an iPad because of the ability to do remote control via the Remote app or Remote Desktop.
With games not being popular on AppleTV, the Apple TV app and sharing of your device being available on many Smart TV’s, what is the appeal of this product today?
Is it for people with old televisions?
Easy-to-use interface that is consistent throughout multiple TVs in the house.
Best-in-class picture quality - Noticeably better 4K performance and scale-up from HD than any built-in apps and cheap streaming devices.
Hub capability for a HomeKit - focused smart home. Cameras on the TV, control etc.
Also, most other streaming devices and smart TVs track your watching activity and sell the data, which some people don’t like. And it can be a pretty good lossless music streaming device that can be easily turned on and controlled from your iPhone, as long as you have an acceptable way to extract the audio from the HDMI output. But I do wish they’d incorporated a toslink output in the new models, as they did in some previous models.
I have the first gen 4K model and really don’t plan to upgrade. Yes Thread and Matter is nice, but the A10X is still a beast. I don’t really game on it so the bigger storage doesn’t matter to me that much. I have a HomePod Mini that I can use for Thread.
The more Thread devices throughout the home, the more reliable the network.
To be fair, that's true of most dedicated home automation standards. For example, Thread isn't superior to Zigbee in that regard, which is why Philips Hue has managed to stay on top of the game for so long. The reason people have had such low opinions of home automation devices in general and tout the superiority of Thread so much is the huge number of cheap and unreliable WiFi connected devices out there, and the fact that the more WiFi devices you have on your network, the worse all of them work thanks to collision domain issues.
Most? The only home automation mesh networks I'm aware of are Thread and Zigbee. What are the others?
The new Apple TV was a bit of a surprise since the refresh period for Apple TVs is usually three years and the 2nd gen 4K model just came out 18 months ago. And the entry level model is a recognition of the fact that many customers use it with Wifi only and would never use the wired Ethernet port. But the A15 is a sizable leap ahead of the A12, especially for gaming. But the thing that is intriguing for me is a possible bump of RAM for the new model. The existing A12 model is the same as the iPhone XR/XS with 3 gigs of RAM. The A15 which is in last year's iPhone 13 has 4 gigs of RAM. Of course Apple doesn't have to keep RAM consistent between products, but the increase of RAM may help some poorly written apps that don't deal with memory management well. I know of some apps that just love to crash even though the iOS version runs just fine. The difference is that iOS has virtual memory and tvOS doesn't, which means that tvOS apps have to really live within their means.
With games not being popular on AppleTV, the Apple TV app and sharing of your device being available on many Smart TV’s, what is the appeal of this product today?
Is it for people with old televisions?
Easy-to-use interface that is consistent throughout multiple TVs in the house.
Best-in-class picture quality - Noticeably better 4K performance and scale-up from HD than any built-in apps and cheap streaming devices.
Hub capability for a HomeKit - focused smart home. Cameras on the TV, control etc.
With games not being popular on AppleTV, the Apple TV app and sharing of your device being available on many Smart TV’s, what is the appeal of this product today?
Is it for people with old televisions?
Easy-to-use interface that is consistent throughout multiple TVs in the house.
Best-in-class picture quality - Noticeably better 4K performance and scale-up from HD than any built-in apps and cheap streaming devices.
Hub capability for a HomeKit - focused smart home. Cameras on the TV, control etc.
Thanks! That makes sense. ߑ�t;/div>
Be careful when you look at the name Apple TV:
Apple TV the device ≠ equalling Apple TV the app ≠ Apple TV+ the service
A long time ago, Apple TV the device could be reasonably equated to the Apple TV app/service.
There are other features to the hardware as mike1 pointed. I'm not sure about how much Apple Fitness+ integration is available in the Apple TV app that runs on some other brand's TV.
There's Arcade of course, but also things like Siri, iPhone integration, the aforementioned HomeKit features, and possibly more.
The best thing to do is to visit the Apple corporate website and visit the product pages for the Apple TV hardware. There is new functionality the box brings with every generation. It's hard for even diligent readers to keep up to date via sites like AppleInsider so it's best to periodically see what new features are available with the latest hardware.
I'm not sure how much familiarity with Apple you have but typically when they release new hardware, they include a few new features that are only available on the newly launched devices.
There is nothing new about this, Apple has done this for decades, pairing some new function to a specific hardware-software combination.
Yes, but it only works with HomeKit devices that support Thread. Supporting Matter expands the number of supported devices considerably, which addresses one of the biggest downsides of HomeKit. There are probably still going to be some advantages that HomeKit has over standard Matter but for a lot of rudimentary devices like simple sensors, lighting, locks, etc., a generic Matter device is probably going to be good enough.
What we don’t know is whether Apple will retrofit Matter support into the previous generation Apple TV and HomePod mini. If they do, then the previous generation ATV 4K is arguably a better value than the neutered version on the latest ATV 4K.
Being a bit of a stickler … adding more Thread devices to a mesh does not make the system more reliable. It makes it more available.
