The latest Apple TV 4K is Apple’s most powerful and full-featured entertainment box yet. And it’s finally available for a lower, if not exactly cheap, starting price of $129. Now in its third generation, the new Apple TV is powered by the same chip as last year’s iPhone 13 – a true overkill for a streaming player, it could be argued – and has adopted support for the HDR10 Plus format common to Samsung’s long-running TVs. Dolby Vision was missing. The Siri Remote has also moved to a USB-C port, a trend that inevitably comes to the iPhone.
The hardware itself is slightly smaller and noticeably lighter than last year’s second-generation 4K. That’s because Apple ditched the cooling fan (yes, there was a fan there before) in favor of a passive thermal design. But overall it looks like the same old Apple TV with a matte top and glossy sides with a dust magnet. It’s a box that sits on a shelf and connects to your TV via a (sold separately) multi-legged HDMI cable. There’s just an Apple logo on top — an end to the “television” branding. In announcing the new device, which will go on sale on November 4, Apple has finally discontinued the ancient Apple TV HD.
Apple Apple TV 4K (third generation)
$129
The good
- More affordable than the previous model
- Fast, responsive performance every time
- A demonstration of tricks of the Apple ecosystem
- Siri Remote now has USB-C
The bad
- The base model does not have Ethernet
- There is no AirTag-like location tracking for the remote
- Poor integration of live TV
- There must be some way to refresh this design by now
HOW WE RATE AND REVIEW PRODUCTS
So 4K HDR video is now standard. But there’s still a significant divide between the two Apple TV 4K configurations that Apple sells. First, the base 64GB model doesn’t have an Ethernet jack. You’ll need to spend an extra $20 to get gigabit Ethernet, double the storage and support Thread networking. The latter is an important measure of the future for smart home enthusiasts. Both models can act as hubs for Apple’s HomeKit ecosystem, but only the $149 128GB SKU is fully ready for Thread and Matter-enabled Thread accessories. If you go for the cheaper device, you’ll want to have a separate Thread border router — like Apple’s own HomePod Mini — to avoid missing out on the all-in-one smart home when we really get down to it.
Now powered by Apple’s A15 Bionic chip, Apple TV 4K is faster and more responsive than ever. To be honest, the last gen hardware was already very fast and the only area I noticed the extra speed this time around is when pulling down the multitasking view/app switcher. It’s perfectly fluid every time, without any hint of stuttering. Apple says apps load faster, but again, you’ll be hard-pressed to feel that difference if you’re upgrading from the previous 4K. All those folks coming from Apple TV HD will really appreciate this speed boost. Nothing in tvOS ever feels choppy or comes close. It’s a simple user experience that’s free of the home screen ads and sponsored content so often served up by Amazon and Roku. The A15 Bionic comes with a stupid amount of horsepower for an entertainment gadget. I think its main purpose is to open up more space and increase the graphical potential of future games on the platform for those who actually play them. tvOS already supports many third-party controllers, even if Apple Arcade never came out.
The new Apple TV 4K (left) is 20 percent smaller than the previous model (right).
Part of the reason tvOS is so enjoyable to use is that it’s pretty unambitious when you step back. Apple TV has never been able to reinvent the way we watch and enjoy TV shows and movies. The future of TV may be apps—but only if you’re talking about the same must-have streaming devices that are available on competing platforms like Roku, Fire TV, and Google TV. Apple’s attempt to find a place on the TV screen for popular mobile apps like Airbnb has never been successful: a number of early tvOS apps have been buried in cobwebs and haven’t seen updates in years. Many of them have stopped working completely.
The tvOS home screen is still a grid of apps, as always. The Apple TV app is where you go for personalized recommendations and your Watch Ahead list. This is where you rent or buy content and stream originals on Apple TV Plus. You can subscribe to some streaming services here (hardly a unique concept anymore) and watch shows from those channels without jumping between apps.
Much of the size reduction came through the removal of the internal fan.
