I'm a little surprised at the price (especially when their newly-announced HomeView is the same price, and it has a screen!).
I love this product: it's the one box I can (reasonably) trust to not be mining my viewing habits for data. I have two older ones and was looking to get something that supported 4K but waited for this to come out.
$300 might be a decent price if you use it for all of the things that it can do, but if all you're doing is launching streaming apps, $200 was already on the high end for that. $300 seems...a bit much.
Anything I'm missing here? The silver lining is that this product is almost certainly still in the "pay money then forget about it for a decade" tier, which is nice.
I'm also wondering if/how the "add up to four homepods" feature compares to "getting a soundbar". In the other thread for this someone noted that the HomePods only work with this box; so if you're running a game console that's no bueno. But apart from that, if $600 on an Apple TV + two HomePods mini delivers something comparable to a ~$500 soundbar, that's a decent value proposition.
apple tv isn't private, apple does mine your viewing habits, read their eula.
You should also know that all non-apple apps like netflix have unrestricted network access and can/will do the same.
It is too bad that people accept apple's marketing about privacy, because they have dark patterns, they collect telemetry, they don't let you block it, and they help apps do the same things.
A privacy policy is not the same as being able to firewall your device, but apple doesn't allow firewalls.
1) By default, every word (each character, actually) you input into Spotlight/Siri gets time-stamped and sent to `smoot.apple.com`
2) Even with a Pi-Hole blocking *.apple.com (i.e. using MacOS >> Networking >> DNS Server), on boot all modern Apple Silicon reaches out to security.apple.com (i.e. bypassing the user's manual-input DNS setting), using the DHCP-issued DNS IP [0]
pro-tip: use your router's DHCP to auto-issue your local Pi-Hole's IP address [as DNS] with your IP-leases; then you'll actually be able to block all *.apple.com traffic (using the PiHole which your DHCP issues to, by default)
[0] this is for security chip "lockout" detection (e.g.) and it is pervasive across NICs (i.e. it REALLY seeks any attempt for DNS resolution to security.apple.com)
Your viewing habits are not mined by Apple TV the same way that a smart TV does it.
If you use the Apple TV app and if you give permission to the app in the modal to link your HBO Max/Paramount+/etc. app, then that app can call a special API to donate your viewing history to the Apple TV app. You can just decline the prompt, or you can just not use the Apple TV app, and then the other streaming services have no recipient to give this data to.
Conversely, your TV runs something called ACR or Automatic Content Recognition where a screenshot of your TV input/app is taken every ~x seconds. At best, it distills it into a local signature and ships that off to some amount of servers. At worst (e.g.: laptop HDMI) it can send it for processing. Some TVs take screenshots much more often if you use a device connected by HDMI.[1]
The former is generally used for content recommendation, but we can also assume that it could potentially get pooled into stuff like App Store ads. The latter is also used to discern your political affiliation and target you for political campaign ads, among every other type of ad.
> it's the one box I can (reasonably) trust to not be mining my viewing habits for data.
It's mind-blowing how one of the most advanced technology forums on the internet can take privacy for granted just because the marketing of a for-profit corporation with previous histories of privacy violations (there's even lawsuits) claims their closed source device connected 24/7 to the internet, is private.
>It's mind-blowing how one of the most advanced technology forums on the internet can take privacy for granted
that's not what I did
> just because the marketing
not just because of the marketing
> of a for-profit corporation with previous histories of privacy violations (there's even lawsuits) claims their closed source device connected 24/7 to the internet, is private.
in other words, they are being watched and held accountable when they do screw up, which obviates a lot of the "well maybe they're stealing your data and we don't know about it" nonsense elsewhere in the replies.
I'll ask something specific: We know that Rokus and built-in smart TVs are actively tracking and monetizing everything you do on your television. People can prove this by looking at what calls are made on your network.
> It's mind-blowing how one of the most advanced technology forums on the internet can take privacy for granted just because the marketing of a for-profit corporation...
This is a common judgement among the technically literate.
> Breaking down why Apple TVs are privacy advocates’ go-to streaming device
On the contrary. This is a place where we don’t have to substitute FUD for facts and analysis.
To me, it doesn’t make sense to rate all levels of imperfection the same. Of course Apple isn’t perfect. But that’s not am important question.
Apple’s the only major purveyor of these kinds of devices whose existential business model is not predicated on privacy violations. Hardly a guarantee of good behavior (and we’ll see what happens in the future). But a lot better than the alternatives.
I purchased the 2021 ATV just before the 2022 was released. It struggles with AV1 and VP9 (Infuse really struggles, VLC is better but still a problem). I just wanted the faster CPU (for software decoding AV1 and VP9). Almost bought the 2022 version in 2024 for that but didn't want to buy a 2 year old product.
Didn't expect to have to wait 4 years, and now the price is more than doubled. I can afford it but refuse to do so, especially since I don't use any of the onboard storage for anything.
I'm still using the Dev Kit version that was shipped out before the 3rd Gen launched. tvOS26 was the last version supported so I'll be updating finally. I'd consider 14 years a pretty decent run.
The new CPU (A19) should have hardware decoding for both AV1 and VP9. Apple doesn't advertise the latter, but Safari supports VP9 on the A17 Pro and newer. You shouldn't have to rely on software decoding with the new Apple TV, though it might depend on your apps supporting it.
I think we’re wanting the same thing/ use here. I agree the price is outrageous but I ended up preordering anyway because at the end it’s still a good deal if you do the math. I’m excited for the AV1 (hardware now) and more horsepower for VP9 (software).
Go back a year and 8GB of RAM would cost around $30. Today, it's going to be $120. Apple really wanted to increase the amount of RAM from 4GB to 8GB to support on-device Siri AI, but RAM isn't cheap at the moment.
The move to the A19 also meant that they couldn't go with LPDDR4X RAM and instead had to use more expensive LPDDR5X (IIRC).
It is crazy. I expect the new Apple TV to be a flop because $300 is just a lot. The problem is that Apple is a little boxed in on this device. Apple wants to re-use the A19, but that locks them into expensive DDR5 RAM. They want to push Siri AI, but that locks them into 8GB RAM. Unlike the iPhone, there aren't as many other opportunities with the App Store, Apple Pay, search engine placement revenue, etc.
Storage has also gone up a lot and Apple is no longer selling a 64GB model. Most streaming sticks have 4-16GB of storage and it's usually really slow/cheap storage. The new Apple TV has 128GB of storage and the price for that has probably gone from around $25 to $50.
You say that it's fine from "$200 to $300", but that's not really true. It's gone from $250 to $300 when you look at the 128GB model. I still think it's crazy that it went from $150 to $300 in the same year, but the outgoing 128GB model was already $250 after the price hikes earlier this year.
The problem is that Apple didn't want to reign in their product for the current market and I somewhat get that. What's the point of a new Apple TV if it's just "we updated the processor." For me, the point would be AV1 and VP9 decoding, but Apple wanted to push Siri AI.
Other high-end TV devices have also seen big increases in price. The Fire TV Cube went from being $110-140 to now $200 - and with the Fire TV Cube you're getting Cortex-A73 processor cores from 2016, 2GB LPDDR4X, and 16GB storage. At least Apple is giving you 8GB LPDDR5X and 128GB of storage and a processor that is way better.
The Google TV Streamer is $150 now with 4GB RAM and 16GB storage, but with LPDDR4 RAM and Cortex-A55 cores - and it's still $150.
A Roku Ultra is 2GB RAM and 4GB storage with Cortex-A55 cores and costs $150.
I think we're seeing that there's still some really old stock out there that's cheap, but we're seeing the prices climb on competitors too. Google raised its price 50%. Amazon has raised its price 40-80%. Apple raised its price 54-67% on the same-model and launched the newer model with double the RAM, more expensive RAM, a processor that's 4 years newer, etc.
I think it's likely that Google, Roku, and Amazon simply don't upgrade their streaming devices during this parts shortage. I think a lot of people will be fine with a 12nm Cortex-A55 based TV streamer with limited RAM and storage (and slow RAM and storage). I love how fast my Apple TV is. It's amazing the difference in UI lag. But I think most companies aren't going to prioritize that premium experience, especially during a parts shortage.
I was going to say “to be fair”, but it’s still ridiculous but my understanding is that the 130 one was wireless only and the higher one and new one are Ethernet too (not that a NIC adds that cost…)
The person in the other thread is incorrect, an Apple TV connected to HomePods can be configured to advertise HDMI Audio Return Channel so that anything your TV is displaying has its audio routed through it.
Having said that I eventually replaced my pair of HomePod Minis with a Sonos soundbar because I wanted something with a bit more oomph to it, although I'd maybe have considered getting a pair of the big HomePods and using the Minis as rear speakers had this been available at the time.
I can confirm! I have an eARC setup with an AppleTV, 2 big homepods, a gaming PC and a projector.
I had to buy a special HDMI switch because my projector is eARC-naive, but my understanding is that a lot of modern TVs are eARC-aware and a special switch is not required. The one downside to my setup is that I have to press a button on the HDMI switch to toggle between the PC and the AppleTV, no remote control, but hey it's good to stretch your legs now and then right?
Re audio quality, I really like my big HomePods and find they fill the room quite well and have a solid low range to them. I'd also agree that the HomePod Minis are not suitable for a living room entertainment experience.
Dumb q but did you ever have apple tv -> tv -> sonos soundbar set up in a way where you were able to control the sonos soundbar audio from the iphone remote app?
How is life in the Sonos ecosystem? I vaguely recall there being some controversy around them a few years back, and I'm generally distrustful of third party hardware companies attempting to write software.
Doesn't seem like it. Siri AI is not even available in all languages yet either. $429 CAD is crazy. You can get a whole mini PC and a Bluetooth remote for less and slap LibreElec on it even at today's crazy prices. And it'll be a better remote too.
Last time I tried the Media PC thing it ended up being somewhat of a nightmare. Had to spend significant amount of time setting up MadVR with my video player and get HDR HDMI passthrough working, but it was always very flaky. Occasionally an Nvidia driver update would break it completely. Dolby Vision wasn't even an option.
I really wanted to make it work, but it ended up being an annoying hassle. I got a Shield TV and it has been a much better solution.
Not sure if things have changed since then (~5 years ago).
$429 CAD is crazy for sure but there's a running joke in my group chats of me sending a link to an Apple TV every time someone posts about their Kodi box breaking. It's not set and forget like an Apple TV at all...
> Siri AI is not even available in all languages yet either.
Siri AI is increasingly looking like a product that's exclusively for Americans. An unfortunate side effect of the EU attempting to become a regulatory superpower but failing to export its rules to the rest of the world.
HomeView, HomePod and AppleTV should be one device. A powerful home server + a bunch of low powered clients and receivers all over the home. No need for 8gb RAM in all of them..
Yeah it's way too expensive. I would like to upgrade my 4K ATV to a more powerful chip but not for $300. I only use mine for streaming and already have a home theater Atmos setup. Couldn't care less about Siri, AI features, microphones, etc.
I was watching stuff on my Chromecast 4k or whatever. That occasionally stutters or frameskips, so I moved to my PS5 pro.
The PS5 pro has plenty of horsepower. Fewer problems, but I see it occasionally skip or freeze slightly when playing back from some providers.
I've read Apple TV somehow has this figured out, and since I expected a new model I've been waiting for this one. It's not cheap but I want to be able to stream TV/film without any of those issues. I'm not quite ready to go the super premium route by getting a kaleidescape. I also want to use the bluetooth functionality from time to time.
This has been Apple's niche forever. Create a product with a few extra bells and whistles, better craftsmanship, and charge a fat premium that people who care about those things are willing to pay.
In Japan the new Apple TV costs ¥49,800. For comparison - that was the launch price of the PS5 in 2020. I know a lot has happened with inflation and the exchange rate since then, but the result is that it's no longer a small purchase and now costs more than many 4K TVs that run Google TV. And the 4K Amazon Fire TV Stick is currently on sale for ¥5,980. I'm sure the Apple TV is much more capable, but for most people those other options are good enough.
My family actually prefers to use the apps on our LG TV than Apple TV. Even after explaining all of the privacy issues, their reaction was basically "meh, who cares, it's more convenient this way".
Apply TV + two HomePod Mini’s is precisely my setup. I wanted a TV in my living room without it dominating the space. The only practical location was over the fireplace, so I went with a “frame” TV.
It’s not a home theater by any stretch, but perfectly adequate for every day viewing.
It’s worth it for me because I’m still using an Apple TV 4K 2017 that I bought in 2019. It struggles with a lot of Plex content. The price tag does feel high, but taking into account post-Covid inflation and component cost increases due to the AI bubble, it makes sense. An Nvidia shield pro cost exactly the same (in Canada, at least).
My home theatre set up is through a Denon receiver. I love my gen1 HomePods for listening to music, but I can’t understand why anyone would buy four HomePods rather than a proper surround setup.
Others have already pointed out that your assumption of Apple TV not spying on you is wrong, I’d like to make a meta-comment on that.
Apple regards privacy as a feature, and I mean that precisely: some places they implement it, other places they decide it’s not worth it, and they only ever tell you about the former. A good example is iMessage: everybody in tech knows it’s E2EE, many fewer realize that the other three copies of your iMessage data on Apple’s servers are just, uh, not encrypted.
You can’t have the same intuition for Apple and privacy that you would for a group like Signal. You need to instead ask yourself whether you fully understand what you need, then whether Apple has guaranteed precisely and fully that, without weasel words.
> many fewer realize that the other three copies of your iMessage data on Apple’s servers are just, uh, not encrypted
With Advanced Data Security enabled?
Of course, then there's the persons you're talking to. I figure they are one of your "other three", another is the iCloud copy (deduped from backups) ostensibly resolved by advanced data security, what's the third?
If it has decent RAM and had it been cheaper, OpenAI alone will keep this product out of stock. This is Apple's love for the retail consumers that they were forced to increase the price just so that Sam would think twice before hoarding them.
300$ yikes. I'm amazed. And this thing can't even do 120 fps. :-(
Did the old one also not have Dolby vision/HDR10/Atmos? What is this cinematic stuff? What are we missing here?
Why would I need CPU/GPU performance on an Apple TV? I'm genuinely confused. Is it to play video games? If I want to play video games, I can pay a bit more and get a used playstation I suppose. I genuinely don't understand this product anymore.
