I love this product: it's the one box I can (reasonably) trust to not be mining my viewing habits for data. I have two older ones and was looking to get something that supported 4K but waited for this to come out.
$300 might be a decent price if you use it for all of the things that it can do, but if all you're doing is launching streaming apps, $200 was already on the high end for that. $300 seems...a bit much.
Anything I'm missing here? The silver lining is that this product is almost certainly still in the "pay money then forget about it for a decade" tier, which is nice.
I'm also wondering if/how the "add up to four homepods" feature compares to "getting a soundbar". In the other thread for this someone noted that the HomePods only work with this box; so if you're running a game console that's no bueno. But apart from that, if $600 on an Apple TV + two HomePods mini delivers something comparable to a ~$500 soundbar, that's a decent value proposition.
apple tv isn't private, apple does mine your viewing habits, read their eula.
You should also know that all non-apple apps like netflix have unrestricted network access and can/will do the same.
It is too bad that people accept apple's marketing about privacy, because they have dark patterns, they collect telemetry, they don't let you block it, and they help apps do the same things.
A privacy policy is not the same as being able to firewall your device, but apple doesn't allow firewalls.
I'm not comfortable with my TV or streaming stick manufacturer collecting and mining data about everything that appears on the screen.
> Breaking down why Apple TVs are privacy advocates’ go-to streaming device
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/all-the-ways-apple-t...
1) By default, every word (each character, actually) you input into Spotlight/Siri gets time-stamped and sent to `smoot.apple.com`
2) Even with a Pi-Hole blocking *.apple.com (i.e. using MacOS >> Networking >> DNS Server), on boot all modern Apple Silicon reaches out to security.apple.com (i.e. bypassing the user's manual-input DNS setting), using the DHCP-issued DNS IP [0]
pro-tip: use your router's DHCP to auto-issue your local Pi-Hole's IP address [as DNS] with your IP-leases; then you'll actually be able to block all *.apple.com traffic (using the PiHole which your DHCP issues to, by default)
[0] this is for security chip "lockout" detection (e.g.) and it is pervasive across NICs (i.e. it REALLY seeks any attempt for DNS resolution to security.apple.com)
Thank you for the detailed suggestion. I use LittleSnitch. pi-hole previously, I must take another look. Did you catch LG spying posts?
Huh? How do you expect Apple to show live search results if they don't send what you're typing to their servers?
> 2) Even with a Pi-Hole blocking *.apple.com (i.e. using MacOS >> Networking >> DNS Server), on boot all modern Apple Silicon reaches out to security.apple.com (i.e. bypassing the user's manual-input DNS setting), using the DHCP-issued DNS IP [0]
From a quick google search, it seems to be if you enable "Find my" or pass word recovery with an Apple account. I think that's reasonable to expect if you enable these features.
It's mind-blowing how one of the most advanced technology forums on the internet can take privacy for granted just because the marketing of a for-profit corporation with previous histories of privacy violations (there's even lawsuits) claims their closed source device connected 24/7 to the internet, is private.
that's not what I did
> just because the marketing
not just because of the marketing
> of a for-profit corporation with previous histories of privacy violations (there's even lawsuits) claims their closed source device connected 24/7 to the internet, is private.
in other words, they are being watched and held accountable when they do screw up, which obviates a lot of the "well maybe they're stealing your data and we don't know about it" nonsense elsewhere in the replies.
I'll ask something specific: We know that Rokus and built-in smart TVs are actively tracking and monetizing everything you do on your television. People can prove this by looking at what calls are made on your network.
Does Apple do the same thing?
Does Apple TV even do ACR in any form? Is it scanning my network and phoning home about it?
You're just making stuff up. Apple TV does not do ACR.
Apple does provide a TV App API that allows select app developers to get a special entitlement allowing them to contribute viewing data. Read this carefully: https://developer.apple.com/support/terms/apple-developer-pr...
"Apple will obtain user consent based on the user’s Apple Account before including Your Licensed Application in the TV App Features displayed under that Apple Account. Apple will also provide users with the ability to withdraw such consent at any time thereafter and to delete their TV App Data from Apple’s systems."
I'm sorry, you're stating this like some obvious fact. Apple has previously said this is not the case and they do not do ACR. The Apple TV is the only Apple device I have, so you can set aside any reflexive critiques of my brand loyalty. What is your precise claim? Why am I a dullard for reading that Apple TV does not use ACR and believing it?
The entire reason I bought an Apple TV was to reduce the amount of data skimming happening in the background and ads being shoved in front of my face in the foreground, it's not like I'm lousy with options.
For profit org that has its personalized ad part of business growing massively, is scanning all your photos, gives all data to NSA like there is no tomorrow is somehow better, becase carefully crafted PR said so.
Especially if one is not US citizen, or multinational, or US citizen not on US soil, and so on.
They make great, hard vendor-locked hardware and mediocre software. Lets keep them at that and not some magical privacy champions when they are not, not where it actually matters.