I currently have two current 4Ks, one original 4K and a 3 in a tertiary bedroom. I think I am going to finally retire the ATV 3, shift the oldest 4K to that bedroom and pick up a brand new model for the living room.
Just noticed that the new ATV does not include the cable to charge the remote. So need to add another $19 for a new cable.
With games not being popular on AppleTV, the Apple TV app and sharing of your device being available on many Smart TV’s, what is the appeal of this product today?
Is it for people with old televisions?
Easy-to-use interface that is consistent throughout multiple TVs in the house.
Best-in-class picture quality - Noticeably better 4K performance and scale-up from HD than any built-in apps and cheap streaming devices.
Hub capability for a HomeKit - focused smart home. Cameras on the TV, control etc.
Thanks! That makes sense. 👍
One more thing comes to mind. TV manufacturers and streaming services are notorious for poor support and updates for all the various brand TVs. Think about it. Dozens of brands that each need custom or semi-custom apps. They often just stop after a few years. Even the TVs that run on Google are not consistent and are modified by the manufacturer.
The spec bump comes with a spec thump... no Thread.
The higher end model is $149 and includes an A15, thread, ethernet, and 128 GB storage.
What's not to like?
Well, the fact that they neutered the $129 price point model so badly that you can get almost the same functionality from a $50 Roku or FireTV stick, but that's just good news for Apple since their formerly DOA high-end Apple TV 4K is now the only one worth buying. And for that price, I admit it's a good product. It is finally competing with the nVidia Shield TV directly, and given the Shield is 7+ years old at this point, it's good that someone has finally caught up.
That you dare reference a $50 Roku or firestick along side an Apple TV - neutered or not - shows how little you understand the performance gap between devices.
But I like the fact that now it says it works with any Thread-enabled Matter accessories... it used to say it only works with HomeKit devices:
Compatible with HomeKit- or Matter‑enabled Thread accessories only. Thread‑based accessories require a Thread‑enabled home hub, such as Apple TV 4K or HomePod mini, or a third‑party Thread border router.
And more so on the much more capable ATV compared with a Roku, fire stick or chromecast, the shield does not have the power of even the old appleTV 4K. The Shield is the closest box to the ATV, and it does have a bit more flexibility with regard to those with a substantial home video library which they have most definitely paid for over the years (honest, officer!), but not much extra. And at least in my country, the shield is more expensive. Really if you need performance for apps, if you have Apple kit, the ATV is an absolute no brainer compared with a shield. If you have no apple kit, the shield is an option. But even so, an A15 and 128GB…
I currently have two current 4Ks, one original 4K and a 3 in a tertiary bedroom. I think I am going to finally retire the ATV 3, shift the oldest 4K to that bedroom and pick up a brand new model for the living room.
Just noticed that the new ATV does not include the cable to charge the remote. So need to add another $19 for a new cable.
That's how they cut the price by $20/s.
On a serious note though are non-iPhone users just expected to fork over $20 for a lightning cable now? Not a deal breaker by any means, but an odd decision considering the dwindling amount of lightning based accessories.
My question is regarding all that new found processing power. How well does it upscale older content? The new Fire TV Cube has “super resolution upscaling,” a feature that upscales high definition content so that it looks closer in sharpness and detail to native 4K video. Will the new AppleTV with the A15 Bionic chip do this? Has it been doing it all along in the background and Apple makes no reference to it? If not I wonder if Apple has plans to release a software update that includes it. I have a real itch to try out the new Fire TV Cube just for that feature alone. I can't stand their OS though. I have 3 TV's in the house and all of them run on AppleTV and I've already pre-ordered 3 of the new ones with 128GB. Expensive to be sure but the experience is superior.
Comments
Apple TV the device ≠ equalling Apple TV the app ≠ Apple TV+ the service
A long time ago, Apple TV the device could be reasonably equated to the Apple TV app/service.
There are other features to the hardware as mike1 pointed. I'm not sure about how much Apple Fitness+ integration is available in the Apple TV app that runs on some other brand's TV.
There's Arcade of course, but also things like Siri, iPhone integration, the aforementioned HomeKit features, and possibly more.
The best thing to do is to visit the Apple corporate website and visit the product pages for the Apple TV hardware. There is new functionality the box brings with every generation. It's hard for even diligent readers to keep up to date via sites like AppleInsider so it's best to periodically see what new features are available with the latest hardware.
I'm not sure how much familiarity with Apple you have but typically when they release new hardware, they include a few new features that are only available on the newly launched devices.
There is nothing new about this, Apple has done this for decades, pairing some new function to a specific hardware-software combination.
Thread networking support ...
https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-4k/specs/
But I like the fact that now it says it works with any Thread-enabled Matter accessories... it used to say it only works with HomeKit devices:
On a serious note though are non-iPhone users just expected to fork over $20 for a lightning cable now? Not a deal breaker by any means, but an odd decision considering the dwindling amount of lightning based accessories.