+1. I was waiting to buy this, but it doesn't really have anything I want over my existing apple tv (which I really like). I was going to add one for a second television, but its just too expensive. I will stick with the Roku there (which I really don't love, at this point, its slow and has lots of ads).
HDR support on Apple TV is fairly hit or miss depending on the player you are using.
HDR10+ is supported in some players (infuse) but not others (plex) and will fallback to HDR10. Profile 7 DV files do not play properly on Apple TV period even though it will display the DV logo (though frankly very few devices can do this). Profile 5 and 8 DV files will play properly depending on the player and the content mapping level in the content (2.9 is well supported but 4.0 causes HDR10 fallback or black screens in some cases). Apple TV also doesn't support HD audio passthrough great.
I've used Steam Link to play games from my Steam library on the Apple TV using a video game controller and it worked surprisingly well. You still might want the Playstation (or Switch or XBox). Just depends on what games you want to play.
Moonlight works really well on the ATV4K too. I stream 4K@60FPS with HDR and surround sound from my PC using the Apollo fork of Sunshine (creates a virtual display since I normally game at 1440p on my attached monitor).
I found the input latency to be much worse than the PC connected to the same TV, for whatever reason.
I thought I surely was imagining it, so I revisited it 6 months or a year later, and, yes, the input latency from the controller is substantially worse on the Apple TV.
It has a powerful CPU/GPU because those chips are what they have on hand and they can control the whole stack. It's likely cheaper for them to just shove their overpowered chips into things that don't need them than setup manufacturing for a net new lower power chip.
Their Studio Displays have an A19 in them too (A19 Pro for the XDR)
I’m been wondering that same thing while developing tvOS app and testing across hardware. What does this new model offer the last 3 didn’t??
Eg Pixel Brite works great on all versions of AppleTV including FEL playback on 1st gen
The only thing I haven’t been able to do with the older models is upscaling content at the same fidelity levels. But the results are very subtle either way and not all that compelling IMO.
Used PS5 prices are spiking with the GTA6 coming out and the chip shortage. They are $550 for the base and $1400 for pro right now, so still nearly double the apple tv (but of course, you can play GTA6)
> A lot of people complaining about the lack of 120fps, but I've no idea who that's even for? Games?
Everything. It's like pixel density, going from 96ppi to 220 is just better, and once you first see it, you just start wanting it everywhere. My Mac, iPhone and iPad all have 120Hz at this point, so of course I want to see it in more Apple products - it feels amazing compared to 60. It just does.
Too pricey, as many others have noted. I was waiting for this model to consider upgrading from the previous generation, but I can’t justify it at this price. I guess this is why recently Apple included the Apple TV service within the lowest/basic iCloud+ plan in most countries. There’s no way to justify the cost of this new device plus the high cost of the Apple TV content subscription, which has its own drawbacks (the catalog is too small in comparison to other services, Apple still releases episodes once a week, and adds annoying ads for its shows and movies at the start of an episode or movie).
I don’t see Siri AI as a big positive differentiator when compared to third generation Apple TV 4K from 2022. Anecdotally, Siri AI has gotten slower and worse from the time the *OS 27.x were released.
Apple TV is the smoothest way to navigate, run apps, etc., without having to use whatever sluggish tracking crap that comes with Smart TVs. I’ve never connected my TV to the internet and Apple TV is the main input source for it. Combined with a couple of HomePods and eARC, it works fine for the most part. Combine with NextDNS (for DNS and system wide tracker blocking) alongside Tailscale, and you’ve got a nice setup.
The biggest downside of Apple TV is tvOS, which doesn’t get much developer time within Apple. This hits harder for Apple’s own apps, which tend to be of poor quality and have no attention paid to bug reports for years.
Hilariously almost all my Apple TV's are mounted to walls behind screens, so as neat as the far-field mics are, I can't see them working terribly well when they're behind the TV.
Anyway I'm happy with my current units. If I was outfitting a new living room I could see this new one, but for the time being I'm not rushing out.
My (single) Homepod Mini reacts to voice commands from any room in my 86 square meter apartment. When the doors are open, I can talk to it basically through the wall, without raising my voice.
I have a $12k Trinnov processor that’s quite good at audio, handles 4k@120 and 8k. $299 Apple TV still can’t pass through audio or do anything better than 4k@60?
I didn’t get to spend $12k on a Trinnov by overpaying for the little things. Apple is high. I don’t know who this is for.
I had been holding off on buying an Apple TV in anticipation of this launch, and am a bit underwhelmed. $300 just seems crazy for what is, or I guess, what it's coming from.
Does anyone know why having 128GB of storage is useful? Just for installing more apps? I've had Google TV devices in the past, and don't think I ever came close to the 32GB storage limit. Maybe there's a gap I'm missing...
I’ve been using an Apple TV since ~2014 I think. Upgraded to the 4K version on release (2022 version).
Really nothing beats it, especially if you are in Apple ecosystem but even if you are not, it’s a million times better than the messy android tv with full of ads and bloat.
That being said, I don’t see a reason for us to upgrade to this version.
My Android TV has a non-default launcher with no ads, and I can sideload apps to get things like Youtube with sponsorblock baked in. Going to Apple's locked down system seems like a huge downgrade to me.
The reason will be that the older, less expensive Apple TV 4k will no longer be available. There's really no other reason. This is a price hike, plain and simple.
I agree, for me the single biggest benefit of AppleTV over any other streaming OS is that it’s genuinely a fast user interface. I lose my mind using all these dongles and built in OS with how slow they are
You can disable ads and recommendations in AndroidTV. Mine only shows a row of installed apps, and I rarely even see the main interface because I have the most common apps available from the remote.
It's really not. It's so reviewers will be able to say "it costs more than the last version, but you also get much more storage" and the average consumer is happy. If there were a practical reason for it Apple would put it front and center.
Apple has a service where you can play games, and I'd imagine a more-powerful box will come with a push for games that take advantage of it.
They also bought RAC9, developers of Sneaky Sasquatch (one of the best games on the service, in my opinion), and they've had an aTV version since day one.
In general, the idea of a single game being able to hop between a phone (which can turn into a handheld with a controller grip), TV box, and desktop/laptop is really interesting. Streaming can do that, but latency and bandwidth caps become issues; this sidesteps it by letting you run everything locally.
I sometimes use the VLC app. You can upload files via a little website it hosts on your local network. It's useful for watching videos from my Android phone that can't utilize Airplay. Can't say I've ever really needed more storage though
They support it for games, I wouldn't really say they've been pushing it though.
That said, I'd love it if Plex or Jellyfin were able to use that storage to cache files locally (eg. stream the data as fast as possible and play from the local copy) to smooth out some flakiness with the wifi between the tv and my home server.
Eh Apple halfheartedly pretends like they're a gaming platform every couple years for a WWDC and then never gives any indication they're actually trying the other 364 days of the year. I'd be shocked if gaming was an influence in the storage at all.
I'd guess it's room for the AI model and future versions of it that could grow.
Having 128GB of storage really does shape what kind of games are going to be played though. For a modern PS5/XSX/PC AAA game you can expect ~100 GB per install, and indie games really run the gamut depending on genre and scope.
I would expect only mobile developers to actually bother porting games natively to Apple TV, with larger titles opting for game streaming.
The lack of audio passthrough has been so frustrating. Apple TV would be an instant buy for me if it did. I have a pretty good 5.1 setup at home. I've been watching the LoTR trilogy with my kids and there is a big difference between DD 5.1 vs the higher quality audio streams. I use a Shield for this reason, but it's clunky and I'd much rather have something that just works. Shame that Apple has no interest in supporting audio passthrough for their devices.
It has the ability to decode the audio on the device and output LPCM if the playback app used supports it. The only thing you can't get is the spatial height channels from formats other than DD+ w/Atmos.
I tend to have at least one of the latest AppleTVs around, but I find myself without access to my best AppleTV 4k and am stuck using a 1st gen in my current home.
I was surprised to learn my 1st gen doesn't have a thread radio which caused some minor homekit compatability issues. I actually bought a new AppleTV 4k a couple months ago but it didn't really solve my problem, so I returned it with the reasoning that it was long in the tooth and a new model was coming out soon.
I just preordered this one but I sort of wonder if I should just go buy the last gen one for half the money or whatever. Seems like the actual buy. At the old price point, they were impulse buys. At this price point, well, it's enough to get me to stop and think about it.
Does every refresh need to make a case for why existing owners of the last model need to upgrade?
Most of the purchases will be from people who do have an older model that's actually getting outdated, people who want another Apple TV for another room in their house, or people who don't own one at all. You buy this one now, it'll probably be good for the better part of a decade and you won't need to think about the next refresh.
I bought a Sonos soundbar (the Ray) to dip a toe in the waters, so to speak.
I’ll never buy another Sonos product ever again. Terrible experience all around. App is trash, soundbar drops off wifi for no reason, songs will stop playing over Airplay and it’ll just disappear as an Airplay speaker for hours and then show back up randomly and work fine again.
I have an AppleTV because I never want to plug my TV into the internet. I just need a box that can stream videos. Does it need to have AI? No. It really doesn’t. I wish Apple just dropped all this junk and figured out what they want that TV app to do.
> I have an AppleTV because I never want to plug my TV into the internet. I just need a box that can stream videos.
One annoyance is that the Netflix app stopped being able/allowed to stream to any device that has some kind of remote (or where you can enter a username/password in some way):
Netflix works fine with the device directly connected to the TV. With a long hdmi-cable (5m+) + an usbc-to-hdmi converter you can keep de phone/pad in your hands. Using a short (≤2m) hdmi-usbc cable you probably need to put the device next to the TV. I bring either when traveling to watch TV in hotels rooms.
It's been doing the same thing forever. A bunch of squares on a screen and you select one to go into whatever app. The core experience has not changed in living memory.
Dont want to plug your TV in to the internet but happy to plug in an Apple TV?
I still never understand people who are dead against giving all their personal info and data to one company but are fine with giving it to another.
Yes this is an apple thread on HN and so I am expecting to be downvoted into oblivion by the Apple fans who believe Apple is better than any other company with data and security, when they have been proved multiple times to be just as bad.
Different companies have different track records and incentives with regard to privacy. There may be companies more trustworthy than Apple, but there aren't many companies less worthy than most TV manufacturers.
I got an AppleTV because the modal experience of using webOS on my TV was having my toddler scream "WATCH TRASH TRUCK" while watching a loading spinner. Garbage computer experience. I never disconnected it from the network though. I was watching the NBA Playoffs on broadcast (so no internet involved in the content delivery) and I got an overlay in webOS system fonts suggesting I order delivery food through my TV. I saw it again when watching the World Cup through the Peacock app on the Apple TV.
So I watch like a total of 2 hours of sports in Summer 2026 and my kid gets an hour of TV while he eats lunch and webOS works its hardest to make those both suck ass, and the Apple TV Just WorksTM and we can put our weekly Facetime with Grandma and Grandpa on there. Absolute no brainer better experience.
I would invite you to read all the investigations that have been done on how much various smart TVs surveil households and exfiltrate all kinds of personal data.
Then find investigations where Apple TVs are proven to do the same, of which there are none.
You’re chalking this up to fanboyism but this is just people making informed choices. In today’s streaming era “just don’t connect anything to the internet” isn’t possible.
I really don't think it's fair to chalk this up to fanboyism. It's really hard to argue that a majority of the platforms natively available on smart TVs are pretty bad, and that they have made a habit of using software updates to cram in more ads. I used a TCL roku TV 10 years and recommended them to everyone looking for a decent budget TV with a good minimal interface. That same exact TV is still used on occasion; the interface has gotten awful and interactions are sluggish.
Many platforms have gone the same way: Google TV boxes are known to be broadly awful at this point, my samsung TV's built-in apps got progressively less responsive with more ads on my homescreen over the last few years. I haven't experienced it but I hear complaints about the performance and intrusiveness of LG TVs now as well.
After cycling through my options, the Apple TV is the only one that doesn't exhibit the same behavior: It is responsive, has a good interface that looks nice, has a very nice minimal remote, and it works the same today as it did yesterday (and basically as it did 2 years ago). I'm not trying to claim allegiance to any brand, it just seems that somehow Apple is the only one not participating in enshittification, at least not to the same degree. If that changes the Apple TV will be out the door and I'll probably need to roll my own out of some sort of mini PC on an open-source platform.
And as one last note, for the time being Apple still has some credibility in terms of privacy. They have revenue streams that work for them without completely ruining their product, and it's my hope they continue with that because as far as I can tell they are the only ones left among the big players.
Relax. Apple's AI is basically GPT-2 duct-taped to a voice model, at best. Even if they tried to collect your data, it couldn't do it reliably. They're so incompetent on this that their AI isn't actually worrying.
Wow. The price went from 129 to 199 to 299. That's nuts. Also, I find it pretty hilarious because for a couple years people have been speculating that Apple would release a low cost version to compete with the sticks.
Anyway, it's now too much money for something that is just going to open Jellyfin.
Credit where credit is due, critics claiming "[Apple device] is too expensive for something that just does [basic function]" have been proven wrong for decades.
It seems like Apple is perfectly happy to send low spend customers to their Roku to install the Apple TV app from there.
With the way the smart TV market is playing out, the type of customer who actually wants to add a streaming box to a TV that already comes with all the apps they need to play back content is already a premium value proposition.
i.e., if your TV already comes with all the apps: Netflix, Paramount+, HBO Max, Disney+, etc, why are you buying a streaming box at all? Presumably because you want a more premium experience than your TV currently offers. That means that compromising on price isn't the right move from a product perspective.
Seems like it's an advertised feature that I assume is opt-out, and has a clear user benefit, from a company with an above average reputation for handling user data. Funny.
I think they do care which is why conspiracies about your phone listening to you to serve adverts keeps popping up, but they don't really have any control or understanding of the situation.
When LG does it its illegal, secret, denied, and for use in selling actual data to others. When Apple does it, it's announced along with many promises of privacy and as a feature you buy.
Yes at the end of the day it's a microphone in your home, but each has a very different stated (or unstated, in LG's case) purpose.