Your post doesn't sound any different, what with the tarring a group of people with the same brush.
You've decided that your feelings about a type of company trump anybody else's opinions about a particular company. With a fairly derisive tone, at that.
Funny how the OP carefully skimmed this part out in their reply, but BINGO, I think this is the attitude we should have towards privacy. Sometimes I just feel like we're talking to a bunch of bots on here when it comes to privacy with their blind support towards for-profit corporations that doesn't give a shit about them.
lol
>we're talking to a bunch of bots on here
Ah. Okay. In a different tenor of conversation I'd be happy to clarify but...not when I'm up against this.
Keep the firewall of skepticism high.
I've always seen Apple TV as the least-bad option compared to Roku/Fire/whatever Google is doing these days/literally any built-in solution.
If this was your original statement, I think we all would be on your side - I even use an Apple TV 4k personally and love it. It definitely is the best in the market for what it does.
> it's the one box I can (reasonably) trust to not be mining my viewing habits for data.
Instead, you framed it as the only privacy-friendly option and that is logically and factually incorrect.
They come with different tradeoffs wrt price, A/V quality, user interface, privacy, etc.
For me, the #1 thing is A/V quality. I don’t care about price, but most people do.
(There are also some boxes made specifically for this, usually sold as development platforms for STB products, marketed based on what SoC they contain. Though they’ll tend to be $200, while the random “finished product” streaming box will be more like $30. Both come with decent remotes.)
I'm also interested in alternatives, but LineageOS on a cheap box isn't really one.
That's precisely what you did.
Yes, they did:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/apple-pay-95-million-settle-si...
Apple routinely recorded their private conversations after they activated Siri unintentionally, and disclosed these conversations to third parties such as advertisers.
edit: link
"Apple has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose," Apple said on Wednesday.
Unintentionally activating Siri and then recording is very different from the active listening things going on. Shared with advertisers was speculation.
Again, you don't know they aren't doing any of these privacy violations again right now. You are just vomiting their marketing BS again and again "Apple means privacy". Historically their shady acts weren't discovered until much later - battery gate, siri lawsuit, etc. You're starting on personal attacks and sounding more like a bot, so I'm going to stop here.
and then
> and sounding more like a bot
Pot, kettle, etc.
Per HN guidelines: "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes."
This has nothing to do with the specific question I asked, and I'm not sure why you'd think so unless Roku has some kind of Siri-like feature (which wasn't what I was intending when I asked regardless). (also, that's a dead link)
My point is, it's a for-profit corporation. And a really efficient one. They don't care about anyone's privacy or anything else. Only profits. History has proof - battery gate, siri lawsuit, etc.
Is there some actual evidence of collusion with the big tech companies? Because I haven’t seen it. (Telecoms I’ve heard were and are much more integrated.)
The next Snowden disclosure (MUSCULAR) was significantly more concerning though. It was that the NSA was tapping the internal fiber of Big Tech companies. I was at Google when the Snowden disclosures broke, and read the SRE postmortem. They found 2 fiber cuts underneath the English Channel, an hour apart, lining up with the start of the program as disclosed by Snowden. My inference is that the NSA paid off MI6 to send a submarine commando team to cut and tap the fiber of an American company, without consent, and then all the data was shared through Five-Eyes reciprocal data sharing agreements. Google leadership was hopping mad after this, but it would've been impolitic to bring it to the public. They started encrypting all internal traffic soon after, assuming that their internal network was compromised by various nation-state actors, which had some unfortunate effects on their internal culture of openness.
The head security guy where I worked 20 years ago was already saying this.
Anywhere I’ve worked it was firewall everything and use VPNs, and most places still do this. SFTP was in the too hard basket. And of course that led to people emailing files around as standard practice (and the only option) and inevitably some got emailed to the wrong recipients.
Honestly, based on what? That they haven't been caught?
That said they are not perfect - e.g their wording in their own tracking consent prompts vs the ones they force on others.
That's marketing. Do you always trust everything in marketing material?
Always missing from the paranoid lunatic side of this discussion: what devices do you use? I presume you do all your computing on an abacus?
I presume truth and facts are important, no?
I mean, it's what they _say_ they do. Do we know?
Do you have any evidence to present, or is this pure FUD?
But I do think that, in general, Apple tends to be the least-bad actor among its mainstream competitors: its primary business model does not depend on harvesting and selling data, and it has made this value proposition a part of its marketing, and people high up in the company have spoken about ways that they personally value it. And, for any story about ways in which Apple has failed here, there are certainly twice as many for any other company they compete with.
I mean, step back: Who cares more about my privacy - Apple or Google? Apple or Roku? Can anyone seriously argue the latter for either?
> I'm only asking if people put faith in Apples claims because they're, well, Apple, or do we _know_ their claims are valid.
If we _know_, then there would be no need for faith. Given the lack of options and the lack of certainty, people must place their faith somewhere (or take on a lot of technical burden to roll their own); given everything I've seen, it's more reasonable to place faith in Apple than basically anyone else in "Big Tech" in this regard.
