Mike Wuerthele
A report declares that a new 4K Apple TV, codenamed "J105" is in testing, with a debut coming as soon as this year — but nothing new may be added to the platform besides the bump in resolution.
The Bloomberg report, written by Mark Gurman, makes the prediction that the new fifth-generation Apple TV may release as soon as this year, and will feature 4K resolution and "more vivid colors."
The new version of Apple's "hobby" appears to lack significant new hardware features, other than the addition of 4K. Gurman believes that previous versions of the Apple TV were going to integrate Siri into the set-top itself rather than on the remote, or have a coaxial cable for the device to act as a set-top box.
An update to 4K on a new fifth-generation Apple TV is an obvious guess. Apple's set-top box has been stuck at 1080p resolution since March 2012, when the third generation of the device was revealed to customers.
Presumably, a 4K bump would also include a beefier processor to handle the higher resolution.
The October 2015 update of the Apple TV to the fourth generation added the A8 processor, Siri search, and the ability for the device to run apps rather than rely on pre-installed services. Apple released tvOS 10 in September 2016 for the $149 device.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
101 Comments
If true...ouch.
Innovation!
At least they are updating it.
We'll see if Gurman has lost his mojo since he took the job at Bloomberg.
This being Apple, they were probably holding back on 4K+HDR until they had some content to sell you. If it comes with an upgrade to a decent chunk of their catalogue with reasonable upgrade pricing it could be worth something.