I’d argue Apple TVs were one of the few cost subsidized items they sell, as when people could get 15$ Fire TV sticks anywhere they had to at least look competitive. Now that costs have gone up significantly and it’s basically an iPhone 17 without a screen it’s tough to keep the costs down.
an iPhone 17 without a screen, with half the storage, without a battery, without FaceID, without cameras, without cellular modem, without Taptic Engine, without…
The only part that “deserves” a price increase is the storage starting at 128GB now instead of 32GB, but it’s completely out of touch to get rid of the base model when nobody has any use for all that storage (even the 32GB) for what is basically a streaming box.
Hell, even their new HomeView device, which does have a screen and FaceID, starts at same price.
I was interested in it, since I do need a certain amount of oomph out of the SoC to watch all of my videos on my Apple TV 4K (libass in case someone asks), but man that sticker shock is harsh. I don't think I can stomach it.
I own 4 ATVs, the OG 1080p one, then a 1st, 2nd and 3rd gen. I plan on replacing the oldest of those two with 2 4th gen ATVs. AppleTV is just so much better than any other option out there and I especially like the AV1 hardware decoding here. So, yes, totally worth it.
Nowadays with ~100 bucks you can an amd64 box and a CEC adapter, which allows to use the default remote of your tv. Then you can install on it whatever you want, customize it however you prefer and have all the privacy you decide. No lock-in. As much AI as you like, zero is a valid option.
What I want to know is how good is it for moonlight streaming? The prev versions had odd latency issues.
EDIT: Brutal! Apparently it doesn’t support VRR or 120 hz at 4K. Surprising miss to not support HDMI 2.1 properly.
Further EDIT: Basically we are entering 2027 with no way to get a tv add on box that can stream 4K apps (Disney+ etc. need Widevine L1), 4K at 120hz (i.e. support HDMI 2.1 properly) and decode AV1. Just a bizarre gap in the market.
Current rumor is Apple (Beats) may be releasing a controller soon, and with that I’d assume that + price they are testing the waters with bringing AAA to the Apple TV.
If they put Steam on it with your whole existing library we'd be talking.
"We have tomb raider and death stranding 2 for $69.99" is not an interesting proposition except for Apple fanboy dads who hope that will placate their gamer child (it won't).
It's genuinely one of the few apple products I've had interest in but it seems like I'm in a minority. Maybe people just haven't bought a new TV recently.
TVs are getting worse not better. Except for the display. Which should be the only real concern. But the built in software is just going down hill universally.
I understood what it was after a moment of looking at it, but had to sit and wonder why they thought it was a good idea. What am I missing here? This looks weird.
$300 is absurd. I’ve been waiting for this for a while, but it looks like I’ll have to settle for the older model at a lower price. I wonder if the high price is due to storage costs.
anyone else been trying the new Siri AI intelligence on their phone and been underwhelmed? It's really slow, no longer gets adding grocery items to the right lists, etc. Did I mention how slow it is to inject an LLM turn on everything? Hopefully they'll fix all that by the time it's out of beta... But it's so rough to me that it's really ruined the experience of the device. Apples voice-to-text still isn't good compared the what I used to have on my Android phone pre-2024, when I switched to Apple ecosystem....
Anecdotally, the AppleTV app on smartTVs won't remember what I was watching. Not the show, the episode or the timestamp into the episode.
This has led me to passionately start my own media server again.
Anywhere between $100-$200 will get you a mini PC that you can use to host movies, series, music, audiobooks and ebooks. If you don't transcode the content then there's no need to worry about a GPU. Set it up headless in a closet.
From there you can use a mobile app to connect your phone/tv/any device to it and enjoy an ad free experience without streaming data over the internet.
My TV is a 15in CRT that I connect with a laptop.
My phone is a 1st gen iphone se, with apps to stream.
I've found this setup less frustrating (and wildly cheaper) than spotify, appleTV/netflix/hulu, kindle and etc.
The current state of computing is such that I can't justify buying hardware that requires an app to use. If I want cameras, I buy the camera and connect then to my backend. If I want a thermostat, I do the same.
I've been running the Apple TV app on a Shield and it's got a lot of other bugs. Lately it's been showing shows in the totally wrong aspect ratio unless I restart the app. I do think they consider it a second class citizen.
I guess I'll be using my shield till it dies. It works for the most part and has 4K/DV/Atmos for Jellyfin. Was just hoping to upgrade into an apple device to line up with phones/tablet etc for convenience but not at $429CDN+tax!
I don't see the appeal unless you're already balls deep into the subscription ecosystem. $300 minipc will get you much further than this thing will. There used to be an argument at $130, but now I just don't see a reason on why one would want to be subject to paying so much across so many services that don't even benefit the original creators most of the time. There's some exceptions where netflix, etc bankrolls entire shows, but they've plumetted in quality and I haven't watched one since two years ago.
While I will not be upgrading to the new Apple TV and agree there's nothing here - I'm sorry, but your minipc is 100% a shitty experience compared to an apple TV and I would bet the farm on it.
My TV accepts 120Hz, I want to get my money's worth in hertz dammnit!
For real though, 120 is nice even just for navigating UIs smoothly. On top of that, 120 is a nice multiple of 24, 30, and 60. So the device can just output 120Hz and skip frames as needed depending on the source content frame rate.
yea, this is a non-starter for me, and that is not even considering the price bump which is too much. I do not want ANY internet connected devices in my machine with far field microphones just listening. There needs to be a hardware switch disabling them. I would settle for software settings that completely disables them though as I almost trust Apple. almost... I likely will just look for yesterdays version.
I run Jellyfin on my Windows tower with my 4K Linux ISOs streaming from a NAS. I had to fine-tune the files to direct stream to my Google TV box. I don't remember all the details but it involved lots of ffmpeg commands and downloading external subtitle files. Worth it to see every pore in Linus's face
The only time plex has been slow is right after one of their updates before they fix the bugs they always introduce. Faster hardware won’t fix that. Also apps need better preloading when scrolling. But again faster hardware isn’t the solution to sloppy devs.
I’m not actually complaining but I’m seeing an increasing number of family oriented gaming consoles. They seem like something eared towards gamer parents who don’t wan their kids going all in on a console yet.
This positions them to compete directly against those
Not sure if this has been noticed, but the pricing is “$299 (U.S.) or $49.83 (U.S.) per month for six months,” which means paying in installments is 2 cents cheaper than paying the whole price upfront. 49.83*6=298.98. So you’re not just getting a zero interest loan, you’re getting a discount.
They serve as a home hub or thread router or whatever. I have a HomePod mini and it acts as the hub for those without additional vendor specific hardware.
I always get thread and matter mixed up but it relates to that
Old chips cost Apple more money now not less. The A15 and 64GB NAND probably have low volumes and cost Apple more money going forward. So apple likely just upgraded to what the supply chain can reliably do for a while. Prices might go up even in six months to a year. So instead of buying a 200$ bumped to 250$ A15 Apple TV in six months they are probably upgrading it to make sure future price bumps remain relatively low and justifiable for upgraded hardware.
Very interested to know what TV manufacturers are doing who have heavily advertised their Android UIs which are bread and butter of collecting data. TV panels themselves have no reason to have price increases in memory shortage.
Apple trying so hard to make Siri relevant. I don’t think it’s worth a $299 premium (up $170 from previous gen).
I would skip this generation of Apple TV and buy previous generation on a third party marketplace when people inevitably offload the current generation.
I really like my 2022 Apple TV, I just use it for Plex and YouTube and it works great. People complain about the remote but I don't mind it, works fine. I bought it to replace having to use the slow and clunky Plex/Youtube apps on my LG TV and it's more than fulfilled that purpose.
Great little device, I think I paid £130 for it a few years ago.
There is no reason for me to upgrade to this device, but that £299 price tag really stinks, there is no way I'd buy it at that price if I didn't have the older model already.
Thanks, I hate the microphones. Not for privacy reasons, but because I already have problems with HomePods answering when I want my phone to do so, or vice versa, or the one in a different room all together answering when I tell it to set a timer and then I have to go down the stairs and shout at it. And now they want me to hook up two or four HomePods with microphones up to an Apple TV with a microphone and trust that it won't be a giant pain in the ass every time I say 'Siri'?
Other than Siri AI upgrades, I wonder how much different this is compared to the previous Apple TV 4K with usage primarily being connecting to Jellyfin.
The previous model doesn’t support 6-channel 48kHz bitstream audio, which prevents it from advertising full Atmos support over eARC. It also is clearly hitting CPU limits given occasional hiccups in audio processing, that are worst in the N-2 edition but still present in N-1.
If the new one fixes this, $300 for an eArc-to-HomePod HDMI receiver that can run streaming apps and set up room-measured Atmos is rather cheap.
> It also is clearly hitting CPU limits given occasional hiccups in audio processing
Can we talk about this more? I have spotify running on a 2nd gen apple tv 4k (the N-1 model), which goes to an LG OLED TV. I hear the buffer underruns, but I haven't bothered to dig into whether it's:
* The spotify app missing its audio callback deadline
* tvOS doing a poor job scheduling the audio callbacks
* Some fuckery on the LG side that is dropping audio samples
It's incredibly annoying to have "higher end" media equipment that can't even play a song without audible pops and skips in it.
I can trigger it occasionally on tvOS (especially directly after wake from sleep when I would assume any normal computer is booting up background daemons) just moving the cursor around on the Home Screen. Seems to be tied to eARC being active at all. Worse more often in 2022 hardware variant. Not resolved through 8K HDMI cables, especially since the sound is being generated by Home.app on the Apple TV and sent to the HomePod one foot left of it without an HDMI cable.
So, yeah, I’ve decided that modern 4K+60-120+eARC+Spatial sound slightly exceeds the Apple Silicon capacity of the bargain-priced models.
The fact that you cannot easily listen on headphones through you phone is a dealbreaker. With Roku you can connect your headphones to you phone, and then just start streaming the audio directly to your headphones.
With Apple TV it sounds like you need to use the remote to connect headphones directly to the Apple TV.
That's such a pain. Why can't they just make an app.
I used to love my apple tv, but now I have a tv and a projector at home that both come with a good enough TV OS that has all the streaming apps I need (Netflix, HBO, etc), so I no longer find myself using my apple tv. My LGTV even supports airplay from my mac/iphone, which was maybe the only feature I thought would be unique to the apple tv.
Play the next unwatched episode of X.
What is new this week? (across all the services I'm subscribed to)
What service is show X on? (localized to my country)
When will the next season of X be released?
I'd pay for that (grudgingly, given the big hike). Otherwise don't see much reason to replace my 2021 model.
It definitely does not handle video much better. It doesn't even handle the dolby vision profiles correctly anymore on the apple tv. It's straight up a regression.
It struggles with 4K h264 video files easily played by Infuse player because Plex inefficiently processes video files without web optimization enabled.
Does anyone wink wink know when SiriAi (this improved version) hits iPhones? I currently have a laptop acting as an always listening personal assistant but it would be nice to have my iPhone be able to tell me anything but, “I’ve found this on the web for you - check it out”.
Any note on specs? Do we still have ethernet? Which ethernet we get (is it 2.5GBps?)? How much storage? And what about RAM? I couldn’t easily grasp this information after skimming the text.
Also, any change to the output ports, or are we still restricted to one hdmi as the single output?
So NVidia Shield Pro has been sold out everywhere for months and now used ones are selling for $500.
The price was $200, now there was news of a price increase to $300. This does seem to be the case, but does a price increase of something that's sold out even mean anything? Not sure if NVidia even confirmed they're still producing it.
The NVidia Shield Pro was the go-to device which supported all the codecs. Notably the ones that Apple TV didn't support was uncompressed Dolby Atmos if I remember correctly.
Any idea if this new Apple TV 4K supports uncompressed audio for 4k Blu-Ray rips (i.e. remux's) for Plex or JellyFin?
I actually waited for it. My years old Apple TV died some time ago so I had a chance to use the Android TV that comes with the TV itself. And it's so terrible. I don't understand why even YouTube app is much better on Apple TV than the Android TV one
Does anyone else force their Apple TV into 1080p mode because they don’t like soap opera mode? I hope this unit lets me do that. I have no need to upgrade but eventually my current Apple TV will die and I’d hate to lose the ability to downgrade.
Needing to force Apple TV into 1080p is something wrong with your tv and not apple tv.
Match Dynamic Range and Match Frame Rate covers it and it had nothing to do with resolution in the first place, so that must be something specific to your TV
> Siri AI is available in beta in tvOS 27.2 and requires the owner of the home in the Home app to have an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or iPad running the latest software version and have Siri AI turned on and set to a supported language.
> Certain Apple Intelligence features that rely on server-side models are subject to daily usage limits. Expanded access to such features will be available for a fee in the future.
Not only will the TV not be "supercharged by Siri AI" on its own, as it requires some other device to actually run Siri AI (?!), you also might end up relying on it and suddenly be blocked from using it if you use it too much (?!?!). But fear not, they'll ask you to pay up, to continue to use this feature they advertise as the main feature of this new device.
I love Apple TV, but 400USD is to much. The 2012 ATV3 cost 100USD here, a more suitable price for a streaming box that offers subscriptions would be more in the 200-250 range.
I was hoping they would finally add a camera or just let me plug in a webcam into it for facetime. Continuity camera doesn't work super well and the set up each time sucks.
Roku 4K with HDR10 and Dolby Vision is going for $53 on Amazon. A tough sell for Apple, to say the least. I use Roku for Apple TV (the streaming service) and works great.
I still don't get how Apple can claim to have a "TV" product without actually making a TV. I always expected Apple to build the entire TV, not just a box.
Seems AI focused, not what I would buy it for. My LG TV has plenty of that and I'm trying to avoid it. Glad that I bought a used Apple TV 4K 3rd Gen now!
I have a pre-4K Apple TV, and I have the latest version of Apple TV 4K. I cannot at all tell the difference between the two at all. I think one even has 32 GB and I've never run out of space. That's about 10 years of "advancement" in Apple TV where it doesn't amount to anything.
And yet I have 4 of them in total because they are much better than the built in apps and I don't trust the TVs to connect them to the internet. It's basically CarPlay for my TV but does an excellent job because of the consistent interface and good apps.
I really hope this time its different and siri doesn't suck ... but then at the end of the day when i am watching tv I don't really need a llm to assist me.
As far as I can tell its a hardware bump and some supercharging price bump.