(But again: if there's a product out there that is very similar to Apple TV in every way except that it is more private: please tell me what that product is. I'd be thrilled to consider it.)
I don't know. But I don't care about Google or Roku. I'm simply asking, are we sure Apple keeps things as private as they say.
HN apparently hates to question Apple...
Yes, Apple has actually put work into designing, building, and shipping secure enclaves. Yes, they have put a gargantuan amount of work into PCC to uphold the claims they make about its privacy. Yes, they employ differential privacy. Yes, they have shipped a feature that enables privacy-conscious users to be the only ones to hold the keys to their iCloud account. And on and on and on. Nothing will ever be enough for you.
You aren’t asking these questions in good faith. If you were, you’d have your answers already.
…while running far worse stuff themselves, the whole time.
This is all only mentioned in the footnote of an iCloud security document [1].
Apple cares about your privacy, so much that they made a backdoor through bad defaults, well in reach of the CLOUD Act.
[1] Footnote 9 in https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651
Most people don't even understand that when their favorite app that says E2E that that app still has access to the clear text before it's encrypted...
They want the device to be a mechanism for you to purchase things. Hence the “Apple card” and all the hullabaloo around that. You’ll only use your phone if you perceive it to be secure. Apple’s investments in Secure Enclave’s, sandboxing are all directly linked to their belief that this will help the consumer perceive the safety of the product- and again, it goes back to the perception of the brand.
Quality craftsmanship has properties that outsiders can perceive- even if they don’t understand it. Apple makes those investments.
Google- well, they just make things and then abandon them. Android’s bizzaro world open source is a chaotic mess that reflects the lack of discipline in Google’s leadership.
And I don't know what Google has to do with this.
I trust Apple for a number of reasons, but I really had to be really aggressive about the TV it’s connected to.
But also, a smaller footprint is a smaller footprint. I’ll take “better” where I can get it.
If it does then don’t buy it?
For privacy, I'd recommend hardware with as few blobs as possible and of course an unlocked bootloader.
Or maybe they are just not caught yet. They are now running ads, where is the data coming for that. They stop others from using the APIs but nothing stop their first party apps to snoop and use the data.
Apple AirTag is the biggest privacy nightmare out there and I am not sure why people keep Apple separate from other data hungry companies
https://www.reuters.com/legal/apple-pay-95-million-settle-si...
Apple routinely recorded their private conversations after they activated Siri unintentionally, and disclosed these conversations to third parties such as advertisers.
The only standard they will accept is absolute perfection. It doesn’t matter all of the drastic steps they’ve taken to ensure that past mistakes are never made again or that their hands are tied when governments make demands of them in the future. It doesn’t matter that they’re demonstrably orders of magnitude better than everyone else.
Only for internet comment purposes. I’ve found that these same jabronis actually tend to run crappy and wildly unsafe home rolled kludges, for themselves.
This is a common judgement among the technically literate.
> Breaking down why Apple TVs are privacy advocates’ go-to streaming device
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/all-the-ways-apple-t...
To me, it doesn’t make sense to rate all levels of imperfection the same. Of course Apple isn’t perfect. But that’s not am important question.
Apple’s the only major purveyor of these kinds of devices whose existential business model is not predicated on privacy violations. Hardly a guarantee of good behavior (and we’ll see what happens in the future). But a lot better than the alternatives.
I purchased the 2021 ATV just before the 2022 was released. It struggles with AV1 and VP9 (Infuse really struggles, VLC is better but still a problem). I just wanted the faster CPU (for software decoding AV1 and VP9). Almost bought the 2022 version in 2024 for that but didn't want to buy a 2 year old product.
Didn't expect to have to wait 4 years, and now the price is more than doubled. I can afford it but refuse to do so, especially since I don't use any of the onboard storage for anything.
VP9 support is just as promiment as AV1 support in the specs. https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-4k/specs/
I do this too with a mac mini app that does it on schedules across all the channels I like, dumps them in JellyFin with channel art, culls old videos, and uses the Jellyfin api to reindex that category when done.
I just like the lack of ads and no separate YouTube interface… YouTube is just a category in JellyFin.
yt-dlp has gotten spotty about YouTube blocking it, from time to time, though.
I sometimes see the homepage, or see thumbnails when I click to download individual videos. I've previously found interesting channels that way, or recommended by creators in videos I watch, or even on HN.
(I've found their algorithm has gotten worse over time, and nosedived recently with AI slop propagating like crazy in 2026. Even for niche topics it'll recommend channels that are a month old, already have 60 videos (mostly with low views but one video with 100K+ views), and obviously AI generated when closely inspected. It's worse now because half the channels use AI thumbnails for non-AI content.)
So after that long answer, I don't have a great recommendation for discovery if you don't already have an existing list of channels you like and trust.
