YHK - yet another hacker news clone

New Apple TV 4K

84 points corvad 2 hours ago 135 comments

splix 1 hour ago | parent

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

cherioo 1 hour ago | parent

$299, up from $129 of the last gen. I am not sure how many people would still buy this?

wronglebowski 1 hour ago | parent

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.

nnx 58 minutes ago | parent

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.

thewonderfulmrp 46 minutes ago | parent

What do you even use the storage for?

artisinal 36 minutes ago | parent

Local AI model.

phoghed 4 minutes ago | parent

I believe you can download movies you buy, it's not all purely streaming.

steinvakt2 40 minutes ago | parent

The base model was 64gb for years, not 32

cromka 34 minutes ago | parent

And only a gigabit Ethernet port...

imoverclocked 10 minutes ago | parent

Any use for a faster port in this device? I use gig-e on my current 4K and it’s really nice to reduce latency (compared to WiFi) but I doubt 2.5G or 10G would be that useful… unless there were an SFP+ port where I could run fiber instead.

penagwin 4 minutes ago | parent

Would there be any point in 2.5gbps beyond installing system updates a few seconds faster?

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.

Brendinooo 58 minutes ago | parent

Pretty sure it was up to $199, presumably because of rising hardware costs.

oakesm9 54 minutes ago | parent

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...

sunaookami 37 minutes ago | parent

I paid 179 € in December 2023.

Hamuko 55 minutes ago | parent

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.

clydeiii 54 minutes ago | parent

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.

embedding-shape 1 hour ago | parent

> 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.

greggsy 59 minutes ago | parent

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.

xyst 58 minutes ago | parent

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.

eknkc 1 hour ago | parent

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.

sdcfgy 1 hour ago | parent

It's dire. Also ate a chunk of my storage on iOS.

I am so done.

macintux 57 minutes ago | parent

I want to downgrade to old-Siri. At least it was predictable and relatively quick to respond.

embedding-shape 53 minutes ago | parent

> 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...

mastax 47 minutes ago | parent

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.

jonhohle 46 minutes ago | parent

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.

techterrier 1 hour ago | parent

Nope.

Scubabear68 1 hour ago | parent

$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.

shermantanktop 1 hour ago | parent

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?

blitzar 1 hour ago | parent

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.

Brendinooo 56 minutes ago | parent

"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.

goalieca 1 hour ago | parent

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.

eknkc 58 minutes ago | parent

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.

aaronbrethorst 52 minutes ago | parent

The new Siri AI is literally Gemini running in an Apple datacenter. https://www.macworld.com/article/3162330/how-much-gemini-is-...

eknkc 44 minutes ago | parent

Gemini is basically GPT-2 duc... Ok, ok leaving the snark aside, I know that but the local model probably delegates to remote when it decides it needs that and the local model is not good.

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.

doublepg23 37 minutes ago | parent

There is a weird chain of wondering what is going to answer my response with Siri AI considering it could be Old Siri, New Siri (local), New Siri (PCC), or ChatGPT...

alt227 53 minutes ago | parent

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.

pchristensen 38 minutes ago | parent

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.

alt227 33 minutes ago | parent

Right but if you are streaming then you are happy to give all your personal info and viewing habit data to Netflix, Disney, Amazon etc to build ad profiles on you, as well as Apple who own the hardware and are feeding telemetry data into your ad profile on their system.

But for some reason Sony or Samsung doing the same on your TV is too far?

afavour 25 minutes ago | parent

> as well as Apple who own the hardware and are feeding telemetry data into your ad profile on their system.

Are they, though? Is Apple snooping into the Netflix app’s data to track what you’re watching and phone home with that info? Are there studies showing that happening? Are they selling that data to third parties like the TV manufacturers are?

alt227 19 minutes ago | parent

You seem to be missing a major point. You have signed up to streaming services and they are 100% selling your data and viewing habits to 3rd parties to build ad and tracking profiles. How come you are happy for Disney and Netflix to do this but not Samsung or Sony?

As far is Apple is concerned, they have been caught lying about this many times before. I jujst cant get my head around why any person can trust a billion dollar corporation to be 'good'.

Here have a few links:

https://www.bgr.com/2107512/how-to-prevent-apple-tv-spying-a...

https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-tracking-even-whe...

https://linustechtips.com/topic/1467686-apple-caught-ignorin...

https://medium.com/@michaelswengel/yes-your-mac-is-watching-...

https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/11/12/apple-getting-sue...

pc86 1 minute ago | parent

It's possible this is a distinction without a difference, but Disney and Netflix provide a service and the data they are selling is integral* to providing that service, meaning they're going to have that data regardless. If you're okay with anyone selling any of your data, it probably makes sense for Netflix to sell data about what you watch on Netflix.