"Turn on/off subtitles" is the primary use case for me. "Rewind a minute" is a good one as well. If it got more seamless at something like "watch Community on Peacock" that'd be on the list as well.
No audio passthrough is obviously a huge miss and price isn't great either, but 60 Hz is super disappointing too. My Steam Machine is doing 120 Hz at 4K and it's great.
I love my Apple TV, but this is nothing but a price hike. The older model already does 4k. What's the added benefit here? Siri? Give me a break. Apple Intelligence is the least capable AI of any of the big tech companies. The fact that they don't mine data like the others is a moot point when Siri isn't even good enough to answer basic queries in the first place. There's no data to mine when you end up not using it for anything.
$299, ouch. And a heavy emphasis on voice capabilities, which my kids love but I generally hate. I don't want to have a conversation with my media.
I have had many Apple TV generations and want to love it, but I really don't get where Apple is trying to go with it. The whole "Apple TV" app really confused the hell out of me, and I wonder if this is continuing that trend. Or maybe it won't matter because this is just ridiculously expensive.
Is there a better experience out there? There are lots of cheaper sticks, but even high end TVs have crappy app launchers, the apps are usually janky, and the vendors are spying on your usage.
Yes, a vanilla Android TV with a semi powerful SoC.
I have the 4K and MiBox next to each other, the Apple TV is cool for a UI showcase, but beyond the oohs and aahs the MiBox is a more useful entertainment device.
Honestly? A 2nd-hand Apple TV. That’s the competitor for this. I’ve had mine for what feels like it must be >5 years, they survived two years in a suitcase as a digital nomad, as far as I can tell they’re indestructible. My local 2nd hand site is full of them, too.
Has anyone used Siri AI? I upgraded to iOS 27, which is fine I guess. Tried a couple siri prompts and decided it is horseshit as it always has been. Never touched it again.
Guys maybe just let others register themselves as system agents since you are obviously not capable of creating anything related to AI. Provide the absolutely minimum effort Siri as default and be done with it.
It's comparable to the free-tier AIs from the other providers but with a decent index of your personal data in a relatively secure and private fashion. It's not completely useless is the nicest thing I can say at this time. I hope it will become good.
You're asking the company which is famously working their hardest to lock in their users completely to their services and platforms, to "just let others"? Maybe understand what ecosystem you buy into, and agree with their approach they've had for decades now, or let the ones who like that stuff continue to enjoy it. Seems kind of self-defeatists to ask them to change ways now...
I was in the car the other day and asked about details of a meeting I was driving to. It wasn’t a meeting in my calendar, just some emails that mentioned it. The response was genuinely good.
Then I asked it about the status of some packages that were already being tracked in wallet and it was a dumpster fire.
It's pretty clear to me that Apple doesn't even want you to upgrade your old Apple TV. None of the new Siri features are even gated by the new Apple TV. Apple likely has software updates in mind after the release but for now, it seems that Apple is intentionally signaling to current Apple TV owners that there's no need to upgrade yet. I guess that's....fine? It's just surprising to me that it seems like for the price, there's no reason for a new customer to buy it either?
People like me were waiting on the sidelines for years to upgrade but hey, I'll keep my money if you can't dream up anything interesting Apple. I can always spend it somewhere else.
Am I the only one who wishes this had a USB port? I get frustrated with very capable devices not offering a USB port to plug in a USB drive. It's already plugged into the TV, and TVs usually have such awful software that I usually want to avoid using the built in video player. The number of times I've lugged a laptop somewhere when there is something perfectly capable that doesn't allow me to do what I want.
Apple TV, Nintendo Switch, ... I'm sure I had more examples. Both obviously capable of playing a video file, but it is not built into the software.
When compared to $150 (occasionally as cheap as $99 for the high end model) that you could have paid 3 months ago for the previous generation, $300 seems nuts. I put off buying last gen because this gen was perpetually “coming soon”, and now I’m priced out, even out of last gen!
I'm a little surprised at the price (especially when their newly-announced HomeView is the same price, and it has a screen!).
I love this product: it's the one box I can (reasonably) trust to not be mining my viewing habits for data. I have two older ones and was looking to get something that supported 4K but waited for this to come out.
$300 might be a decent price if you use it for all of the things that it can do, but if all you're doing is launching streaming apps, $200 was already on the high end for that. $300 seems...a bit much.
Anything I'm missing here? The silver lining is that this product is almost certainly still in the "pay money then forget about it for a decade" tier, which is nice.
I'm also wondering if/how the "add up to four homepods" feature compares to "getting a soundbar". In the other thread for this someone noted that the HomePods only work with this box; so if you're running a game console that's no bueno. But apart from that, if $600 on an Apple TV + two HomePods mini delivers something comparable to a ~$500 soundbar, that's a decent value proposition.
> mining my viewing habits
apple tv isn't private, apple does mine your viewing habits, read their eula.
You should also know that all non-apple apps like netflix have unrestricted network access and can/will do the same.
It is too bad that people accept apple's marketing about privacy, because they have dark patterns, they collect telemetry, they don't let you block it, and they help apps do the same things.
A privacy policy is not the same as being able to firewall your device, but apple doesn't allow firewalls.
Just FYI on MacOS's default telemetry:
1) By default, every word (each character, actually) you input into Spotlight/Siri gets time-stamped and sent to `smoot.apple.com`
2) Even with a Pi-Hole blocking *.apple.com (i.e. using MacOS >> Networking >> DNS Server), on boot all modern Apple Silicon reaches out to security.apple.com (i.e. bypassing the user's manual-input DNS setting), using the DHCP-issued DNS IP [0]
pro-tip: use your router's DHCP to auto-issue your local Pi-Hole's IP address [as DNS] with your IP-leases; then you'll actually be able to block all *.apple.com traffic (using the PiHole which your DHCP issues to, by default)
[0] this is for security chip "lockout" detection (e.g.) and it is pervasive across NICs (i.e. it REALLY seeks any attempt for DNS resolution to security.apple.com)
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I'm comfortable with the idea that Netflix can collect data about what I watch on Netflix, and that Apple can track what I buy in the Apple app.
I'm not comfortable with my TV or streaming stick manufacturer collecting and mining data about everything that appears on the screen.
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Your viewing habits are not mined by Apple TV the same way that a smart TV does it.
If you use the Apple TV app and if you give permission to the app in the modal to link your HBO Max/Paramount+/etc. app, then that app can call a special API to donate your viewing history to the Apple TV app. You can just decline the prompt, or you can just not use the Apple TV app, and then the other streaming services have no recipient to give this data to.
Conversely, your TV runs something called ACR or Automatic Content Recognition where a screenshot of your TV input/app is taken every ~x seconds. At best, it distills it into a local signature and ships that off to some amount of servers. At worst (e.g.: laptop HDMI) it can send it for processing. Some TVs take screenshots much more often if you use a device connected by HDMI.[1]
The former is generally used for content recommendation, but we can also assume that it could potentially get pooled into stuff like App Store ads. The latter is also used to discern your political affiliation and target you for political campaign ads, among every other type of ad.
1: https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/research/smart-tv-data-priva...
Privacy advocates recommend Apple TV for a reason.
> Breaking down why Apple TVs are privacy advocates’ go-to streaming device
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/all-the-ways-apple-t...
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Apple (mostly) isn’t in the business of selling ads. I’d certainly trust this over most other options.
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I would say Apple is on the Pareto frontier for a given level of config/setup effort though.
There absolutely are much more private options (I run one) but it’s more effort.
> it's the one box I can (reasonably) trust to not be mining my viewing habits for data.
It's mind-blowing how one of the most advanced technology forums on the internet can take privacy for granted just because the marketing of a for-profit corporation with previous histories of privacy violations (there's even lawsuits) claims their closed source device connected 24/7 to the internet, is private.
>It's mind-blowing how one of the most advanced technology forums on the internet can take privacy for granted
that's not what I did
> just because the marketing
not just because of the marketing
> of a for-profit corporation with previous histories of privacy violations (there's even lawsuits) claims their closed source device connected 24/7 to the internet, is private.
in other words, they are being watched and held accountable when they do screw up, which obviates a lot of the "well maybe they're stealing your data and we don't know about it" nonsense elsewhere in the replies.
I'll ask something specific: We know that Rokus and built-in smart TVs are actively tracking and monetizing everything you do on your television. People can prove this by looking at what calls are made on your network.
Does Apple do the same thing?
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Of all the major tech companies around the world, Apple has the most incentive to actually deliver privacy, and has the best track record.
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> It's mind-blowing how one of the most advanced technology forums on the internet can take privacy for granted just because the marketing of a for-profit corporation...
This is a common judgement among the technically literate.
> Breaking down why Apple TVs are privacy advocates’ go-to streaming device
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/all-the-ways-apple-t...
On the contrary. This is a place where we don’t have to substitute FUD for facts and analysis.
To me, it doesn’t make sense to rate all levels of imperfection the same. Of course Apple isn’t perfect. But that’s not am important question.
Apple’s the only major purveyor of these kinds of devices whose existential business model is not predicated on privacy violations. Hardly a guarantee of good behavior (and we’ll see what happens in the future). But a lot better than the alternatives.
What's the relevance of it being for-profit? You're assuming that non-profits necessarily have less of a hunger for data?
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Why would you assume that because they disagree with you, they must be ignorant?
Isn't Apple building an ad network? Its only a matter of time.
I've literally been waiting since 2022 for this.
I purchased the 2021 ATV just before the 2022 was released. It struggles with AV1 and VP9 (Infuse really struggles, VLC is better but still a problem). I just wanted the faster CPU (for software decoding AV1 and VP9). Almost bought the 2022 version in 2024 for that but didn't want to buy a 2 year old product.
Didn't expect to have to wait 4 years, and now the price is more than doubled. I can afford it but refuse to do so, especially since I don't use any of the onboard storage for anything.
I'm still using the Dev Kit version that was shipped out before the 3rd Gen launched. tvOS26 was the last version supported so I'll be updating finally. I'd consider 14 years a pretty decent run.
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The new CPU (A19) should have hardware decoding for both AV1 and VP9. Apple doesn't advertise the latter, but Safari supports VP9 on the A17 Pro and newer. You shouldn't have to rely on software decoding with the new Apple TV, though it might depend on your apps supporting it.
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I think we’re wanting the same thing/ use here. I agree the price is outrageous but I ended up preordering anyway because at the end it’s still a good deal if you do the math. I’m excited for the AV1 (hardware now) and more horsepower for VP9 (software).
I'm in the same boat. I guess I'll buy the older one -- can't justify the $300.
you're downloading youtube videos to watch in vlc?
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I bought one earlier this year right before they announced the $70 price increase. Going from $130 to $200 to $300 in the same year is crazy.
At $130 it was an impulse buy and well worth it. Given a new price and features, I don’t see myself upgrading.
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Go back a year and 8GB of RAM would cost around $30. Today, it's going to be $120. Apple really wanted to increase the amount of RAM from 4GB to 8GB to support on-device Siri AI, but RAM isn't cheap at the moment.
The move to the A19 also meant that they couldn't go with LPDDR4X RAM and instead had to use more expensive LPDDR5X (IIRC).
It is crazy. I expect the new Apple TV to be a flop because $300 is just a lot. The problem is that Apple is a little boxed in on this device. Apple wants to re-use the A19, but that locks them into expensive DDR5 RAM. They want to push Siri AI, but that locks them into 8GB RAM. Unlike the iPhone, there aren't as many other opportunities with the App Store, Apple Pay, search engine placement revenue, etc.
Storage has also gone up a lot and Apple is no longer selling a 64GB model. Most streaming sticks have 4-16GB of storage and it's usually really slow/cheap storage. The new Apple TV has 128GB of storage and the price for that has probably gone from around $25 to $50.
You say that it's fine from "$200 to $300", but that's not really true. It's gone from $250 to $300 when you look at the 128GB model. I still think it's crazy that it went from $150 to $300 in the same year, but the outgoing 128GB model was already $250 after the price hikes earlier this year.
The problem is that Apple didn't want to reign in their product for the current market and I somewhat get that. What's the point of a new Apple TV if it's just "we updated the processor." For me, the point would be AV1 and VP9 decoding, but Apple wanted to push Siri AI.
Other high-end TV devices have also seen big increases in price. The Fire TV Cube went from being $110-140 to now $200 - and with the Fire TV Cube you're getting Cortex-A73 processor cores from 2016, 2GB LPDDR4X, and 16GB storage. At least Apple is giving you 8GB LPDDR5X and 128GB of storage and a processor that is way better.
The Google TV Streamer is $150 now with 4GB RAM and 16GB storage, but with LPDDR4 RAM and Cortex-A55 cores - and it's still $150.
A Roku Ultra is 2GB RAM and 4GB storage with Cortex-A55 cores and costs $150.
I think we're seeing that there's still some really old stock out there that's cheap, but we're seeing the prices climb on competitors too. Google raised its price 50%. Amazon has raised its price 40-80%. Apple raised its price 54-67% on the same-model and launched the newer model with double the RAM, more expensive RAM, a processor that's 4 years newer, etc.
I think it's likely that Google, Roku, and Amazon simply don't upgrade their streaming devices during this parts shortage. I think a lot of people will be fine with a 12nm Cortex-A55 based TV streamer with limited RAM and storage (and slow RAM and storage). I love how fast my Apple TV is. It's amazing the difference in UI lag. But I think most companies aren't going to prioritize that premium experience, especially during a parts shortage.
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I was going to say “to be fair”, but it’s still ridiculous but my understanding is that the 130 one was wireless only and the higher one and new one are Ethernet too (not that a NIC adds that cost…)
The person in the other thread is incorrect, an Apple TV connected to HomePods can be configured to advertise HDMI Audio Return Channel so that anything your TV is displaying has its audio routed through it.
Having said that I eventually replaced my pair of HomePod Minis with a Sonos soundbar because I wanted something with a bit more oomph to it, although I'd maybe have considered getting a pair of the big HomePods and using the Minis as rear speakers had this been available at the time.
I can confirm! I have an eARC setup with an AppleTV, 2 big homepods, a gaming PC and a projector.
I had to buy a special HDMI switch because my projector is eARC-naive, but my understanding is that a lot of modern TVs are eARC-aware and a special switch is not required. The one downside to my setup is that I have to press a button on the HDMI switch to toggle between the PC and the AppleTV, no remote control, but hey it's good to stretch your legs now and then right?