Apple regards privacy as a feature, and I mean that precisely: some places they implement it, other places they decide it’s not worth it, and they only ever tell you about the former. A good example is iMessage: everybody in tech knows it’s E2EE, many fewer realize that the other three copies of your iMessage data on Apple’s servers are just, uh, not encrypted.
You can’t have the same intuition for Apple and privacy that you would for a group like Signal. You need to instead ask yourself whether you fully understand what you need, then whether Apple has guaranteed precisely and fully that, without weasel words.
With Advanced Data Security enabled?
Of course, then there's the persons you're talking to. I figure they are one of your "other three", another is the iCloud copy (deduped from backups) ostensibly resolved by advanced data security, what's the third?
Avanced Data Security keeps your copy in iCloud safe, but doesn't help with the people you are messaging's copy.
For example, a $130 impulse buy in 2015 is a ~$184 impulse buy in 2026.
The move to the A19 also meant that they couldn't go with LPDDR4X RAM and instead had to use more expensive LPDDR5X (IIRC).
It is crazy. I expect the new Apple TV to be a flop because $300 is just a lot. The problem is that Apple is a little boxed in on this device. Apple wants to re-use the A19, but that locks them into expensive DDR5 RAM. They want to push Siri AI, but that locks them into 8GB RAM. Unlike the iPhone, there aren't as many other opportunities with the App Store, Apple Pay, search engine placement revenue, etc.
Storage has also gone up a lot and Apple is no longer selling a 64GB model. Most streaming sticks have 4-16GB of storage and it's usually really slow/cheap storage. The new Apple TV has 128GB of storage and the price for that has probably gone from around $25 to $50.
You say that it's fine from "$200 to $300", but that's not really true. It's gone from $250 to $300 when you look at the 128GB model. I still think it's crazy that it went from $150 to $300 in the same year, but the outgoing 128GB model was already $250 after the price hikes earlier this year.
The problem is that Apple didn't want to reign in their product for the current market and I somewhat get that. What's the point of a new Apple TV if it's just "we updated the processor." For me, the point would be AV1 and VP9 decoding, but Apple wanted to push Siri AI.
Other high-end TV devices have also seen big increases in price. The Fire TV Cube went from being $110-140 to now $200 - and with the Fire TV Cube you're getting Cortex-A73 processor cores from 2016, 2GB LPDDR4X, and 16GB storage. At least Apple is giving you 8GB LPDDR5X and 128GB of storage and a processor that is way better.
The Google TV Streamer is $150 now with 4GB RAM and 16GB storage, but with LPDDR4 RAM and Cortex-A55 cores - and it's still $150.
A Roku Ultra is 2GB RAM and 4GB storage with Cortex-A55 cores and costs $150.
I think we're seeing that there's still some really old stock out there that's cheap, but we're seeing the prices climb on competitors too. Google raised its price 50%. Amazon has raised its price 40-80%. Apple raised its price 54-67% on the same-model and launched the newer model with double the RAM, more expensive RAM, a processor that's 4 years newer, etc.
I think it's likely that Google, Roku, and Amazon simply don't upgrade their streaming devices during this parts shortage. I think a lot of people will be fine with a 12nm Cortex-A55 based TV streamer with limited RAM and storage (and slow RAM and storage). I love how fast my Apple TV is. It's amazing the difference in UI lag. But I think most companies aren't going to prioritize that premium experience, especially during a parts shortage.
This is a great point, a lot of the press coverage missed this.
Not having a cheaper alternative (eg a stick) was curious though. The baseline price of $300 might cause sticker shock.
I still don’t quite know why i actually got a 64GB 4K first gen ATV when, in practice, a 32GB would’ve sufficed?
Do people really play games on these? Install that many apps on them?
If anything apple is probably bring value to new buyers of Apple TV in this market. At 299$ you are getting hardware that will last quite some time as opposed to a 200$ device that might cost maybe 250$ in six months and give you lot less hardware capabilities.
But everything is way more expensive than it was a year ago. Nothing escapes this inflation we are going through
If they're selling AppleTV at a loss to stimulate AppleTV+ subscriptions, then they're hemorrhaging money on two fronts. Without their App Store monopoly, Apple's annual service revenue would undoubtedly be a crater.
Having said that I eventually replaced my pair of HomePod Minis with a Sonos soundbar because I wanted something with a bit more oomph to it, although I'd maybe have considered getting a pair of the big HomePods and using the Minis as rear speakers had this been available at the time.
I had to buy a special HDMI switch because my projector is eARC-naive, but my understanding is that a lot of modern TVs are eARC-aware and a special switch is not required. The one downside to my setup is that I have to press a button on the HDMI switch to toggle between the PC and the AppleTV, no remote control, but hey it's good to stretch your legs now and then right?
Re audio quality, I really like my big HomePods and find they fill the room quite well and have a solid low range to them. I'd also agree that the HomePod Minis are not suitable for a living room entertainment experience.
No issue whatsoever, latency is fine, but a little too high for shooters and the like—but I use headphones then anyway.