Samsung or Sony sell a physical product that does not need internet connectivity, or microphones, or telemetry, or any of that. They jam that stuff in there to increase profits and make it economically infeasible to sell what I think 80% of people on HN would buy if given the opportunity - a large flatscreen TV with no built-in connectivity whatsoever. So anything I can do to make me less profitable to them, I will do.

* For certain definitions, anyway.

throw0101c 14 minutes ago | parent

> But for some reason Sony or Samsung doing the same on your TV is too far?

The content streamers get your viewing habits by virtue of you viewing their content (like Youtube, or any web site, getting information on what you're looking at by simply logging HTTP GET requests).

There is no reason why television OEMs need to do screen captures and send them to the mothership.

It's the first- and second-party interaction: you gave money to Sony/Samsung/etc for a product, and after the exchange there is no reason for any further interaction.

You have a regular/monthly interaction with content providers: there is at least a valid reason for the content providers to have that information in the first place, and none for the TV OEMs to collect it.

alt227 6 minutes ago | parent

You can reason it all you want, but regardless of the product type the fact remains you are happy to give your data to one billion dollar company but not another.

That is absolutely fine, but IMO it is hypocritical. That is all I am arguing.

dbalatero 35 minutes ago | parent

Consumer Reports has generally rated them as highest in privacy and security, whether or not they've had any issues in the past.

kimbernator 35 minutes ago | parent

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.

afavour 29 minutes ago | parent

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.

alt227 25 minutes ago | parent

Im really not chalking this up to Fanboyism. The same can be said for anyone using a streaming device to avoid plugging their TV into the internet, be it Nvidia or google etc.

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.

afavour 21 minutes ago | parent

You really don’t think there’s a difference between a company collecting data about the usage of their own video library and another company tracking audio with microphones, sniffing local network devices, monitoring all video output and selling all of the above to third parties?

alt227 9 minutes ago | parent

Personally I think when you sign up to Disney+ and you give them things like your DOB, bank details, address, phone number, IP address, its a much bigger base for those companies to start building your ad profile much more accurately. If you have kids you then make a family profile to protect them, but in reality all you are doing is feeding the streaming company information about your kids viewing habits to ad to the ad profiles. All of this is being sold to 3rd parties all over the world, for each streaming service you use.

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.

afavour 6 minutes ago | parent

You’re talking about “fans” and “gloating” and I really can’t understand why you see things that way. Like I said, people accept that streaming services are an inevitable part of their lives and they’re making informed choices to minimise their exposure. 4 companies is indeed better than 5.

bgarbiak 8 minutes ago | parent

Genuinely curious: is there any company caught “tracking audio with microphones”? And what does it mean? Is it about eavesdropping on users or identifying the content being watched?

drnick1 20 minutes ago | parent

> Then find investigations where Apple TVs are proven to do the same, of which there are none.

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.

1-more 13 minutes ago | parent

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...

alt227 7 minutes ago | parent

For privacy specifically, let me retort with the evidence of Apple giving all of its users data to the US government.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...

thewonderfulmrp 37 minutes ago | parent

I suppose they will still sell the last gen Apple TV right?

xgkickt 32 minutes ago | parent

It's gone from the store, replaced by a pre-order for the new one. Refurbished 3rd gen units are still available (for now).

throw0101c 26 minutes ago | parent

> 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

phoghed 5 minutes ago | parent

> 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.

jm4 2 minutes ago | parent

That's what the previous gen 4k model does. It works great.

baggy_trough 1 hour ago | parent

Doesn't seem worth the upgrade at that price. Siri still stinks in general.

fnordsensei 1 hour ago | parent

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.

wdb 1 hour ago | parent

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

xyst 1 hour ago | parent

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.

Finnucane 1 hour ago | parent

Our old one still works fine. Nine years.

dawnerd 1 hour ago | parent

The existing Apple TV was already way overpowered for a media device. Who was complaining about their Apple TV being slow?

halflife 53 minutes ago | parent

Playing dead cells on Apple TV is awesome. But it does tend to slow a bit in more hectic fights

SkyPuncher 52 minutes ago | parent

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

freediddy 1 hour ago | parent

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.

Reddit_MLP2 1 hour ago | parent

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.

browningstreet 1 hour ago | parent

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.

Brendinooo 59 minutes ago | parent

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.

rramon 50 minutes ago | parent

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..

supertrope 49 minutes ago | parent

Nvidia Shield now costs $300 too.

cromka 39 minutes ago | parent

The same old laggy device from like 8 years ago? They still make and sell those?

chocochunks 49 minutes ago | parent

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.

doublepg23 39 minutes ago | parent

$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...

loloquwowndueo 9 minutes ago | parent

At 429 you can get a whole new tv.

grim_io 47 minutes ago | parent

Maybe they'll release a 32/64 GB version once they have harvested the whales.

jon-wood 42 minutes ago | parent

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.

