New Apple TV 4K(apple.com) |
New Apple TV 4K(apple.com) |
> 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.
At least according to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_TV_(device)#Technical_sp...
"Sure, I can call 911 for you"
It doesn't even look like this supports 120hz, which would've been nice since my OLED TV does.
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.
>Access to Siri AI is also available on Apple TV 4K (2nd generation) or later.
But I might be in the minority of people who don’t talk much to their TV.
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.
As far as I can tell its a hardware bump and some supercharging price bump.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I am so done.
Then I asked it about the status of some packages that were already being tracked in wallet and it was a dumpster fire.
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 would skip this generation of Apple TV and buy previous generation on a third party marketplace when people inevitably offload the current generation.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
What exactly can it do besides launching streaming apps?
Anyway, it's now too much money for something that is just going to open Jellyfin.
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...
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.
I'd guess it's room for the AI model and future versions of it that could grow.
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.
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.
Their Studio Displays have an A19 in them too (A19 Pro for the XDR)
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.
Personally I didn't expect a new generation to be a full $100 more though...
* 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_.
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.
"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).
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.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/2026/10/apple-unveils-...
It's so un-Apple to be stretched and in weird perspective that way
Unless your goal is to comfortably watch TV using a TV remote.
and yes I am assuming that HN crowd can program a remote.
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.
If you're using wired headphones then a $20 Bluetooth dongle will do the same.
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.
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...
Maybe more memory could improve this, although surely there's a software issue somewhere that causes this.
This positions them to compete directly against those
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
Most of the purchases will be from people who do have an older model that's actually getting outdated, 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.
There are comparable devices like Ugoos (am6b+ with coreelec) and Zidoo but they're a little sketch compared to the aforementioned...
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.
Don't worry, the next tvOS update may fix that.
Still no 2.5Gbps port in 2026 is disappointing.
AV1 decoding is also a good feature to have.
wait, the new 4K has passthrough finally? I did not see it mentioned.
I meant the one thing I'm missing from my current setup, not something that would be fixed by upgrading.
But for some reason Sony or Samsung doing the same on your TV is too far?
Also, the tooling they provided to the model is not good either. The 3rd party AI apps by OpenAI or Anthropic can do much more than the system assistant.
That's crazy
No issue whatsoever, latency is fine, but a little too high for shooters and the like—but I use headphones then anyway.
That said, Apple has been attempting for years to make Apple Arcade a hit.
AFAIK you’d be hard pressed to hit 150mbps with your own local media.
And any streaming services will use way less - Netflix and Hulu recommend a mere 16Mbps at 4k for example.
Also, just learned it's still 4k 60Hz. So forget 120Hz gaming. Game streaming is likely to become a default in near future at the hardware proces we see, so limiting to 60Hz is really cheap of them at this point.
If you want a privacy focused solution it's probably the most private. Yeah, admittedly harder to use but I'm not recommending it to my parents.
I don't plan on upgrading it to this new version yet so I'll probably get 10+ years of use out of it, great value overall.
Commercial streamimg platforms are probably gonna allocate like 2mbps more for 8k streaming and call it a day.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...
I'd upgrade my Shield Pro to something else but there's nothing to upgrade to that doesn't have some compromise on formats or capabilities.
Instead, Apple sends that straight to the NSA.[0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
> just don’t connect anything to the internet
A practically e-waste mini-PC running an ordinary Linux distro paired with an airmouse remote is a much better TV box. You don't need streaming apps when you are free to use a Web browser, something Apple won't allow for obvious reasons. No surveillance, no crapware, no ads. It can even double as a console for GOG/Steam.
> Apple: "We have never heard of PRISM" "We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."
"In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information," the company said in a statement. "Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests."
https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/governments...
I am well aware of the recent LG controversy. However In my opinion if you are happy to sign up to Netflix and Disney+ and use a streaming box to give them all your personal data and viewing habits to allow tracking and ad profiles then its pretty hypocritical to target a single company in the chain and call them out for it.
This is without even looking at Apple, who own the hardware you are streaming on and have been caught lying multiple times in the past about data harvesting. After all that, I feel that unplugging the cord on your TV is completely pointless, and it is frustrating how people gloat about it like they are getting around the system. In reality, you are only giving your data to 4 companies in the chain now, instead of 5.
You literally did chalk it up to fanboyism. You blamed Apple fans for the downvotes you were going to receive, as if only those blinded by sycophancy could possibly disagree with you.
If you think giving data to 4 companies instead of 5 is fine then thats fair enough, its your own data. In my opinion if you happy to give your data to one billion dollar ad profile selling company, then why squabble about another? However I understand this is subjective, and I am not trying to tell anyone they are wrong. I just dont understand it thats all!