How is life in the Sonos ecosystem? I vaguely recall there being some controversy around them a few years back, and I'm generally distrustful of third party hardware companies attempting to write software.
I really wanted to make it work, but it ended up being an annoying hassle. I got a Shield TV and it has been a much better solution.
Not sure if things have changed since then (~5 years ago).
It's definitely not the most troublesome player I've dealt with, but rebooting and logging back into apps randomly can be frustrating.
If you want a privacy focused solution it's probably the most private. Yeah, admittedly harder to use but I'm not recommending it to my parents.
I don't plan on upgrading it to this new version yet so I'll probably get 10+ years of use out of it, great value overall.
Siri AI is increasingly looking like a product that's exclusively for Americans. An unfortunate side effect of the EU attempting to become a regulatory superpower but failing to export its rules to the rest of the world.
- They don’t have to support European languages. Historically, they were horrible in this area, supporting only major languages and ignoring others for years. It’s almost impossible to ask Siri to play a song whose title is in one of these languages. Contact names are pronounced badly, and it’s sometimes tricky to ask Siri to call a person with a non-English name. This way, even though LLMs support these languages quite well, Apple doesn’t have to invest in development and testing.
- They announce the product with US features and keep the EU price the same, but disable features that cost them money, such as those requiring server-side compute.
- Satellite features only work in some EU countries, and there seems to be absolutely no progress in many markets. These markets are simply too small for Apple to care about. Yet the price is the same.
- They blame the EU for this.
The PS5 pro has plenty of horsepower. Fewer problems, but I see it occasionally skip or freeze slightly when playing back from some providers.
I've read Apple TV somehow has this figured out, and since I expected a new model I've been waiting for this one. It's not cheap but I want to be able to stream TV/film without any of those issues. I'm not quite ready to go the super premium route by getting a kaleidescape. I also want to use the bluetooth functionality from time to time.
I'd upgrade my Shield Pro to something else but there's nothing to upgrade to that doesn't have some compromise on formats or capabilities.
Unless you prefer an Android TV device, I don't get the appeal of the Shield Pro. I bought one years ago and resold it a few months later. For me the only things it did better than an Apple TV (playing certain ripped blu-rays) are better done by the Ugoos AM6B+. So those are the two devices I use nowadays.
It's frustrating that nobody else seems to care about attempting to be the all-in-one box given how much Shield is showing its age now. It's really sluggish
I don't get why Apple just refuses to allow audio pass through or DV Profile 7. They're clearly on board with DV in general and don't hesitate to play Dolby's branding games, so why not profile 7 support???
Yes, really - switching cables instantly got rid of any stuttering in the UI no reboot or setting could fix for me - if I wouldn’t have experienced it myself I probably wouldn’t have believed it..
My home theatre set up is through a Denon receiver. I love my gen1 HomePods for listening to music, but I can’t understand why anyone would buy four HomePods rather than a proper surround setup.
What exactly can it do besides launching streaming apps?
Thread border router is nice I guess.
Integration with HomePods is ... well, if you have HomePods.
So... No real functionality to justify the price.
$300 for a streaming box is insane price.
I don’t see Siri AI as a big positive differentiator when compared to third generation Apple TV 4K from 2022. Anecdotally, Siri AI has gotten slower and worse from the time the *OS 27.x were released.
Apple TV is the smoothest way to navigate, run apps, etc., without having to use whatever sluggish tracking crap that comes with Smart TVs. I’ve never connected my TV to the internet and Apple TV is the main input source for it. Combined with a couple of HomePods and eARC, it works fine for the most part. Combine with NextDNS (for DNS and system wide tracker blocking) alongside Tailscale, and you’ve got a nice setup.
The biggest downside of Apple TV is tvOS, which doesn’t get much developer time within Apple. This hits harder for Apple’s own apps, which tend to be of poor quality and have no attention paid to bug reports for years.
Anyway I'm happy with my current units. If I was outfitting a new living room I could see this new one, but for the time being I'm not rushing out.
Do not underestimate modern audio technology.
I have a $12k Trinnov processor that’s quite good at audio, handles 4k@120 and 8k. $299 Apple TV still can’t pass through audio or do anything better than 4k@60?
I didn’t get to spend $12k on a Trinnov by overpaying for the little things. Apple is high. I don’t know who this is for.
Did the old one also not have Dolby vision/HDR10/Atmos? What is this cinematic stuff? What are we missing here?
Why would I need CPU/GPU performance on an Apple TV? I'm genuinely confused. Is it to play video games? If I want to play video games, I can pay a bit more and get a used playstation I suppose. I genuinely don't understand this product anymore.
HDR10+ is supported in some players (infuse) but not others (plex) and will fallback to HDR10. Profile 7 DV files do not play properly on Apple TV period even though it will display the DV logo (though frankly very few devices can do this). Profile 5 and 8 DV files will play properly depending on the player and the content mapping level in the content (2.9 is well supported but 4.0 causes HDR10 fallback or black screens in some cases). Apple TV also doesn't support HD audio passthrough great.