Brendinooo 39 minutes ago | parent

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.

azinman2 28 minutes ago | parent

It’s ok. Their app isn’t great, but the underlying technology is. Spotify can directly play to one of their speakers. Their local protocol is also well understood and you can do most things with it, so you can vibe code your own replacement app pretty easily. The problem is once you hit their cloud APIs the latency is way too high for something like a speaker.

jon-wood 16 minutes ago | parent

Yeah, the hardware is great. I honestly couldn't tell you much about the app because I exclusively use the speaker via HDMI-ARC and AirPlay, both of which work really well.

drcongo 22 minutes ago | parent

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.

gen220 2 minutes ago | parent

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.

avdwrks 22 minutes ago | parent

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.

dstroot 18 minutes ago | parent

At $130 it was an impulse buy and well worth it. Given a new price and features, I don’t see myself upgrading.

jonpurdy 5 minutes ago | parent

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.

siliconc0w 59 minutes ago | parent

Every other vendor has injected so many obtrusive ads and spyware Apple has won this product area by default.

boelboel 47 minutes ago | parent

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.

oofbey 29 minutes ago | parent

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.

vachina 4 minutes ago | parent

Any vanilla android TV box with an Amlogic chip will not have ads, and will run circles around this overpriced headless iPhone.

qoez 57 minutes ago | parent

Everyone is talking about the price but $300 does not seem that much for what this offers imo.

jonhohle 49 minutes ago | parent

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!

boredatoms 57 minutes ago | parent

Sigh less siri please, we just want to stream shows

MisterMunchkin 53 minutes ago | parent

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.

petepete 52 minutes ago | parent

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 is audio passthrough, but DD 5.1 is _fine_.

ctkhn 39 minutes ago | parent

Even the homepods setup - anyone who wants full home theater would just get sonos or other serious surround sound.

JoshGlazebrook 30 minutes ago | parent

The problem is that the apple tv + won't even output the audio formats that a real audio system can decode.

cromka 29 minutes ago | parent

> 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.

xgkickt 25 minutes ago | parent

> * 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.

QGQBGdeZREunxLe 3 minutes ago | parent

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.

Grombobulous 2 minutes ago | parent

Why would a TV streamer need 2.5Gbps? You don’t even need that bandwidth to stream raw 4K blu-rays.

Grombobulous 3 minutes ago | parent

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.

Invictus0 51 minutes ago | parent

"Hey Siri, change the channel to ESPN!"

"Sure, I can call 911 for you"

artisinal 33 minutes ago | parent

"Here is what I found on the web for Espen"

mastax 51 minutes ago | parent

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.

testfrequency 49 minutes ago | parent

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.

mastax 23 minutes ago | parent

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).

testfrequency 14 minutes ago | parent

I don’t disagree, the pricing for their titles is painful - especially compared to Steam discounts.

That said, Apple has been attempting for years to make Apple Arcade a hit.

athorax 51 minutes ago | parent

At $300 I really would have expected they include a full year of Apple TV, 3 months doesn't cut it

jamesponddotco 46 minutes ago | parent

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.

spike021 46 minutes ago | parent

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.

vander_elst 45 minutes ago | parent

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.

ahyattdev 5 minutes ago | parent

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.

jdpedrie 40 minutes ago | parent

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.

thewonderfulmrp 38 minutes ago | parent

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.

criddell 27 minutes ago | parent

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.

StumpChunkman 13 minutes ago | parent

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).

lowbloodsugar 37 minutes ago | parent

$299? Fucking high.

lysace 36 minutes ago | parent

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...

lprd 23 minutes ago | parent

Did they add TrueHD support, or any additional codecs? The Nvidia Shield is more capable of a player last I checked.

taude 21 minutes ago | parent

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....

himata4113 17 minutes ago | parent

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.

bevr1337 11 minutes ago | parent

> $300 minipc will get you much further than this thing will.

Unless your goal is to comfortably watch TV using a TV remote.

Grombobulous 1 minute ago | parent

Those $300 mini PCs aren’t $300 anymore.

cornstalks 14 minutes ago | parent

Is this the first Apple device to list VP9 in its tech specs? https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-4k/specs/

meerita 12 minutes ago | parent

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.

vachina 9 minutes ago | parent

Their display products are not competitive at all. They’d get laughed out of the room with their gimmicks.

m3kw9 10 minutes ago | parent

Not much of an upgrade after so many years

haunter 10 minutes ago | parent

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.

a34729t 9 minutes ago | parent

Old Apple TV was like Airport Express and the Airport routers. Excellent hardware, simple to use, and unloved by Apple cause "muh Dieter Rams".

crakhamster01 6 minutes ago | parent

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...

jm4 3 minutes ago | parent

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.