Apple TV with A12X ready to go at any time, claims leaker

A prolific leaker has declared that Apple has a new Apple TV 4K ready to go, and it could launch the product at any time.

Apple has been rumored for about a year to have a new Apple TV 4K model in the works. However, a new rumor about the product came to light on Thursday morning.

Leaker Jon Prosser made the declaration about the new Apple TV with specifics.

New Apple TV 4K with A12X - 64GB/128GB ready to ship.

Codename: Neptune T1125

Another one of those things that could drop any time. Apple got no chill right now

I'll let you know if/when I hear a date. Who knows, maybe Apple can keep it a secret from me
— Jon Prosser (@jon_prosser) May 7, 2020

The present Apple TV 4K uses the A10X processor. Apple's A12X processor was first found in the first-generation 11-inch iPad Pro and the third generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro from 2018.

The A10X processor is sufficient to play back 4K HDR content as it stands. The logical assumption for inclusion of the newer processor is economies of scale for Apple, and more processing power for demanding Apple Arcade games.

While Prosser is new to the Apple leaks scene, he has a long-standing one for other manufacturers. He has an excellent track record as it pertains to Apple products, and has accurately reported codenames, and expected release dates of products sometimes weeks in advance.

80 Comments

justinpe 32 comments · 10 Years

About 4 years ago

Prediction: The remote will get a U1 chip so you can locate it using the Find My app.

brudin 3 comments · 7 Years

Hopefully true. I’ve been holding out for a new one as the 3rd gen is getting a bit old. And what better time than when everyone is home!

mbdrake76 43 comments · 10 Years

It's pity they're not putting storage capacities in the terabytes on these things to allow you to download all your iTunes movie purchases - because if you don't download them, and the content provider pulls it from the iTunes store - you're screwed. Just had a title removed from my library that I bought in 2015 for this reason. As I have 1.75Tb worth of movies and that Apple storage is incredibly expensive, keeping them in the "cloud" seems the only reasonable way of doing it. But no.

And you don't get any recompense or any notification whatsoever from Apple prior to the title being withdrawn. It makes buying movies from them a massive risk (even worse with other digital stores such as Amazon or Google Play as you don't get to download them as a file as you do with iTunes - assuming one has a computer, of course). Subscriptions to Apple TV+, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, etc. are fine - you know what you're getting and you're willing to accept that you'd lose access to them if you stopped subscribing or if their licensing no longer permits them to stream the title.

So for me, the Apple TV has lost its appeal somewhat.

neilm 1001 comments · 16 Years

SoC upgrade is fine and all that, but would average ATV 4K owners know or care? I doubt it. It already supports 4K video and Dolby Atmos, has BT 5.0. I suppose Apple could add WiFi 6, if that's deemed worthwhile. Rationalizing Apple's SoC mix is a reasonable thing for them to do, but hardly seems worthy of a new product unless there are new customer-facing features.

People do bitch about the remote — I have no particular complaint about mine, though — so I suppose they could do something with that.

Overall a new ATV 4K sounds like the solution to a non-existent problem. Or a rumor about a non-existent product?

elijahg 2842 comments · 18 Years

brudin said:

Hopefully true. I’ve been holding out for a new one as the 3rd gen is getting a bit old. And what better time than when everyone is home!

Hopefully this will come along with a new UI for tvOS at WWDC, the current one looks nice but that's about the only plus. It feels sluggish and as usual Apple's obsession with minimalism has overloaded the few physical buttons on the remote and made it harder to use. You never know what the menu button on the remote is going to actually do, will it take you to the home screen or will it show the top menu, or will it take you back up a level in the current app? The only way to know a top menu even exists in a particular app is usually accidental discovery. The inconsistency of the menu button makes the whole thing really really clunky.

A long menu button press should take you to the top level in that app, and a single press should take you up a level. When you're at the top level and you press menu, either the top menu should show (ideally that would have a different button) or nothing should happen. As it is now you have to gingerly press the menu button until you get back to the top level. Too many times and you're kicked back to the home screen. There're plenty of other areas that are terrible too, the keyboard for example and the fact that you can't remap buttons on third party remotes. The "home" button on the playstation remote has to be held to get to the home screen, because a short press and the control centre appears. Which is essentially never used anyway, it's really dumb.