*I do have a once-per-run Moonlight glitch that may even be because I'm on an older version. The first connection just doesn't pick up on the HDR immediately. I just have to reconnect once and it's good after that.
[1]: https://github.com/ClassicOldSong/Apollo ("Built-in Virtual Display with HDR support that matches the resolution/framerate config of your client automatically")
I thought I surely was imagining it, so I revisited it 6 months or a year later, and, yes, the input latency from the controller is substantially worse on the Apple TV.
Their Studio Displays have an A19 in them too (A19 Pro for the XDR)
Eg Pixel Brite works great on all versions of AppleTV including FEL playback on 1st gen
The only thing I haven’t been able to do with the older models is upscaling content at the same fidelity levels. But the results are very subtle either way and not all that compelling IMO.
That's crazy
Does anyone know why having 128GB of storage is useful? Just for installing more apps? I've had Google TV devices in the past, and don't think I ever came close to the 32GB storage limit. Maybe there's a gap I'm missing...
Really nothing beats it, especially if you are in Apple ecosystem but even if you are not, it’s a million times better than the messy android tv with full of ads and bloat.
That being said, I don’t see a reason for us to upgrade to this version.
Also running side-loaded Stremio with torrenting enabled so I can stream Big Buck Bunny.
The only thing I could think of using this for is syncthing, but I'm not sure if there's an Apple TV app
It's really not. It's so reviewers will be able to say "it costs more than the last version, but you also get much more storage" and the average consumer is happy. If there were a practical reason for it Apple would put it front and center.
That said, I'd love it if Plex or Jellyfin were able to use that storage to cache files locally (eg. stream the data as fast as possible and play from the local copy) to smooth out some flakiness with the wifi between the tv and my home server.
I've used it for a total of a few hours in many years, almost exclusively for mini motorways. It never made sense to play over the Switch or PS5. I'm not sure who's using it.
I'd guess it's room for the AI model and future versions of it that could grow.
I would expect only mobile developers to actually bother porting games natively to Apple TV, with larger titles opting for game streaming.
* Siri - no thanks
* Far field microphones - no thanks
* Faster performance - unnecessary for me (I watch TV, movies and YouTube - it's never not smooth)
* Home theatre with homepods - I already have Sonos surround
* Even smarter home hub - I have a non-Apple smart home
* Facetime, Fitness+, Apple TV app - just not for me
The one thing I feel like I'm missing (and would be missing even if I upgraded) is audio passthrough, but DD 5.1 is _fine_.
There are comparable devices like Ugoos (am6b+ with coreelec) and Zidoo but they're a little sketch compared to the aforementioned...
Still no 2.5Gbps port in 2026 is disappointing.
Gigabit Ethernet has 7x the bandwidth of a 4K UHD Blu-ray.
If an 8K Blu-ray standard were to ever exist, in what universe would it somehow 7x the bitrate to increase the pixel count by 4x? And of course that math is assuming that this new hypothetical new standard that does not exist wouldn’t use newer compression standard.
In what universe will 8K content be streamed at greater than 3x the bitrate of the average US home broadband speed? (300Mbps) 8K streamed content will almost certainly top out at 100Mbps.
The current bandwidth cost math at major CDNs for consumer use cases at that bitrate is hundreds of dollars per month, before you even pay for content.
The idea that any streamer will be bandwidth-limited by a 1Gbps network link anytime soon is absurd.
Commercial streamimg platforms are probably gonna allocate like 2mbps more for 8k streaming and call it a day.
But seriously, 1Gbps is plenty for any video content.
Don't worry, the next tvOS update may fix that.
I was surprised to learn my 1st gen doesn't have a thread radio which caused some minor homekit compatability issues. I actually bought a new AppleTV 4k a couple months ago but it didn't really solve my problem, so I returned it with the reasoning that it was long in the tooth and a new model was coming out soon.
I just preordered this one but I sort of wonder if I should just go buy the last gen one for half the money or whatever. Seems like the actual buy. At the old price point, they were impulse buys. At this price point, well, it's enough to get me to stop and think about it.
AV1 decoding is also a good feature to have.
Most of the purchases will be from people who do have an older model that's actually getting outdated, people who want another Apple TV for another room in their house, or people who don't own one at all. You buy this one now, it'll probably be good for the better part of a decade and you won't need to think about the next refresh.
For me, I’m hopeful to get a good deal on the previous gen to replace my parents ATV HD.
It will be my first used ATV purchase, but $299 isn’t worth it to consider buying new in my opinion.
wait, the new 4K has passthrough finally? I did not see it mentioned.
I meant the one thing I'm missing from my current setup, not something that would be fixed by upgrading.
One annoyance is that the Netflix app stopped being able/allowed to stream to any device that has some kind of remote (or where you can enter a username/password in some way):
* https://lifehacker.com/tech/netflix-is-killing-casting-from-...
