New Apple TV

[wco81]

OK A8 for a $149 or $199 device. Maybe too early for an A8X at those price levels.

More than specs, they need better content options. There were rumors Apple was unable to cut deals for things like streaming of live sports, a small number of popular channels.

Then it's a more attractive product for cord-cutters.

As for better specs, maybe in a year or two they could have the A9X from the iPad Pro at these prices and support 4K output. Amazon and Netflix are starting to offer 4K streaming content and I would imagine other digital streaming boxes like Roku will also offer 4K at their current prices.

And of course, every year, more 4K sets will get sold, though the installed base won't ramp up quickly like HDTV did with the mandate in the US to convert TV stations to digital TV.

 

[wco81]

Of course the other aspect of the new Apple TV is gaming.

OK, I guess the idea is for one screen multiplayer party type games. Don't need to buy additional controllers, though they're supposed to be supported, just pull out your iOS mobile device and control the other characters on screen.

Someone tell Apple that the party game thing came and went with the Nintendo Wii a few years ago.

 

[Pressure]

I'm pretty disappointed that it is stuck with the A8. The A9 would do wonders for gaming and overlays surely?

 

[Turbotab]

I find it a little weird that you can't control Apple TV with an Apple Watch, or did I miss that announcement?

 

[ltcommander.data]

https://developer.apple.com/library....html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40015241-CH12-SW1

So the A8 in the Apple TV has 2 GB of RAM. Is this the first time Apple has explicitly confirm the RAM amount in an iOS device?

Also interesting is that apps can't be bigger than 200 MB even though the devices have 32 and 64 GB of flash. All other data has to be retrieved on demand. Hopefully people have fast internet connections and generous bandwidth caps.

 

[Grall]

@Turbotab
You can control the current Apple TV with your Watch AFAIK, so I'm sure there will be an app for it. Then again, you'd probably only get basic controls since the screen is so much smaller than the full ATV 4 remote wand.

Also interesting is that apps can't be bigger than 200 MB even though the devices have 32 and 64 GB of flash.

They probably want to ensure people won't clog their ATVs with apps and games, so that there's room for digital media?

 

[dagamer]

OK A8 for a $149 or $199 device. Maybe too early for an A8X at those price levels.

More than specs, they need better content options. There were rumors Apple was unable to cut deals for things like streaming of live sports, a small number of popular channels.

Then it's a more attractive product for cord-cutters.

As for better specs, maybe in a year or two they could have the A9X from the iPad Pro at these prices and support 4K output. Amazon and Netflix are starting to offer 4K streaming content and I would imagine other digital streaming boxes like Roku will also offer 4K at their current prices.

And of course, every year, more 4K sets will get sold, though the installed base won't ramp up quickly like HDTV did with the mandate in the US to convert TV stations to digital TV.

Are features like HDMI 2.0a and HDCP 2.2 tied to the SoC itself or is that something else? Plus, A9X doesn't do hardware HEVC decoding, does it? I remember they had on the spec page for the iPhone 6 using HEVC for FaceTime but nothing else. You'd think they'd want to implement that regardless of the state of 4K if only to save bandwidth when streaming online content from Netflix, Hulu, or even iTunes itself.

 

[wco81]

I'm not sure.

To be fair, displays and source devices with HDMI 2.0a are pretty new at the moment.

So maybe it wasn't an option when Apple started designing this product.

Though supposedly some AVRs and displays may be updated by firmware to HDMI 2.0a, according to speculation on AVS forums.

 

[rapso]

regarding the 200MB: http://m.imore.com/how-new-apple-tv-uses-demand-resources-host-great-apps-and-games

 

[BRiT]

regarding the 200MB: http://m.imore.com/how-new-apple-tv-uses-demand-resources-host-great-apps-and-games

200 meg is the limit on initial store download (bootstrapper).
2gb is the limit on additional download from app after the initial 200 meg bootstrapper.

However you can rotate the 2gb additional data out as needed.

Thats a bit better.

 

[rapso]

200 meg is the limit on initial store download (bootstrapper).
2gb is the limit on additional download from app after the initial 200 meg bootstrapper.

the real limit seems to be "with up to 20GB of other resources available in the cloud."
half a bluray, not bad for 'mobile' games.

 

[Lazy8s]

This really should've used an A9X variant. It's a little gaming console and has the advantage of being powered from a plug.

Individually, volume for the iPad Pro and new Apple TV will be relatively low, so the dedicated development and chip production that went/goes into the A9X would gain extra return and economy of scale by using it for both products. The A9X is already efficient enough to work in a mobile environment, so I doubt the small but thick enclosure of the Apple TV couldn't be made to properly house and cool it. Also, the actual cost increase to Apple over an A8 (factoring in the benefit of reduced A9X costs due to increased volume production) shouldn't amount to more than like a dollar or so in real silicon costs, which Apple could absorb even considering the product's $149 price tag.