Re audio quality, I really like my big HomePods and find they fill the room quite well and have a solid low range to them. I'd also agree that the HomePod Minis are not suitable for a living room entertainment experience.
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Dumb q but did you ever have apple tv -> tv -> sonos soundbar set up in a way where you were able to control the sonos soundbar audio from the iphone remote app?
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Good to know, thank you.
How is life in the Sonos ecosystem? I vaguely recall there being some controversy around them a few years back, and I'm generally distrustful of third party hardware companies attempting to write software.
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I have full size HomePods beside the living room TV, and the one in my studio, and I've never been able to get this feature to work.
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Doesn't seem like it. Siri AI is not even available in all languages yet either. $429 CAD is crazy. You can get a whole mini PC and a Bluetooth remote for less and slap LibreElec on it even at today's crazy prices. And it'll be a better remote too.
Last time I tried the Media PC thing it ended up being somewhat of a nightmare. Had to spend significant amount of time setting up MadVR with my video player and get HDR HDMI passthrough working, but it was always very flaky. Occasionally an Nvidia driver update would break it completely. Dolby Vision wasn't even an option.
I really wanted to make it work, but it ended up being an annoying hassle. I got a Shield TV and it has been a much better solution.
Not sure if things have changed since then (~5 years ago).
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$429 CAD is crazy for sure but there's a running joke in my group chats of me sending a link to an Apple TV every time someone posts about their Kodi box breaking. It's not set and forget like an Apple TV at all...
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> Siri AI is not even available in all languages yet either.
Siri AI is increasingly looking like a product that's exclusively for Americans. An unfortunate side effect of the EU attempting to become a regulatory superpower but failing to export its rules to the rest of the world.
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HomeView, HomePod and AppleTV should be one device. A powerful home server + a bunch of low powered clients and receivers all over the home. No need for 8gb RAM in all of them..
> $300 might be a decent price if you use it for all of the things that it can do
What exactly can it do besides launching streaming apps?
It's also a hub for Apple Home and a Thread border router. And it works with HomePods.
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At this price I’d also want a Dolby vision Blu-ray player. Strong overlap with this product and physical media people.
Yeah it's way too expensive. I would like to upgrade my 4K ATV to a more powerful chip but not for $300. I only use mine for streaming and already have a home theater Atmos setup. Couldn't care less about Siri, AI features, microphones, etc.
Maybe they'll release a 32/64 GB version once they have harvested the whales.
I was watching stuff on my Chromecast 4k or whatever. That occasionally stutters or frameskips, so I moved to my PS5 pro.
The PS5 pro has plenty of horsepower. Fewer problems, but I see it occasionally skip or freeze slightly when playing back from some providers.
I've read Apple TV somehow has this figured out, and since I expected a new model I've been waiting for this one. It's not cheap but I want to be able to stream TV/film without any of those issues. I'm not quite ready to go the super premium route by getting a kaleidescape. I also want to use the bluetooth functionality from time to time.
This has been Apple's niche forever. Create a product with a few extra bells and whistles, better craftsmanship, and charge a fat premium that people who care about those things are willing to pay.
Nvidia Shield now costs $300 too.
The same old laggy device from like 8 years ago? They still make and sell those?
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In Japan the new Apple TV costs ¥49,800. For comparison - that was the launch price of the PS5 in 2020. I know a lot has happened with inflation and the exchange rate since then, but the result is that it's no longer a small purchase and now costs more than many 4K TVs that run Google TV. And the 4K Amazon Fire TV Stick is currently on sale for ¥5,980. I'm sure the Apple TV is much more capable, but for most people those other options are good enough.
My family actually prefers to use the apps on our LG TV than Apple TV. Even after explaining all of the privacy issues, their reaction was basically "meh, who cares, it's more convenient this way".
Apply TV + two HomePod Mini’s is precisely my setup. I wanted a TV in my living room without it dominating the space. The only practical location was over the fireplace, so I went with a “frame” TV.
It’s not a home theater by any stretch, but perfectly adequate for every day viewing.
It’s worth it for me because I’m still using an Apple TV 4K 2017 that I bought in 2019. It struggles with a lot of Plex content. The price tag does feel high, but taking into account post-Covid inflation and component cost increases due to the AI bubble, it makes sense. An Nvidia shield pro cost exactly the same (in Canada, at least).
My home theatre set up is through a Denon receiver. I love my gen1 HomePods for listening to music, but I can’t understand why anyone would buy four HomePods rather than a proper surround setup.
Others have already pointed out that your assumption of Apple TV not spying on you is wrong, I’d like to make a meta-comment on that.
Apple regards privacy as a feature, and I mean that precisely: some places they implement it, other places they decide it’s not worth it, and they only ever tell you about the former. A good example is iMessage: everybody in tech knows it’s E2EE, many fewer realize that the other three copies of your iMessage data on Apple’s servers are just, uh, not encrypted.
You can’t have the same intuition for Apple and privacy that you would for a group like Signal. You need to instead ask yourself whether you fully understand what you need, then whether Apple has guaranteed precisely and fully that, without weasel words.
> many fewer realize that the other three copies of your iMessage data on Apple’s servers are just, uh, not encrypted
With Advanced Data Security enabled?
Of course, then there's the persons you're talking to. I figure they are one of your "other three", another is the iCloud copy (deduped from backups) ostensibly resolved by advanced data security, what's the third?
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> other three copies of your iMessage data on Apple’s servers are just, uh, not encrypted
Because they want to allow people to recover them.
Not a little, am a lot surprised. It started at $79 and then bumped to $150 and now doubled again to 300. Definitely was not expecting this jump.
I use mine for average of ~7 years, so that helps justify just biting the bullet and paying for whatever is best at the time.
If it has decent RAM and had it been cheaper, OpenAI alone will keep this product out of stock. This is Apple's love for the retail consumers that they were forced to increase the price just so that Sam would think twice before hoarding them.
300$ yikes. I'm amazed. And this thing can't even do 120 fps. :-(
Did the old one also not have Dolby vision/HDR10/Atmos? What is this cinematic stuff? What are we missing here?
Why would I need CPU/GPU performance on an Apple TV? I'm genuinely confused. Is it to play video games? If I want to play video games, I can pay a bit more and get a used playstation I suppose. I genuinely don't understand this product anymore.
+1. I was waiting to buy this, but it doesn't really have anything I want over my existing apple tv (which I really like). I was going to add one for a second television, but its just too expensive. I will stick with the Roku there (which I really don't love, at this point, its slow and has lots of ads).
HDR support on Apple TV is fairly hit or miss depending on the player you are using.
HDR10+ is supported in some players (infuse) but not others (plex) and will fallback to HDR10. Profile 7 DV files do not play properly on Apple TV period even though it will display the DV logo (though frankly very few devices can do this). Profile 5 and 8 DV files will play properly depending on the player and the content mapping level in the content (2.9 is well supported but 4.0 causes HDR10 fallback or black screens in some cases). Apple TV also doesn't support HD audio passthrough great.
And now that the Nvidia Shield Pro is the same price, it makes the Apple TV an even tougher sell.
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I've used Steam Link to play games from my Steam library on the Apple TV using a video game controller and it worked surprisingly well. You still might want the Playstation (or Switch or XBox). Just depends on what games you want to play.
Moonlight works really well on the ATV4K too. I stream 4K@60FPS with HDR and surround sound from my PC using the Apollo fork of Sunshine (creates a virtual display since I normally game at 1440p on my attached monitor).
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I found the input latency to be much worse than the PC connected to the same TV, for whatever reason.
I thought I surely was imagining it, so I revisited it 6 months or a year later, and, yes, the input latency from the controller is substantially worse on the Apple TV.
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It has a powerful CPU/GPU because those chips are what they have on hand and they can control the whole stack. It's likely cheaper for them to just shove their overpowered chips into things that don't need them than setup manufacturing for a net new lower power chip.
Their Studio Displays have an A19 in them too (A19 Pro for the XDR)
I’m been wondering that same thing while developing tvOS app and testing across hardware. What does this new model offer the last 3 didn’t??
Eg Pixel Brite works great on all versions of AppleTV including FEL playback on 1st gen
The only thing I haven’t been able to do with the older models is upscaling content at the same fidelity levels. But the results are very subtle either way and not all that compelling IMO.
[0] https://pixelbrite.site
It looks like it does? https://support.apple.com/en-gb/102339 and https://support.apple.com/en-us/102218
List is the same as the incumbent model :-( I was hoping for a lossless Atmos TrueHD pass through support.
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Used PS5 prices are spiking with the GTA6 coming out and the chip shortage. They are $550 for the base and $1400 for pro right now, so still nearly double the apple tv (but of course, you can play GTA6)
My lad went and bought a PS5 six months ago in preparation for GTA6 because he could see the prices of them were rising by the month.
A lot of people complaining about the lack of 120fps, but I've no idea who that's even for? Games?
> used playstation
Unfortunately PS5 prices have shot up due to everything else.
> A lot of people complaining about the lack of 120fps, but I've no idea who that's even for? Games?
Everything. It's like pixel density, going from 96ppi to 220 is just better, and once you first see it, you just start wanting it everywhere. My Mac, iPhone and iPad all have 120Hz at this point, so of course I want to see it in more Apple products - it feels amazing compared to 60. It just does.
Too pricey, as many others have noted. I was waiting for this model to consider upgrading from the previous generation, but I can’t justify it at this price. I guess this is why recently Apple included the Apple TV service within the lowest/basic iCloud+ plan in most countries. There’s no way to justify the cost of this new device plus the high cost of the Apple TV content subscription, which has its own drawbacks (the catalog is too small in comparison to other services, Apple still releases episodes once a week, and adds annoying ads for its shows and movies at the start of an episode or movie).
I don’t see Siri AI as a big positive differentiator when compared to third generation Apple TV 4K from 2022. Anecdotally, Siri AI has gotten slower and worse from the time the *OS 27.x were released.
Apple TV is the smoothest way to navigate, run apps, etc., without having to use whatever sluggish tracking crap that comes with Smart TVs. I’ve never connected my TV to the internet and Apple TV is the main input source for it. Combined with a couple of HomePods and eARC, it works fine for the most part. Combine with NextDNS (for DNS and system wide tracker blocking) alongside Tailscale, and you’ve got a nice setup.
The biggest downside of Apple TV is tvOS, which doesn’t get much developer time within Apple. This hits harder for Apple’s own apps, which tend to be of poor quality and have no attention paid to bug reports for years.
Hilariously almost all my Apple TV's are mounted to walls behind screens, so as neat as the far-field mics are, I can't see them working terribly well when they're behind the TV.
Anyway I'm happy with my current units. If I was outfitting a new living room I could see this new one, but for the time being I'm not rushing out.
My (single) Homepod Mini reacts to voice commands from any room in my 86 square meter apartment. When the doors are open, I can talk to it basically through the wall, without raising my voice.
Do not underestimate modern audio technology.
I mean, how would this be an upgrade?
I have a $12k Trinnov processor that’s quite good at audio, handles 4k@120 and 8k. $299 Apple TV still can’t pass through audio or do anything better than 4k@60?
I didn’t get to spend $12k on a Trinnov by overpaying for the little things. Apple is high. I don’t know who this is for.
Does it come with specially shielded and gold plated hdmi cables to go along with the rest of the 12k snake oil?
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What 8k or 120 fps 4k content is even available?
Presumably it is for the 99.999% who didn't spend $12k on a Trinnov.
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I had been holding off on buying an Apple TV in anticipation of this launch, and am a bit underwhelmed. $300 just seems crazy for what is, or I guess, what it's coming from.
Does anyone know why having 128GB of storage is useful? Just for installing more apps? I've had Google TV devices in the past, and don't think I ever came close to the 32GB storage limit. Maybe there's a gap I'm missing...
I’ve been using an Apple TV since ~2014 I think. Upgraded to the 4K version on release (2022 version).
Really nothing beats it, especially if you are in Apple ecosystem but even if you are not, it’s a million times better than the messy android tv with full of ads and bloat.
That being said, I don’t see a reason for us to upgrade to this version.
My Android TV has a non-default launcher with no ads, and I can sideload apps to get things like Youtube with sponsorblock baked in. Going to Apple's locked down system seems like a huge downgrade to me.
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The reason will be that the older, less expensive Apple TV 4k will no longer be available. There's really no other reason. This is a price hike, plain and simple.
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I agree, for me the single biggest benefit of AppleTV over any other streaming OS is that it’s genuinely a fast user interface. I lose my mind using all these dongles and built in OS with how slow they are
You can disable ads and recommendations in AndroidTV. Mine only shows a row of installed apps, and I rarely even see the main interface because I have the most common apps available from the remote.
But more conversational AI, that doesn't inspire you?
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128GB is strange. Apple nickel-and-dimes you for storage most of the time, but on this random TV box they give you 128GB.
The only thing I could think of using this for is syncthing, but I'm not sure if there's an Apple TV app
> 128GB is strange.
It's really not. It's so reviewers will be able to say "it costs more than the last version, but you also get much more storage" and the average consumer is happy. If there were a practical reason for it Apple would put it front and center.
Apple has a service where you can play games, and I'd imagine a more-powerful box will come with a push for games that take advantage of it.
They also bought RAC9, developers of Sneaky Sasquatch (one of the best games on the service, in my opinion), and they've had an aTV version since day one.
In general, the idea of a single game being able to hop between a phone (which can turn into a handheld with a controller grip), TV box, and desktop/laptop is really interesting. Streaming can do that, but latency and bandwidth caps become issues; this sidesteps it by letting you run everything locally.
I sometimes use the VLC app. You can upload files via a little website it hosts on your local network. It's useful for watching videos from my Android phone that can't utilize Airplay. Can't say I've ever really needed more storage though
Most likely the storage is for game installations. Apple has been somewhat pushing it as a gaming platform.
They support it for games, I wouldn't really say they've been pushing it though.
That said, I'd love it if Plex or Jellyfin were able to use that storage to cache files locally (eg. stream the data as fast as possible and play from the local copy) to smooth out some flakiness with the wifi between the tv and my home server.