* https://help.netflix.com/en/node/100131
It'd be nice to be able to plug in an AppleTV and use it 'just' as a dumb streaming pipe, but at least for Netflix you have to use the app on it.
> Using AirPlay with iPhone and iPad is not supported with Netflix.
This one puts the charger input at the HDMI end where the TV and presumably outlets are, so power comes to your video playing device over the USB-C at your device end.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/USB-C-HDMI-Cable-Adapter-Nintendo...
It's been doing the same thing forever. A bunch of squares on a screen and you select one to go into whatever app. The core experience has not changed in living memory.
I still never understand people who are dead against giving all their personal info and data to one company but are fine with giving it to another.
Yes this is an apple thread on HN and so I am expecting to be downvoted into oblivion by the Apple fans who believe Apple is better than any other company with data and security, when they have been proved multiple times to be just as bad.
But for some reason Sony or Samsung doing the same on your TV is too far?
The content streamers get your viewing habits by virtue of you viewing their content (like Youtube, or any web site, getting information on what you're looking at by simply logging HTTP GET requests).
There is no reason why television OEMs need to do screen captures and send them to the mothership.
It's the first- and second-party interaction: you gave money to Sony/Samsung/etc for a product, and after the exchange there is no reason for any further interaction.
You have a regular/monthly interaction with content providers: there is at least a valid reason for the content providers to have that information in the first place, and none for the TV OEMs to collect it.
That is absolutely fine, but IMO it is hypocritical. That is all I am arguing.
I am okay "giving my data" to the billion dollar company of (say) Netflix of Disney+ because I need to be able to log into the service and get the video streams. It is a necessary part of getting the service to provide (e.g.) billing information like a credit card.
I am not okay with giving my data to the billion dollar company of Sony or Samsung because having a display take in HDMI bits and produce photons on a screen does not necessitate any phone home functionality.
I am not okay with Netflix or Disney+ giving data to third parties because doing so is not necessary to provide the service.
Does that qualify as hypocrisy too?
You can argue against dealing with any billion dollar company. But drop the hypocrisy framing, it is nonsensical and your point will be stronger without it.
You obviously havent read my posts very well. I have repeatedly said that the hypocrisy is subjective, my opinion only, and I am not trying to convince anyone otherwise. You are entitles to think whatever you want, trust whoever you want, and believe what ever you want. I am entitled to consider it hypocrisy if you are turning a blind eye to tracking from one side but happy allowing it from another.
Given that my iPhone has a little LED that lights up when the the microphone (or camera) are active, it is fairly easy to confirm that that the mic is not being used.
Are they, though? Is Apple snooping into the Netflix app’s data to track what you’re watching and phone home with that info? Are there studies showing that happening? Are they selling that data to third parties like the TV manufacturers are?
As far is Apple is concerned, they have been caught lying about this many times before. I jujst cant get my head around why any person can trust a billion dollar corporation to be 'good'.
Here have a few links:
https://www.bgr.com/2107512/how-to-prevent-apple-tv-spying-a...
https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-tracking-even-whe...
https://linustechtips.com/topic/1467686-apple-caught-ignorin...
https://medium.com/@michaelswengel/yes-your-mac-is-watching-...
https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/11/12/apple-getting-sue...
Samsung or Sony sell a physical product that does not need internet connectivity, or microphones, or telemetry, or any of that. They jam that stuff in there to increase profits and make it economically infeasible to sell what I think 80% of people on HN would buy if given the opportunity - a large flatscreen TV with no built-in connectivity whatsoever. So anything I can do to make me less profitable to them, I will do.
* For certain definitions, anyway.
I also dislike that my data is being transacted willy-nilly by content providers, it's a very different ballpark when TVs have hidden microphones recording my house, screen capturing if I'm showing personal photos on the screen, and sending that data to the manufacturer. That's a much worse privacy invasion.
Yes.
So I watch like a total of 2 hours of sports in Summer 2026 and my kid gets an hour of TV while he eats lunch and webOS works its hardest to make those both suck ass, and the Apple TV Just WorksTM and we can put our weekly Facetime with Grandma and Grandpa on there. Absolute no brainer better experience.
For privacy specifically, I'll refer you to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...
Then find investigations where Apple TVs are proven to do the same, of which there are none.
You’re chalking this up to fanboyism but this is just people making informed choices. In today’s streaming era “just don’t connect anything to the internet” isn’t possible.
Instead, Apple sends that straight to the NSA.[0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
> just don’t connect anything to the internet
A practically e-waste mini-PC running an ordinary Linux distro paired with an airmouse remote is a much better TV box. You don't need streaming apps when you are free to use a Web browser, something Apple won't allow for obvious reasons. No surveillance, no crapware, no ads. It can even double as a console for GOG/Steam.
> Apple: "We have never heard of PRISM" "We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."
"In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information," the company said in a statement. "Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests."
https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/governments...