But the real heavy hitters (namely HBO) don’t integrate with Apple TV channels and still make you use their own apps if you want their content. They appear at least in the “Next” row and in recommendations, as well as shows from Hulu, Disney Plus and many other services. Live sports scores and a special section for kids round out the features of the Apple TV app. I end up not using what’s meant to be the main hub all that often, maybe because it’s so isolated from the home screen.
And there are still areas where Apple lags far behind Amazon, Google and Roku — especially when it comes to live TV. Fire TV and Google TV smartly integrate streaming TV services like Hulu with Live TV, Sling TV and YouTube TV right into the operating system, providing quick access to individual channels and even providing a traditional cable-like guide when you want to review what’s happening.
Live TV on Apple TV 4K isn’t as good as it could (or should) be
Apple TV 4K can’t match that. This helps a bit: you can tell Siri to download channels in apps like FuboTV and DirecTV Stream, but most other popular live TV services aren’t supported to begin with. Some providers like Spectrum allow you to use an Apple TV as a set-top box and access your full suite of channels through their software, but that’s different from integrating those apps and programming into the main tvOS software.
In my review of the latest Fire TV Cube earlier this week, I mentioned that I could say “Alexa, tune in to ESPN on Sling TV.” From off, my TV would turn on, the right HDMI input would take over, and the Fire TV jumped into live programming in seconds. I wish I could say the same about the Apple TV 4K, but the grip isn’t as strong. The hands-free voice component is available if you have a HomePod or HomePod Mini, and you can download individual apps like ESPN, CNN, or CBS using your single sign-on credentials. But it’s time for Apple to tighten some of these platforms for streaming TV. A live program guide in the Apple TV app would definitely make me use it more regularly.
All of which means that if you’re looking for some kind of revolutionary change to television consumption as you know it today, the Apple TV 4K is not it. But for people deeply rooted in Apple’s ecosystem of hardware and services, it can provide a blissful experience at times and impressive functionality across devices.
tvOS is one of the best showcases of Apple’s convenience across devices
That starts with the setup process: you simply hold your iPhone near the Apple TV after turning it on, and your Apple account, Wi-Fi credentials, and settings preferences are transferred to the new device. It took less than two minutes to completely restore my home screen layout and download every app I had on the old one. Your iPhone can act as a remote control and, more usefully, you can use its familiar keyboard when entering all these apps. Purchases and rentals can be authenticated with Face ID or Touch ID. You can pair AirPods with Apple TV for private listening or watch something together remotely with friends using SharePlay. Other platforms support Bluetooth headsets and have similar remote capabilities, but having tried them all, Apple’s implementation is the most seamless. Apple Fitness Plus can sync with Apple Watch — and now iPhone, for those without a watch — to display workout metrics on your TV. AirPlay remains available to easily broadcast content from another device to the big screen, and you can control HomeKit-compatible smart home gadgets with the Siri Remote.
Siri responses now take up less screen space.
It’s easier to keep track of what you’re looking at while browsing search results.
It would be great to have a proper Home app on the Apple TV 4K itself, especially as it serves as the hub for this universe, but for now you’re stuck with Siri commands and running your favorite scenes and viewing camera feeds in Control Center. Apple TV 4K still supports multiple user profiles, and later this year Siri will be able to distinguish between the voices of up to six people to switch profiles or show personalized suggestions. But Apple’s approach to profiles still needs more refinement, such as separate home screens for each person. Streaming app developers also tend to be lazy about linking their individual user profiles to tvOS profiles, leaving the whole concept useful for Apple’s first-party services and not much else.
Speaking of Siri, tvOS 16.1 recently introduced a more compact on-screen interface for Apple’s voice assistant. When activated, the pulsing Siri logo appears in the lower right corner of the screen and all visual responses (movie search results, weather forecasts, etc.) are moved to the right side in a vertical list so as not to interfere with whatever you are watching. It’s a welcome streamlining that makes Siri feel useful but not intrusive. However, there are still many queries that return “I can’t help you look this up here”. I understand that Siri is focused on entertainment on the Apple TV, but it’s too stiff of a cutoff compared to Alexa and Google Assistant. Asking for sports scores is fine, but Siri on tvOS will refuse to do a simple math equation or tell you who the president of…
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