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As a current AppleTV 4K owner, I have no idea how any of this is different from the previous version. I don't any any discernible difference. I already have HDR, Dolby Atmos, etc.

What I really want is the ability to make my remote control beep so I can find it. That's literally the only feature that I want at this point.

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>What I really want is the ability to make my remote control beep so I can find it. That's literally the only feature that I want at this point.

Yes. I am trying to Find out if the new Remote has the AirTag feature built in. But since they didn't announce it I am guessing not. Sigh. I thought it was the best use case for AirTag or Precision Location.

Edit: Search through the spec and nothing mentioned. God Damn it WHY! Add the $29 to the price of Apple TV 4K or Remote if they really cared about money.

Now that the Remote can Finally turn on the TV. Apple TV is taking the centre stage of TV experience with a single remote. All we need next is a Dump TV or even a "Monitor" so to speak. And Apple courting current TV Station to put out an App for their current livestream content. Essentially replacing Over the Air Broadcast with Broadcast via IP. Then All your "TV" experience can happen on Apple TV.

Then someday may be they could allow Apple TV to be a Router so there is one less devices in my living room. And they could also act as a mesh system.

> Then someday may be they could allow Apple TV to be a Router so there is one less devices in my living room. And they could also act as a mesh system.

This is a great idea! Also, it would be awesome if Apple offered a version of Apple TV as a sound bar. Ideally it would be sound bar/router/tvOS.

I actually attached a Tile to my remote because my one year likes to hide it.

My current TV turns on when I turn on the Apple TV. It's probably an option for the HDMI plug, when it senses power to turn on the TV itself.

Apple made a huge error not buying Eero and making AppleTV and HomePod devices into zero effort mesh points. They got out of the router business just a couple years too early since it was fully commoditized at the time, but the mesh revolution was just around the corner with a whole new market to conqueror.

Letting Amazon get Eero is one of the few consumer facing misses Apple has made in the last few years (the keyboard debacle being the other)

TBH I think mesh routers are overhyped garbage. They don't work well, and pollute the spectrum, and are a really poor substitute for cables.

The only reason why they sell well is because people will buy anything as long as they don't need to lay cables.

Sounds like you would have appreciated a reliable mesh from Apple. I certainly would.

>Add the $29 to the price of Apple TV 4K or Remote if they really cared about money.

I'm very happy with my Roku. It has a remote finder/beeper, and was dirt cheap. I looked at Apple TV, but didn't see what it had to offer that would justify $180-$200.

> And Apple courting current TV Station to put out an App for their current livestream content. Essentially replacing Over the Air Broadcast with Broadcast via IP.

This is already a reality in Finland.

I haven't owned an antenna cable for over 5 years. All my TV comes directly through the internet from each channel's own app. Most provide live TV or at least make digital releases available at the same time as the live broadcast. (Not that I watch "live" TV anymore, since I don't do sports - which IMO are the only thing where being live actually matters)

My LG TV is just a large monitor for me. The only use it gets is when I need to adjust volume for my consoles or turn the TV on/off. With the new ATV remote it'll be relegated to a fancy console volume controller =)

It could always turn a TV on or off. I had to change my television settings to allow it to accept commands over hdmi.

Apple confirmed to Verge that it doesn't have UWB.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/20/22394335/apple-u1-uwb-loc...

I diff'd the technical specs for the old and new ATV 4K! https://gist.github.com/varenc/88f3253764fa7782602de2a812af4...

There are more wording tweaks than actual capability differences. The real changes boil down to:

- New Siri Remote

- Support for 4K HDR content at 60fps vs 30fps

- HDMI 2.1 vs 2.0

- 802.11ax Wi‑Fi 6 vs 802.11ac

There's also an A12 Bionic.

that is not a user feature

Performance is a feature

Not for a device that rarely operates even close to its performance constraints. If you're using it for games? Sure, but I think that's still a very... let's call it "niche" market for the Apple TV. For people just using it to watch television and movies? Unnoticeable.

It'll likely be more power efficient but I'm not sure that's going to be very noticeable.

The way you'll probably notice is that it will lose support earlier.

The step up to the A12 will be a pretty major boon for Apple Arcade. It'd have been nice to see a 'pro' option for an A12X or greater though.

They also redesigned the remote so that it's not a gigantic pain in the ass.

Can I pay for just the new remote? Will it work with the old AppleTV 4K?

The remote will cost 59$ and is compatible with the previous generation.

This is the best news of the whole new Apple TV announcement!

This is what I want to know. I actually greatly dislike the touch pad on the current remote. I am constantly swiping too fast (flying by my desired target), or my upward/downward swipes are not working as desired. Not to mention every time I pick up the remote, the touch pad thinks I'm swiping causing my movie to fast forward/rewind.

Available here apparently. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJFM3LL/A/siri-remote

Says it's compatible even with AppleTV HD.

That's great news, I'd rather get this than a whole stupid box that basically the same

I just use our TV remote. Our TV is 10 years old but the arrow/back/play control keys still work fine to control the Apple TV over CEC. I don't even know where our Apple TV remote is. For anything more fancy (text input) I use the remote on my phone (which automatically pops up on the Lock Screen)

Kinda looks like the old remotes to me. Not that I'm complaining.