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Eh Apple halfheartedly pretends like they're a gaming platform every couple years for a WWDC and then never gives any indication they're actually trying the other 364 days of the year. I'd be shocked if gaming was an influence in the storage at all.
I'd guess it's room for the AI model and future versions of it that could grow.
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Having 128GB of storage really does shape what kind of games are going to be played though. For a modern PS5/XSX/PC AAA game you can expect ~100 GB per install, and indie games really run the gamut depending on genre and scope.
I would expect only mobile developers to actually bother porting games natively to Apple TV, with larger titles opting for game streaming.
I bought an Apple TV 4K a few months ago (Google TV's ads were too much) and there's nothing here that might even slightly tempt me to upgrade.
* Siri - no thanks
* Far field microphones - no thanks
* Faster performance - unnecessary for me (I watch TV, movies and YouTube - it's never not smooth)
* Home theatre with homepods - I already have Sonos surround
* Even smarter home hub - I have a non-Apple smart home
* Facetime, Fitness+, Apple TV app - just not for me
The one thing I feel like I'm missing (and would be missing even if I upgraded) is audio passthrough, but DD 5.1 is _fine_.
The lack of audio passthrough has been so frustrating. Apple TV would be an instant buy for me if it did. I have a pretty good 5.1 setup at home. I've been watching the LoTR trilogy with my kids and there is a big difference between DD 5.1 vs the higher quality audio streams. I use a Shield for this reason, but it's clunky and I'd much rather have something that just works. Shame that Apple has no interest in supporting audio passthrough for their devices.
This is where I'm at too, really wish Apple supported passthrough. The Shield continues to work but it's a bit sluggish now and needs a new gen.
There are comparable devices like Ugoos (am6b+ with coreelec) and Zidoo but they're a little sketch compared to the aforementioned...
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It has the ability to decode the audio on the device and output LPCM if the playback app used supports it. The only thing you can't get is the spatial height channels from formats other than DD+ w/Atmos.
Looks like the ethernet port is back on all new models? It disappeared for the cheapest option in the previous generation.
Still no 2.5Gbps port in 2026 is disappointing.
Why would a TV streamer need 2.5Gbps? You don’t even need that bandwidth to stream raw 4K blu-rays.
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There is only one model now.
Tell that to all the TVs that are still shipping with 100Mbps even when it starts to be a problem, because they want to save 5 cents.
But seriously, 1Gbps is plenty for any video content.
> * Faster performance - unnecessary for me (I watch TV, movies and YouTube - it's never not smooth)
Don't worry, the next tvOS update may fix that.
I tend to have at least one of the latest AppleTVs around, but I find myself without access to my best AppleTV 4k and am stuck using a 1st gen in my current home.
I was surprised to learn my 1st gen doesn't have a thread radio which caused some minor homekit compatability issues. I actually bought a new AppleTV 4k a couple months ago but it didn't really solve my problem, so I returned it with the reasoning that it was long in the tooth and a new model was coming out soon.
I just preordered this one but I sort of wonder if I should just go buy the last gen one for half the money or whatever. Seems like the actual buy. At the old price point, they were impulse buys. At this price point, well, it's enough to get me to stop and think about it.
The remote adding find my precision finding is a killer feature, but you’ll be able to buy the remote standalone.
AV1 decoding is also a good feature to have.
Pretty sure previous ATV4K had AV1 decode as well?
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> The one thing I feel like I'm missing is audio passthrough,
wait, the new 4K has passthrough finally? I did not see it mentioned.
Sorry no, I worded that badly.
I meant the one thing I'm missing from my current setup, not something that would be fixed by upgrading.
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Does every refresh need to make a case for why existing owners of the last model need to upgrade?
Most of the purchases will be from people who do have an older model that's actually getting outdated, people who want another Apple TV for another room in their house, or people who don't own one at all. You buy this one now, it'll probably be good for the better part of a decade and you won't need to think about the next refresh.
If the price increases, you need to consider if the value it provides is still worth the higher cost.
For me, I’m hopeful to get a good deal on the previous gen to replace my parents ATV HD.
It will be my first used ATV purchase, but $299 isn’t worth it to consider buying new in my opinion.
Even the homepods setup - anyone who wants full home theater would just get sonos or other serious surround sound.
I bought a Sonos soundbar (the Ray) to dip a toe in the waters, so to speak.
I’ll never buy another Sonos product ever again. Terrible experience all around. App is trash, soundbar drops off wifi for no reason, songs will stop playing over Airplay and it’ll just disappear as an Airplay speaker for hours and then show back up randomly and work fine again.
The problem is that the apple tv + won't even output the audio formats that a real audio system can decode.
I have an AppleTV because I never want to plug my TV into the internet. I just need a box that can stream videos. Does it need to have AI? No. It really doesn’t. I wish Apple just dropped all this junk and figured out what they want that TV app to do.
> I have an AppleTV because I never want to plug my TV into the internet. I just need a box that can stream videos.
One annoyance is that the Netflix app stopped being able/allowed to stream to any device that has some kind of remote (or where you can enter a username/password in some way):
* https://lifehacker.com/tech/netflix-is-killing-casting-from-...
* https://help.netflix.com/en/node/100131
It'd be nice to be able to plug in an AppleTV and use it 'just' as a dumb streaming pipe, but at least for Netflix you have to use the app on it.
> Using AirPlay with iPhone and iPad is not supported with Netflix.
* https://help.netflix.com/en/node/49
Netflix works fine with the device directly connected to the TV. With a long hdmi-cable (5m+) + an usbc-to-hdmi converter you can keep de phone/pad in your hands. Using a short (≤2m) hdmi-usbc cable you probably need to put the device next to the TV. I bring either when traveling to watch TV in hotels rooms.
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> figured out what they want that TV app to do
It's been doing the same thing forever. A bunch of squares on a screen and you select one to go into whatever app. The core experience has not changed in living memory.
That's what the previous gen 4k model does. It works great.
I suppose they will still sell the last gen Apple TV right?
It's gone from the store, replaced by a pre-order for the new one. Refurbished 3rd gen units are still available (for now).
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Dont want to plug your TV in to the internet but happy to plug in an Apple TV?
I still never understand people who are dead against giving all their personal info and data to one company but are fine with giving it to another.
Yes this is an apple thread on HN and so I am expecting to be downvoted into oblivion by the Apple fans who believe Apple is better than any other company with data and security, when they have been proved multiple times to be just as bad.
Different companies have different track records and incentives with regard to privacy. There may be companies more trustworthy than Apple, but there aren't many companies less worthy than most TV manufacturers.
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I got an AppleTV because the modal experience of using webOS on my TV was having my toddler scream "WATCH TRASH TRUCK" while watching a loading spinner. Garbage computer experience. I never disconnected it from the network though. I was watching the NBA Playoffs on broadcast (so no internet involved in the content delivery) and I got an overlay in webOS system fonts suggesting I order delivery food through my TV. I saw it again when watching the World Cup through the Peacock app on the Apple TV.
So I watch like a total of 2 hours of sports in Summer 2026 and my kid gets an hour of TV while he eats lunch and webOS works its hardest to make those both suck ass, and the Apple TV Just WorksTM and we can put our weekly Facetime with Grandma and Grandpa on there. Absolute no brainer better experience.
For privacy specifically, I'll refer you to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d...
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I would invite you to read all the investigations that have been done on how much various smart TVs surveil households and exfiltrate all kinds of personal data.
Then find investigations where Apple TVs are proven to do the same, of which there are none.
You’re chalking this up to fanboyism but this is just people making informed choices. In today’s streaming era “just don’t connect anything to the internet” isn’t possible.
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Consumer Reports has generally rated them as highest in privacy and security, whether or not they've had any issues in the past.
I really don't think it's fair to chalk this up to fanboyism. It's really hard to argue that a majority of the platforms natively available on smart TVs are pretty bad, and that they have made a habit of using software updates to cram in more ads. I used a TCL roku TV 10 years and recommended them to everyone looking for a decent budget TV with a good minimal interface. That same exact TV is still used on occasion; the interface has gotten awful and interactions are sluggish.
Many platforms have gone the same way: Google TV boxes are known to be broadly awful at this point, my samsung TV's built-in apps got progressively less responsive with more ads on my homescreen over the last few years. I haven't experienced it but I hear complaints about the performance and intrusiveness of LG TVs now as well.
After cycling through my options, the Apple TV is the only one that doesn't exhibit the same behavior: It is responsive, has a good interface that looks nice, has a very nice minimal remote, and it works the same today as it did yesterday (and basically as it did 2 years ago). I'm not trying to claim allegiance to any brand, it just seems that somehow Apple is the only one not participating in enshittification, at least not to the same degree. If that changes the Apple TV will be out the door and I'll probably need to roll my own out of some sort of mini PC on an open-source platform.
And as one last note, for the time being Apple still has some credibility in terms of privacy. They have revenue streams that work for them without completely ruining their product, and it's my hope they continue with that because as far as I can tell they are the only ones left among the big players.
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Relax. Apple's AI is basically GPT-2 duct-taped to a voice model, at best. Even if they tried to collect your data, it couldn't do it reliably. They're so incompetent on this that their AI isn't actually worrying.
The new Siri AI is literally Gemini running in an Apple datacenter. https://www.macworld.com/article/3162330/how-much-gemini-is-...
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Wow. The price went from 129 to 199 to 299. That's nuts. Also, I find it pretty hilarious because for a couple years people have been speculating that Apple would release a low cost version to compete with the sticks.
Anyway, it's now too much money for something that is just going to open Jellyfin.
Credit where credit is due, critics claiming "[Apple device] is too expensive for something that just does [basic function]" have been proven wrong for decades.
It seems like Apple is perfectly happy to send low spend customers to their Roku to install the Apple TV app from there.
With the way the smart TV market is playing out, the type of customer who actually wants to add a streaming box to a TV that already comes with all the apps they need to play back content is already a premium value proposition.
i.e., if your TV already comes with all the apps: Netflix, Paramount+, HBO Max, Disney+, etc, why are you buying a streaming box at all? Presumably because you want a more premium experience than your TV currently offers. That means that compromising on price isn't the right move from a product perspective.
> With built-in far-field microphones, Apple TV 4K also lets users talk to Siri completely hands-free.
Is no one concerned about an always-on, internet connected microphone being in their living room or bedroom? This needs a physical shut off switch.
Funny how when LG does it [1] it’s a privacy nightmare but when Apple does it it’s a cool new feature.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49592375
Seems like it's an advertised feature that I assume is opt-out, and has a clear user benefit, from a company with an above average reputation for handling user data. Funny.
Most people who are going to buy this are going to have at least an iPhone. And possible a MacBook, Homepod, Apple Watch.
Consumers do not care
I think they do care which is why conspiracies about your phone listening to you to serve adverts keeps popping up, but they don't really have any control or understanding of the situation.
> Is no one concerned about an always-on, internet connected microphone being in their living room or bedroom?
Like most people's cell phone that also ends up in many more places?
When LG does it its illegal, secret, denied, and for use in selling actual data to others. When Apple does it, it's announced along with many promises of privacy and as a feature you buy.
Yes at the end of the day it's a microphone in your home, but each has a very different stated (or unstated, in LG's case) purpose.
Well I, for one, have wanted more AI and microphones in my Netflix device for years, and I'm glad Apple is courageous enough to deliver.
$299, up from $129 of the last gen. I am not sure how many people would still buy this?
I’d argue Apple TVs were one of the few cost subsidized items they sell, as when people could get 15$ Fire TV sticks anywhere they had to at least look competitive. Now that costs have gone up significantly and it’s basically an iPhone 17 without a screen it’s tough to keep the costs down.
an iPhone 17 without a screen, with half the storage, without a battery, without FaceID, without cameras, without cellular modem, without Taptic Engine, without…
The only part that “deserves” a price increase is the storage starting at 128GB now instead of 32GB, but it’s completely out of touch to get rid of the base model when nobody has any use for all that storage (even the 32GB) for what is basically a streaming box.
Hell, even their new HomeView device, which does have a screen and FaceID, starts at same price.
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And only a gigabit Ethernet port...
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I was interested in it, since I do need a certain amount of oomph out of the SoC to watch all of my videos on my Apple TV 4K (libass in case someone asks), but man that sticker shock is harsh. I don't think I can stomach it.
Probably because of the unprecedented increase in the cost of memory and storage with a possible sprinkle of tariffs.
I own 4 ATVs, the OG 1080p one, then a 1st, 2nd and 3rd gen. I plan on replacing the oldest of those two with 2 4th gen ATVs. AppleTV is just so much better than any other option out there and I especially like the AV1 hardware decoding here. So, yes, totally worth it.
Pretty sure it was up to $199, presumably because of rising hardware costs.
That price rise happened a few months ago. One theory at the time was that it was partly to soften the blow of the new price for the next generation.
Personally I didn't expect a new generation to be a full $100 more though...
I paid 179 € in December 2023.
300 bucks seems a lot.
Nowadays with ~100 bucks you can an amd64 box and a CEC adapter, which allows to use the default remote of your tv. Then you can install on it whatever you want, customize it however you prefer and have all the privacy you decide. No lock-in. As much AI as you like, zero is a valid option.
Plenty of streaming services now don't have full functionality on desktop OS's, only mobile apps.
Can't do 1080p on Disney+ in a browser. Can't do surround sound. etc.
Do you know of a CEC adapter which can do HDMI2.1 4K120Hz? What has held me back from this setup is only being able to find 4K60Hz CEC adapters.
The CEC adapter shouldn't care? CEC is its own pin, everything else just goes straight through. (or maybe through twists).
You can also probably maybe do terrible things like CEC on one port and signal on another, it's mostly a bus.
How will you play HDR media then?
What I want to know is how good is it for moonlight streaming? The prev versions had odd latency issues.
EDIT: Brutal! Apparently it doesn’t support VRR or 120 hz at 4K. Surprising miss to not support HDMI 2.1 properly.
Further EDIT: Basically we are entering 2027 with no way to get a tv add on box that can stream 4K apps (Disney+ etc. need Widevine L1), 4K at 120hz (i.e. support HDMI 2.1 properly) and decode AV1. Just a bizarre gap in the market.
A lot of hardware and not much to do with it.
A different company could turn this hardware into a pretty serious gaming machine or a zero config NAS or something but Apple is not that company.