 

[davygee]

The cost would have been too high to put an A9X in the new AppleTV. It would have been nice to get the A8X in there, but the A8 should be powerful enough for some time. Remember we are limited to 1080p for rendering so there is no need to push any graphics at a higher resolution that that. Is there really anything comparable on the market?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Can someone explain to me the logic of all these hardware vendors using outdated/subpar SoCs in their latest set-top-boxes that are marketed with gaming in mind?

Amazon FireTV: Snapdragon 600 in the quarter of Snapdragon 801 and Tegra K1's release;
Apple TV 2015: A8 with A8X, A9 and A9X available.
Google Nexus Player: Intel Moorefield with set-top oriented Snapdragon 805 available (least bad of the three but still..);

If they don't really want gaming to be a thing in a box that will most likely connect to a large 1080p screen, why spend so much marketing talk on something that will leave people disappointed?

 

[rapso]

Apple never really shows the actual numbers, they just need to impress the customers by some relative marketing, thus nobody really cares whether the new appleTV has an A8 or A20, in customers eyes it's "sooo much faster than the old one, I have to buy it".

also, the appleTV should have way higher volumes than the expensive iPad Pro, assuming apple could get that much more of the chip count is vague. If TMSC (or Samsung?) is manufacturing those chips probably in the latest top notch process, it might take a while until they convert their pipelines to be able to produce this in mass.

 

[davygee]

Surely it must be down to cost?

And out of the three HomeTV players you mentioned (FireTV, Nexus Player & AppleTV), the AppleTV is by far the most powerful and will likely get the better quality game titles over the next few years.

Personally, I think the A8 chip in the AppleTV is more than enough for the next few years. Also, we do not know if it's being clocked at a higher speed than the A8 in the iPhone 6....seeing as it's a bigger box and there is no issues with power, it could be getting clocked considerably higher?

 

[rapso]

Can someone explain to me the logic of all these hardware vendors using outdated/subpar SoCs in their latest set-top-boxes that are marketed with gaming in mind?

would it sell more if it was 50% faster at $199 (e.g. shieldTV) ?

If they don't really want gaming to be a thing in a box that will most likely connect to a large 1080p screen, why spend so much marketing talk on something that will leave people disappointed?

what games would you play that demand high end hardware?
and if you say "there would be games, if the hardware was powerful enough", then I have doubts, as the majority of the market is low budget (f2p), therefor market coverage is more important than top notch visuals. (we could argue about that, and I wish visuals would sell games and we could have some truly high quality games, but so far that's not the case).

 

[tangey]

Although they did spend some time on its gaming capabilities, these appear to be more fun games / multi-user games, rather than best in class graphics titles. Example was the demo of the game that looked to me like a reimagination of frogger. with multi-user cooperative or non cooperative play etc.

The emphasis on Apple TV is still very much TV/movies/sports live content, and enhancing those experiences, and of course making search much better so that you are likely to find (and thus purchase) what you want.

In that regard, the graphics capabilities of the device appear to be in tune with the priorities of it.

One also might think that, if Apple go into a mode of refreshing AppleTV more regularly than before, it's not impossible that it's graphics capabilities might start getting closer to traditional consoles, given that the traditional consoles refresh on a 4-5 year basis.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

And out of the three HomeTV players you mentioned (FireTV, Nexus Player & AppleTV), the AppleTV is by far the most powerful

Well duh, this new apple TV will be in the market a full year after the next-youngest of the three, which is the Nexus Player.
Moreover, "by far" is a bit of a stretch, since we're talking about a GX6450 in the A8 against the GX6430 in the Nexus Player's Moorestown.

would it sell more if it was 50% faster at $199 (e.g. shieldTV) ?

50% faster? The Tegra X1 in the Shield TV is 3x faster than the A8. Plus, nVidia is probably asking for quite a premium over the Shield TV because they definitely can't get even a fraction of the volume orders of the Apple TV.

Although they did spend some time on its gaming capabilities, these appear to be more fun games / multi-user games, rather than best in class graphics titles.

Maybe because they can't have anything better?

 

[wco81]

It's uncertain if people will bother playing games on the TV that they've been playing on their phone. Maybe the multiplayer party games will have some traction but the Wii fad has come and gone, displaced by among other things mobile games, which a lot of casual gamers took up.

Like someone said, this is their TV play. There is even a rumor that Apple may get into original TV show production, like Netflix and Amazon.

As for power, remember, this product was ready much earlier but held back as they tried to make a deal for a package of TV channels to appeal to cord cutters. They haven't done that but that would be their aim.

Maybe if they're no longer calling TV a hobby for them, they'll update this product more frequently and the performance will ramp up.