Anyone have a theory why it's bigger?

The current remote buries itself in the couch at the first available opportunity.

Seems to me that the color will make more of a difference than the small size increase. It's a hair thicker, a hair narrower, and half an inch longer.

You're in luck! You can now attach an AirTag to your Apple remote and use the powerful 'Find My' ecosystem to locate it.

We have a house rule that if you use the remote, it stays on the coffee table and then goes back to a spot next to the TV when done. Otherwise the couch eats the remote.

Feels like they could make it chirp like AirPods?

Real question - does the Apple TV support multiple remotes?

I've sort of addressed that problem with my FireTV by adding a remote. This way there's still a remote around that I can use while hunting for the one that I misplaced. I have not had a situation where I misplaced both remotes... yet...

There's a iOS app that can be used as a remote. Not sure about another physical remote. They're just paired like anything else so I would assume it's possible

I put a brightly colored case on it so it is easy to see.

https://www.amazon.com/Nightglow-Silicone-Controller-Lanyard...

It’s not different because (at the time of this post and comment) this is the page that belongs to the previous version.

maybe this can help: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-introduces-airt...

Hopefully at some point AirTag will be embedded into all the first-party devices/peripherals.

Apple has really started investing in and pushing for their arcade subscription.

The A12 Bionic should be a lot faster which is a major point if you want to use those features.

How much faster? I want to upgrade my 4K because of the performance.

To be honest I don't think it will really be that noticeable. It will be faster, but only slightly. The original 4k had an A10X, the new one has an A12. The A10X was the A10 with beefed up GPU, so on that front they are probably pretty close. The A12 will probably win out on general processing tasks.

I imagine most of the beef that I need is on the CPU department.

I thought the "Bionic" referred only to the a12x or a12z variants. It makes sense as a place to put their unused stock left over from their old ipad lineup and as a way to get those "console" graphics.

It should probably be a decent improvement. Here's an A12 (iPhone XS) vs plain ol' A10 (iPhone 7): https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-re... Now, the A10X had a doubled-up GPU, but even taking that into account it still looks like a fairly big gap on the more demanding tests.

If you have an iOS device you can control your AppleTV from the TV Remote. I didn't notice this until recently and I never use the physical remote now. When you are prompted to type you can use your iOS device to type in text. Very handy.

You can also control your AppleTV via Siri, but that's a bit more hit/miss depending on what you ask of course.

I glued a Tile to ours

could try the new Air Tag . https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-introduces-airt...

I'm not sure. My Apple TV with A10X will often hang and generally the UI feels like its frame dropping every now and then. I would really like it to be smoother like my phone...

I just want a web browser. I almost returned the thing in a fit of confused sadness when I found out it has no browser.

With airplay, it’s easy.

Nah it's garbage, I want to put something on the TV on its own and I want to use my phone for other stuff, not be forced to have the same thing on both screens.

https://github.com/jvanakker/tvOSBrowser

It should be built-in.

Apple has this bizarre blind-spot where they will not ever launch anything if it doesn't have 100% UX, when sometimes, actually a 98% UX is pretty damn useful. I mean, the remote has a touch pad!

I'm not arguing they should have no lower limit on UX quality (lke Android), it's just, it should be slightly, slightly lower.

And just to avoid any third party apps solving this problems for users, they simply refuse to allow real local browser Apple TV apps to their appstore.

And yet, the Magic Mouse with a lightning port on the bottom exists :)

And every time someone points it out, another one points out that it was a conscious decision meant to push you to keep your mouse unplugged. Plus, charging it for a few minutes gives you hours of battery life again.

I can list off like 40 more bad UX decisions by Apple, that's by no means the only one, but I'd rather not start a flame war.

The only thing I care about is that it supports 4k at higher refresh rates.

The old ATV 4k model already supports 4k at 60fps. The only improvement is that it supports HDR 4k content at 60 fps.

From the old spec page [0]:

   H.264/HEVC SDR video up to 2160p, 60 fps, Main/Main 10 profile
   HEVC Dolby Vision (Profile 5)/HDR10 (Main 10 profile) up to 2160p

And the new spec page [1]:

   H.264/HEVC SDR video up to 2160p, 60 fps, Main/Main 10 profile
   HEVC Dolby Vision (Profile 5)/HDR10 (Main 10 profile) up to 2160p, 60 fps

[0] https://support.apple.com/kb/SP769?viewlocale=en_US&locale=e...

[1] https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-4k/specs/

It can do 120 FPS, which is considered “high frame rate” for televisions. 60 FPS is generally considered standard.

What content is available over 60fps? I don't think they ever released The Hobbit in 48fps, and that's the only movie I'm aware of that was filmed with higher fps.

Is this just for games?

All Formula 1 races are streamed at 60fps, and there's also iPhone-recorded videos

But yeah, not much over 60

Can it? The HDMI 2.1 footnote says "Support for up to 4K 60-fps HDR video output", and 120 isn't mentioned anywhere on the spec page.

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