They couldn't think of any compelling Siri AI use cases to put in the advertising and neither can I.
Current rumor is Apple (Beats) may be releasing a controller soon, and with that I’d assume that + price they are testing the waters with bringing AAA to the Apple TV.
If they put Steam on it with your whole existing library we'd be talking.
"We have tomb raider and death stranding 2 for $69.99" is not an interesting proposition except for Apple fanboy dads who hope that will placate their gamer child (it won't).
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Every other vendor has injected so many obtrusive ads and spyware Apple has won this product area by default.
Any vanilla android TV box with an Amlogic chip will not have ads, and will run circles around this overpriced headless iPhone.
It's genuinely one of the few apple products I've had interest in but it seems like I'm in a minority. Maybe people just haven't bought a new TV recently.
TVs are getting worse not better. Except for the display. Which should be the only real concern. But the built in software is just going down hill universally.
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Steve Jobs would have ripped the face off whoever approved that top banner photo:
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/2026/10/apple-unveils-...
It's so un-Apple to be stretched and in weird perspective that way
I understood what it was after a moment of looking at it, but had to sit and wonder why they thought it was a good idea. What am I missing here? This looks weird.
It's a top down view of the TV
Exactly: a weird perspective.
Have you ever looked at your TV screen from the top down?
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Raising the price of your product from $130 to $300 in a span of 3 months while not adding any new useful features is crazy even for Apple.
Spec bump and AI stuff that nobody needs or wants. All for a higher price. Total yawn, I'll keep my current ATV 4K as it's everything I need.
$300 is absurd. I’ve been waiting for this for a while, but it looks like I’ll have to settle for the older model at a lower price. I wonder if the high price is due to storage costs.
anyone else been trying the new Siri AI intelligence on their phone and been underwhelmed? It's really slow, no longer gets adding grocery items to the right lists, etc. Did I mention how slow it is to inject an LLM turn on everything? Hopefully they'll fix all that by the time it's out of beta... But it's so rough to me that it's really ruined the experience of the device. Apples voice-to-text still isn't good compared the what I used to have on my Android phone pre-2024, when I switched to Apple ecosystem....
It’s not great with Car Play. For amusements sake my partners name in my contacts is My Love <3 (first name “My”).
Siri in CarPlay just swallows the name. “New text message from [pause]. Would you like to…”
Anecdotally, the AppleTV app on smartTVs won't remember what I was watching. Not the show, the episode or the timestamp into the episode.
This has led me to passionately start my own media server again.
Anywhere between $100-$200 will get you a mini PC that you can use to host movies, series, music, audiobooks and ebooks. If you don't transcode the content then there's no need to worry about a GPU. Set it up headless in a closet.
From there you can use a mobile app to connect your phone/tv/any device to it and enjoy an ad free experience without streaming data over the internet.
My TV is a 15in CRT that I connect with a laptop. My phone is a 1st gen iphone se, with apps to stream.
I've found this setup less frustrating (and wildly cheaper) than spotify, appleTV/netflix/hulu, kindle and etc.
The current state of computing is such that I can't justify buying hardware that requires an app to use. If I want cameras, I buy the camera and connect then to my backend. If I want a thermostat, I do the same.
Works fine for me on an Nvidia Shield TV
I've been running the Apple TV app on a Shield and it's got a lot of other bugs. Lately it's been showing shows in the totally wrong aspect ratio unless I restart the app. I do think they consider it a second class citizen.
makes sense. my suspicious is the version for smartTVs is optimized for the hardware and has some bugs in it.
I only wanted an Apple TV with a better chip and full HDMI audio passthrough.
Instead we got a ton of useless stuff.
I guess I'll be using my shield till it dies. It works for the most part and has 4K/DV/Atmos for Jellyfin. Was just hoping to upgrade into an apple device to line up with phones/tablet etc for convenience but not at $429CDN+tax!
That remote still sucks. I would've bought it if there was a new remote.
New Apple TV seems to make sense if you're installing a lot of new sound equipment, and love Siri.
If neither of those are true, not sure what's on offer.
I don't see the appeal unless you're already balls deep into the subscription ecosystem. $300 minipc will get you much further than this thing will. There used to be an argument at $130, but now I just don't see a reason on why one would want to be subject to paying so much across so many services that don't even benefit the original creators most of the time. There's some exceptions where netflix, etc bankrolls entire shows, but they've plumetted in quality and I haven't watched one since two years ago.
> $300 minipc will get you much further than this thing will.
Unless your goal is to comfortably watch TV using a TV remote.
$15 from aliexpress for radio + (programmable) remote combo
and yes I am assuming that HN crowd can program a remote.
Those $300 mini PCs aren’t $300 anymore.
The Beelink mini PC I bought as my router cost me $229 in 2024. The most equivalent model on sale I can find is now $349.
While I will not be upgrading to the new Apple TV and agree there's nothing here - I'm sorry, but your minipc is 100% a shitty experience compared to an apple TV and I would bet the farm on it.
> minipc will get you much further
If you don't care about Dolby Vision or HDR.
I have the last gen Apple TV 4K and I just don't see enough reason to upgrade.
It doesn't even look like this supports 120hz, which would've been nice since my OLED TV does.
What type of content you would run at 120
My TV accepts 120Hz, I want to get my money's worth in hertz dammnit!
For real though, 120 is nice even just for navigating UIs smoothly. On top of that, 120 is a nice multiple of 24, 30, and 60. So the device can just output 120Hz and skip frames as needed depending on the source content frame rate.
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well I play games on my PS5, which supports it, on my OLED TV that definitely supports it.
Maybe at some point I could play games on the Apple TV that do?
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yea, this is a non-starter for me, and that is not even considering the price bump which is too much. I do not want ANY internet connected devices in my machine with far field microphones just listening. There needs to be a hardware switch disabling them. I would settle for software settings that completely disables them though as I almost trust Apple. almost... I likely will just look for yesterdays version.
Man "Even more Siri" is not the headline feature I was hoping for.
The existing Apple TV was already way overpowered for a media device. Who was complaining about their Apple TV being slow?
Me. Despite the wired connection, I've occasionally encountered buffering with my high quality Linux ISOs in Infuse or Plex.
Maybe more memory could improve this, although surely there's a software issue somewhere that causes this.
I run Jellyfin on my Windows tower with my 4K Linux ISOs streaming from a NAS. I had to fine-tune the files to direct stream to my Google TV box. I don't remember all the details but it involved lots of ffmpeg commands and downloading external subtitle files. Worth it to see every pore in Linus's face
The only time plex has been slow is right after one of their updates before they fix the bugs they always introduce. Faster hardware won’t fix that. Also apps need better preloading when scrolling. But again faster hardware isn’t the solution to sloppy devs.
Also I play back full 4k BR disk rips.
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I’m not actually complaining but I’m seeing an increasing number of family oriented gaming consoles. They seem like something eared towards gamer parents who don’t wan their kids going all in on a console yet.
This positions them to compete directly against those
Playing dead cells on Apple TV is awesome. But it does tend to slow a bit in more hectic fights
Not sure if this has been noticed, but the pricing is “$299 (U.S.) or $49.83 (U.S.) per month for six months,” which means paying in installments is 2 cents cheaper than paying the whole price upfront. 49.83*6=298.98. So you’re not just getting a zero interest loan, you’re getting a discount.
"Pair it with HomePod for the best surround sound setup we’ve ever offered, and it makes managing your Apple Home accessories easier than ever."
That makes absolutely no sense. How does connecting surround speakers help one "manage" his thermostat or lighting system?
They serve as a home hub or thread router or whatever. I have a HomePod mini and it acts as the hub for those without additional vendor specific hardware.
I always get thread and matter mixed up but it relates to that
Old chips cost Apple more money now not less. The A15 and 64GB NAND probably have low volumes and cost Apple more money going forward. So apple likely just upgraded to what the supply chain can reliably do for a while. Prices might go up even in six months to a year. So instead of buying a 200$ bumped to 250$ A15 Apple TV in six months they are probably upgrading it to make sure future price bumps remain relatively low and justifiable for upgraded hardware.
Very interested to know what TV manufacturers are doing who have heavily advertised their Android UIs which are bread and butter of collecting data. TV panels themselves have no reason to have price increases in memory shortage.
Supporting 4 HomePods surround only in the new model is a classic dick move by Apple.
Also not supporting the original, completely fine and working HomePod for this is another.
Though first place here is dropping raw photo support for the $2k iPhone duo.
—
(All these are software features which hardware supports.)
Apple trying so hard to make Siri relevant. I don’t think it’s worth a $299 premium (up $170 from previous gen).
I would skip this generation of Apple TV and buy previous generation on a third party marketplace when people inevitably offload the current generation.
Is this the first Apple device to list VP9 in its tech specs? https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-4k/specs/
Looks like it is: https://www.google.com/search?udm=web&q=site:www.apple.com+v...
If you read Apple TV's legal agreement, it seems that they are not much better than anyone else.
https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-tv-app/
You cannot stop them from collecting what you watch.
You cannot delete this data.
They will share it with 3rd parties for advertising.
It would seem that there is a giant market opportunity for someone to release a device that does not spy on you.
Why would anyone spend $300 on this?
I really like my 2022 Apple TV, I just use it for Plex and YouTube and it works great. People complain about the remote but I don't mind it, works fine. I bought it to replace having to use the slow and clunky Plex/Youtube apps on my LG TV and it's more than fulfilled that purpose.
Great little device, I think I paid £130 for it a few years ago.
There is no reason for me to upgrade to this device, but that £299 price tag really stinks, there is no way I'd buy it at that price if I didn't have the older model already.
Thanks, I hate the microphones. Not for privacy reasons, but because I already have problems with HomePods answering when I want my phone to do so, or vice versa, or the one in a different room all together answering when I tell it to set a timer and then I have to go down the stairs and shout at it. And now they want me to hook up two or four HomePods with microphones up to an Apple TV with a microphone and trust that it won't be a giant pain in the ass every time I say 'Siri'?
"Apple TV 4K is more than just a way to watch — it’s a home essential that transforms the living room to reflect what users want in the moment"
I wonder what model wrote that lol
Other than Siri AI upgrades, I wonder how much different this is compared to the previous Apple TV 4K with usage primarily being connecting to Jellyfin.
The previous model doesn’t support 6-channel 48kHz bitstream audio, which prevents it from advertising full Atmos support over eARC. It also is clearly hitting CPU limits given occasional hiccups in audio processing, that are worst in the N-2 edition but still present in N-1.
If the new one fixes this, $300 for an eArc-to-HomePod HDMI receiver that can run streaming apps and set up room-measured Atmos is rather cheap.
> It also is clearly hitting CPU limits given occasional hiccups in audio processing
Can we talk about this more? I have spotify running on a 2nd gen apple tv 4k (the N-1 model), which goes to an LG OLED TV. I hear the buffer underruns, but I haven't bothered to dig into whether it's:
* The spotify app missing its audio callback deadline
* tvOS doing a poor job scheduling the audio callbacks
* Some fuckery on the LG side that is dropping audio samples
It's incredibly annoying to have "higher end" media equipment that can't even play a song without audible pops and skips in it.
I can trigger it occasionally on tvOS (especially directly after wake from sleep when I would assume any normal computer is booting up background daemons) just moving the cursor around on the Home Screen. Seems to be tied to eARC being active at all. Worse more often in 2022 hardware variant. Not resolved through 8K HDMI cables, especially since the sound is being generated by Home.app on the Apple TV and sent to the HomePod one foot left of it without an HDMI cable.
So, yeah, I’ve decided that modern 4K+60-120+eARC+Spatial sound slightly exceeds the Apple Silicon capacity of the bargain-priced models.
The fact that you cannot easily listen on headphones through you phone is a dealbreaker. With Roku you can connect your headphones to you phone, and then just start streaming the audio directly to your headphones. With Apple TV it sounds like you need to use the remote to connect headphones directly to the Apple TV. That's such a pain. Why can't they just make an app.
Any Airpods connect directly to the AppleTV. You don't need the remote, phone or an app at all.
If you're using wired headphones then a $20 Bluetooth dongle will do the same.
Pretty much any bluetooth headphones work connected directly to the AppleTV, not just Airpods
If you use Apple headphones it works directly without the remote
Connecting AirPods to an Apple TV is literally one-button tap
It works with any bluetooth headphones, directly.
I use my AirPods with my Apple TV on the daily.
Interestingly, it has 8 GB LPDDR5X, up from 4 GB LPDDR4 in the 3rd gen. That's a sizeable part of the BOM cost, I assume. They really wanted local AI?
At least according to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_TV_(device)#Technical_sp...
I just bought a 2015 Apple TV for $20 on ebay. I have a 4k one from somewhere around 2020. I really see no reason to upgrade anytime soon.
I used to love my apple tv, but now I have a tv and a projector at home that both come with a good enough TV OS that has all the streaming apps I need (Netflix, HBO, etc), so I no longer find myself using my apple tv. My LGTV even supports airplay from my mac/iphone, which was maybe the only feature I thought would be unique to the apple tv.
Can this new Siri handle TV-specific questions?
Play the next unwatched episode of X. What is new this week? (across all the services I'm subscribed to) What service is show X on? (localized to my country) When will the next season of X be released?
I'd pay for that (grudgingly, given the big hike). Otherwise don't see much reason to replace my 2021 model.
For context, Best Buy US currently lists 184 TV models that cost less than then new Apple TV.
$300 for a streaming box is insane price.
Mind you AI also coming to the previous gens as well
>Access to Siri AI is also available on Apple TV 4K (2nd generation) or later.
Did they add TrueHD support, or any additional codecs? The Nvidia Shield is more capable of a player last I checked.
If you can get one. Nvidia Shield Pro has been out of stock for months.
They added AV1 support at least
No audio passthrough - no buy. This is limit amount of audio codec which possible to play and quality of sound
Yeh the 4k Roku Ultra I got for $50 on sale will go till end of life. $300 for a movie streamer is absurd.
I thought this was a physical new TV. Misleading when it's just a device to plug into one's TV.
Software still sucks on Apple TV and feels like an afterthought compared to other platforms.
Yesterday I was watching Dark Matter on my Plex server. I asked Siri to turn on English subtitles which are there:
> I'm afraid I'm having trouble getting the available languages.
This is after Plex's big update recently...