Yes they are happy to make a song and dance about not letting authorities into individual phones, the publicity definitely helps them out on that front. However none of it matters because the government already have probes in all their servers, as proved by Edward Snowden, so its game over before you start. Do you understand what NDAs are? It doesnt seem so because you keep quoting Apple while they have been proven to be under NDAs in the past, so how can you trust anything they say in the future?
Its ok, you carry on trusting old Uncle Apple to look after you. I am not trying to convince you of anything. However I am entitled to have my opinion that it is hypocritical to criticise tracking from one company but turn a blind eye to the same thing from another.
I have clarified my opinion many times now, feel free to have the last word.
If you presume the government isn’t technologically all-capable, then technical measures can limit and even defeat the observability that even a wildly tyrannical government has into your computing devices. This mindset is both infinitely more useful than yours and more reflective of the world we actually live in. The government now mostly has to rely on 0-day exploits that they hold close to their chest until a target sufficiently warrants burning it.
Your paranoia is beyond hysterical and it presumes that these companies are gleefully giving out our data when it is extremely clear that nothing could be further from the truth. Again, Apple has more than any company proven a track record of tying their own hands when it comes to complying to these kinds of requests. In the absence of perfect options, I’ll happily go with the good ones.
I am well aware of the recent LG controversy. However In my opinion if you are happy to sign up to Netflix and Disney+ and use a streaming box to give them all your personal data and viewing habits to allow tracking and ad profiles then its pretty hypocritical to target a single company in the chain and call them out for it.
I think it's become an internet meme because it's hard for the average person to understand the more creepy thing that's happening. All the data points being captured as one goes around the internet allows rich profiles to be built without something as complicated as recording and transcribing audio.
Gamers Nexus had a viral video about them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IFVTcM28KA
This is without even looking at Apple, who own the hardware you are streaming on and have been caught lying multiple times in the past about data harvesting. After all that, I feel that unplugging the cord on your TV is completely pointless, and it is frustrating how people gloat about it like they are getting around the system. In reality, you are only giving your data to 4 companies in the chain now, instead of 5.
If you think giving data to 4 companies instead of 5 is fine then thats fair enough, its your own data. In my opinion if you happy to give your data to one billion dollar ad profile selling company, then why squabble about another? However I understand this is subjective, and I am not trying to tell anyone they are wrong. I just dont understand it thats all!
Many platforms have gone the same way: Google TV boxes are known to be broadly awful at this point, my samsung TV's built-in apps got progressively less responsive with more ads on my homescreen over the last few years. I haven't experienced it but I hear complaints about the performance and intrusiveness of LG TVs now as well.
After cycling through my options, the Apple TV is the only one that doesn't exhibit the same behavior: It is responsive, has a good interface that looks nice, has a very nice minimal remote, and it works the same today as it did yesterday (and basically as it did 2 years ago). I'm not trying to claim allegiance to any brand, it just seems that somehow Apple is the only one not participating in enshittification, at least not to the same degree. If that changes the Apple TV will be out the door and I'll probably need to roll my own out of some sort of mini PC on an open-source platform.
And as one last note, for the time being Apple still has some credibility in terms of privacy. They have revenue streams that work for them without completely ruining their product, and it's my hope they continue with that because as far as I can tell they are the only ones left among the big players.
Also, the tooling they provided to the model is not good either. The 3rd party AI apps by OpenAI or Anthropic can do much more than the system assistant.
Is no one concerned about an always-on, internet connected microphone being in their living room or bedroom? This needs a physical shut off switch.
Funny how when LG does it [1] it’s a privacy nightmare but when Apple does it it’s a cool new feature.
Consumers do not care
Like most people's cell phone that also ends up in many more places?
Yes at the end of the day it's a microphone in your home, but each has a very different stated (or unstated, in LG's case) purpose.
Anyway, it's now too much money for something that is just going to open Jellyfin.
It seems like Apple is perfectly happy to send low spend customers to their Roku to install the Apple TV app from there.
With the way the smart TV market is playing out, the type of customer who actually wants to add a streaming box to a TV that already comes with all the apps they need to play back content is already a premium value proposition.
i.e., if your TV already comes with all the apps: Netflix, Paramount+, HBO Max, Disney+, etc, why are you buying a streaming box at all? Presumably because you want a more premium experience than your TV currently offers. That means that compromising on price isn't the right move from a product perspective.
The only part that “deserves” a price increase is the storage starting at 128GB now instead of 32GB, but it’s completely out of touch to get rid of the base model when nobody has any use for all that storage (even the 32GB) for what is basically a streaming box.
Hell, even their new HomeView device, which does have a screen and FaceID, starts at same price.
Obviously some cache for local playback, photos, screensavers, etc.
AFAIK you’d be hard pressed to hit 150mbps with your own local media.
And any streaming services will use way less - Netflix and Hulu recommend a mere 16Mbps at 4k for example.
Also, just learned it's still 4k 60Hz. So forget 120Hz gaming. Game streaming is likely to become a default in near future at the hardware proces we see, so limiting to 60Hz is really cheap of them at this point.
Personally I didn't expect a new generation to be a full $100 more though...