I don’t think Siri ever worked with Plex but the new Plex app is a UI horror show.
I read reports that it handles video much better, but that wasn’t an issue I regularly faced.
It definitely does not handle video much better. It doesn't even handle the dolby vision profiles correctly anymore on the apple tv. It's straight up a regression.
It struggles with 4K h264 video files easily played by Infuse player because Plex inefficiently processes video files without web optimization enabled.
Does anyone wink wink know when SiriAi (this improved version) hits iPhones? I currently have a laptop acting as an always listening personal assistant but it would be nice to have my iPhone be able to tell me anything but, “I’ve found this on the web for you - check it out”.
it's out now. just like... google it?
I feel like it tells you everything you need to know about what people think of New Siri that nobody made the joke 'ask Siri about it'.
At $300 I really would have expected they include a full year of Apple TV, 3 months doesn't cut it
Any note on specs? Do we still have ethernet? Which ethernet we get (is it 2.5GBps?)? How much storage? And what about RAM? I couldn’t easily grasp this information after skimming the text.
Also, any change to the output ports, or are we still restricted to one hdmi as the single output?
So NVidia Shield Pro has been sold out everywhere for months and now used ones are selling for $500.
The price was $200, now there was news of a price increase to $300. This does seem to be the case, but does a price increase of something that's sold out even mean anything? Not sure if NVidia even confirmed they're still producing it.
The NVidia Shield Pro was the go-to device which supported all the codecs. Notably the ones that Apple TV didn't support was uncompressed Dolby Atmos if I remember correctly.
Any idea if this new Apple TV 4K supports uncompressed audio for 4k Blu-Ray rips (i.e. remux's) for Plex or JellyFin?
I actually waited for it. My years old Apple TV died some time ago so I had a chance to use the Android TV that comes with the TV itself. And it's so terrible. I don't understand why even YouTube app is much better on Apple TV than the Android TV one
Does anyone else force their Apple TV into 1080p mode because they don’t like soap opera mode? I hope this unit lets me do that. I have no need to upgrade but eventually my current Apple TV will die and I’d hate to lose the ability to downgrade.
You are doing something wrong.
Resolution has nothing to do with dejudder and what have you: these are TV settings.
You should however have match framerate and hdr modes to content in apple tv settings on (unless you have a really old TV).
Nope. I turned them off. I had to turn down to 1080p.
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Needing to force Apple TV into 1080p is something wrong with your tv and not apple tv.
Match Dynamic Range and Match Frame Rate covers it and it had nothing to do with resolution in the first place, so that must be something specific to your TV
Change this on your TV. Look for turning off motion smoothing, or better, see if you have a filmmaker mode.
That does not fix it. Trust me. I’ve been through this dance on several tvs. You have to drop to 1080p.
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> Siri AI is available in beta in tvOS 27.2 and requires the owner of the home in the Home app to have an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or iPad running the latest software version and have Siri AI turned on and set to a supported language.
> Certain Apple Intelligence features that rely on server-side models are subject to daily usage limits. Expanded access to such features will be available for a fee in the future.
Not only will the TV not be "supercharged by Siri AI" on its own, as it requires some other device to actually run Siri AI (?!), you also might end up relying on it and suddenly be blocked from using it if you use it too much (?!?!). But fear not, they'll ask you to pay up, to continue to use this feature they advertise as the main feature of this new device.
The ‘features that rely on server-side models’ are almost certainly generative content, not everyday stuff that Siri ought to do out of the box.
It honestly gives off "we own the glass" vibes. I am curious how much of this data feeds into Apple’s "ethical" data harvesting ops.
I love Apple TV, but 400USD is to much. The 2012 ATV3 cost 100USD here, a more suitable price for a streaming box that offers subscriptions would be more in the 200-250 range.
I was hoping they would finally add a camera or just let me plug in a webcam into it for facetime. Continuity camera doesn't work super well and the set up each time sucks.
Same, don’t care about any of what they did announce, but also I get it it’s probably niche.
Roku 4K with HDR10 and Dolby Vision is going for $53 on Amazon. A tough sell for Apple, to say the least. I use Roku for Apple TV (the streaming service) and works great.
I preordered the new AppleTV (coming from Roku), just so my data isn't sold.
I still don't get how Apple can claim to have a "TV" product without actually making a TV. I always expected Apple to build the entire TV, not just a box.
Why make just one TV when you can make a box that plugs into any TV?
Overall? Superior hardware experience.
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Oh no, I just bought the older version ..
> .. new Apple TV 4K, supercharged by Siri AI
> With built-in far-field microphones, Apple TV 4K also lets users talk to Siri completely hands-free
Oh, okay, never mind
Apple TV 4k, I really use the version of Apple TV 4k.I think it would be good to use a microphone It's so frustrating that price is so unhappy.
Seems AI focused, not what I would buy it for. My LG TV has plenty of that and I'm trying to avoid it. Glad that I bought a used Apple TV 4K 3rd Gen now!
I was going to recommend people switch to the Google TV Streamer 4k, but I just realized they raised the price on that $50 a couple months back.
Double the price and it's literally the same product. That's really lame. They could have at least added a FaceTime camera or something.
Apple already listens to people having sex, they don't have to watch it too.
What do I need faster performance for anyway? My existing Apple TV from.. 2019? is still running cool and handles every app without sweating.
I don’t know if I feel like the headline features improve much over the last version.
But I might be in the minority of people who don’t talk much to their TV.
I talk to my TV, but I don't expect it to respond. :p
You'll talk more when it's necessary to skip ads.
Does anyone know, does it support video delay? I.e. my Sonos speakers have 150ms latency, can it output audio earlier than video?
Just for those who hadn't noticed in the last 40~ years. Apple has a pricing algorithm which is very very simple.
1. Take the assumed market price.
2. Double it.
Too expensive, if you ask me. $129 was already pricy but this is just too much. But would it support passthrough audio for that money lol
$129 was dirt cheap for what it did, but $300 is definitely surprisingly expensive.
I wonder if this one will finally support full Dolby Atmos? I mean, the full 7.1 TrueHD profile instead of the streaming apps 5.1 one.
You already know the answer...
I’m hoping for the answer to be wrong and for it to support it. Otherwise, I have no reason to upgrade.
Since everyone is saying this isn't worth upgrading, I feel better about my purchase of a used Apple TV 4K 3rd Gen on eBay.
> ... subtitles appear at just the right times to help you track every word.
Isn't this the most basic function of a video player?
Whoa, $299?! Guess I'll be sticking with my 2022 model. I see zero upside to upgrading, other than being $300 poorer.
Seems like a pretty empty product announcement: it's faster; it has a new Siri ... it's faster.
Still family and parental controls not added
I'd kill for an Apple TV with a built in television tuner. All the ATSC tuners on Amazon are such garbage.
Apple removed all streaming apps from the Apple TV platform, so for new users: Apple TV is all but useless now.
What on earth are you on about? This is not true at all.
No apps which allow torrents, Stremio, omni, fusion, kodi..
Yes it is true. Good luck streaming.
Our old one still works fine. Nine years.
In Germany you dont have Siri. So 300 Euro is far too much. Maybe interesting in the US, but not in Europe.
You could make the argument that we don't have Siri in the USA either. I mean, it's there, but it's not like it actually works for anything.
It's 350€ aka 400$ (vat included) in Europe
Why don't they have Siri? Is the language not supported?
The only reason I'd get it, is if the apps were less buggy. I doubt that will happen. Most are written by third-party brogrammers, and it shows.
Otherwise, there's not a thing that this offers, that's worth shelling out another 300 bucks.
I have the original 4K, and watch it all the time. I'm glad it has the double-tap Home button (swipe up to kill the app). I use that feature a lot.
What about it is 4K?? I read their press release and even halfway down didn’t find it so I gave up…
The output video resolution? I'm confused on what I'm missing in your question.
$300 is what the other streaming devices would cost if they weren't full of ads and spyware
I have a pre-4K Apple TV, and I have the latest version of Apple TV 4K. I cannot at all tell the difference between the two at all. I think one even has 32 GB and I've never run out of space. That's about 10 years of "advancement" in Apple TV where it doesn't amount to anything.
And yet I have 4 of them in total because they are much better than the built in apps and I don't trust the TVs to connect them to the internet. It's basically CarPlay for my TV but does an excellent job because of the consistent interface and good apps.
I am in no hurry to get this latest version.
Maybe if the Apple TV was a soundbar, I'd pay $350 without being upset about my choice.
I would 100% buy one of these if it were $200 or maybe even $250. $300 is outrageous.
In Canada this is nearly $500 with sales tax. A total non-starter for me, personally.
I really hope this time its different and siri doesn't suck ... but then at the end of the day when i am watching tv I don't really need a llm to assist me.
As far as I can tell its a hardware bump and some supercharging price bump.
"Turn on/off subtitles" is the primary use case for me. "Rewind a minute" is a good one as well. If it got more seamless at something like "watch Community on Peacock" that'd be on the list as well.
That’s the most compelling argument for it I’ve ever seen.
I’d like Plex to integrate this.
No audio passthrough is obviously a huge miss and price isn't great either, but 60 Hz is super disappointing too. My Steam Machine is doing 120 Hz at 4K and it's great.
Doesn't seem worth the upgrade at that price. Siri still stinks in general.
300 and it still fails to render 16:10
The aspect ratio of the MacBook. And the ThinkPads.
I love my Apple TV, but this is nothing but a price hike. The older model already does 4k. What's the added benefit here? Siri? Give me a break. Apple Intelligence is the least capable AI of any of the big tech companies. The fact that they don't mine data like the others is a moot point when Siri isn't even good enough to answer basic queries in the first place. There's no data to mine when you end up not using it for anything.
$299, ouch. And a heavy emphasis on voice capabilities, which my kids love but I generally hate. I don't want to have a conversation with my media.
I have had many Apple TV generations and want to love it, but I really don't get where Apple is trying to go with it. The whole "Apple TV" app really confused the hell out of me, and I wonder if this is continuing that trend. Or maybe it won't matter because this is just ridiculously expensive.
Is there a better experience out there? There are lots of cheaper sticks, but even high end TVs have crappy app launchers, the apps are usually janky, and the vendors are spying on your usage.
It’s expensive, but is there a better option?
Yes, a vanilla Android TV with a semi powerful SoC.
I have the 4K and MiBox next to each other, the Apple TV is cool for a UI showcase, but beyond the oohs and aahs the MiBox is a more useful entertainment device.
> It’s expensive, but is there a better option?
Honestly? A 2nd-hand Apple TV. That’s the competitor for this. I’ve had mine for what feels like it must be >5 years, they survived two years in a suitcase as a digital nomad, as far as I can tell they’re indestructible. My local 2nd hand site is full of them, too.
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"Hey Siri, change the channel to ESPN!"
"Sure, I can call 911 for you"
"Here is what I found on the web for Espen"
Has anyone used Siri AI? I upgraded to iOS 27, which is fine I guess. Tried a couple siri prompts and decided it is horseshit as it always has been. Never touched it again.
Guys maybe just let others register themselves as system agents since you are obviously not capable of creating anything related to AI. Provide the absolutely minimum effort Siri as default and be done with it.
It's comparable to the free-tier AIs from the other providers but with a decent index of your personal data in a relatively secure and private fashion. It's not completely useless is the nicest thing I can say at this time. I hope it will become good.
I’ve got various ID cards that were messaged to me or I took a picture of that I was able to find with simple prompt.
I don’t think it would have been easily done on non-AI spotlight.
I want to downgrade to old-Siri. At least it was predictable and relatively quick to respond.
Turns out there is a way to revert Siri. Turn it off and back on again.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50077296
> Guys maybe just let others
You're asking the company which is famously working their hardest to lock in their users completely to their services and platforms, to "just let others"? Maybe understand what ecosystem you buy into, and agree with their approach they've had for decades now, or let the ones who like that stuff continue to enjoy it. Seems kind of self-defeatists to ask them to change ways now...
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It's dire. Also ate a chunk of my storage on iOS.
I am so done.
I was in the car the other day and asked about details of a meeting I was driving to. It wasn’t a meeting in my calendar, just some emails that mentioned it. The response was genuinely good.
Then I asked it about the status of some packages that were already being tracked in wallet and it was a dumpster fire.
Really excited about the new precision finding remote.
For the price, I still will go with an Nvidia Shield.
The last thing I want is a TV powered by Siri..
It's pretty clear to me that Apple doesn't even want you to upgrade your old Apple TV. None of the new Siri features are even gated by the new Apple TV. Apple likely has software updates in mind after the release but for now, it seems that Apple is intentionally signaling to current Apple TV owners that there's no need to upgrade yet. I guess that's....fine? It's just surprising to me that it seems like for the price, there's no reason for a new customer to buy it either?
People like me were waiting on the sidelines for years to upgrade but hey, I'll keep my money if you can't dream up anything interesting Apple. I can always spend it somewhere else.
Not much of an upgrade after so many years
Am I the only one who wishes this had a USB port? I get frustrated with very capable devices not offering a USB port to plug in a USB drive. It's already plugged into the TV, and TVs usually have such awful software that I usually want to avoid using the built in video player. The number of times I've lugged a laptop somewhere when there is something perfectly capable that doesn't allow me to do what I want.
Apple TV, Nintendo Switch, ... I'm sure I had more examples. Both obviously capable of playing a video file, but it is not built into the software.
Oh, more AI. Just what I wanted.
I want GeForce now on this
Their pricing killed the product.
Just searching for “pric” in the comments will show you hundreds of references.
At the end of the day, it’s a streaming stick.
For $300 or here it’s €350 - this is unjustifiable.
could we have asahi linux on the apple tv?
Old Apple TV was like Airport Express and the Airport routers. Excellent hardware, simple to use, and unloved by Apple cause "muh Dieter Rams".
Sigh less siri please, we just want to stream shows
nvidia this is your sign for a new shield please. I need a device that allows me to sideload any apk I want.
$299? Fucking high.
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Nope.
Everyone is talking about the price but $300 does not seem that much for what this offers imo.
When compared to $150 (occasionally as cheap as $99 for the high end model) that you could have paid 3 months ago for the previous generation, $300 seems nuts. I put off buying last gen because this gen was perpetually “coming soon”, and now I’m priced out, even out of last gen!