BuzzFeed reports today that Apple’s next-generation Apple TV will not support 4K video streaming. Citing “sources in position to know,” the report claims that due to the lack of TVs that support the latest video standard, as well as the lack of streaming 4K content, Apple has no plans to implement it into its upcoming refreshed set-top box.
“4K is great, but it’s still in its infancy,” a source reportedly stated. While 4K technology has been catching on recently, there doesn’t appear to be any major benefit for Apple to implement it into the budget-priced Apple TV. Apple recently cut the price of the current-gen Apple TV to $69. Although Netflix currently supports 4K video streaming, its offerings are limited. Streaming 4K is also incredibly expensive for customers at this point, with it using four times the amount of bandwidth as the average Netflix stream.
We reported in March that Apple was planning to debut a new Apple TV at some point this year, with a later report corroborating our sources and also claiming the device will be unveiled at WWDC in June. We reported that the new Apple TV will be slimmer and offer a more capable and tactile remote. Software-wise, the new Apple TV is expected to feature a redesigned interface with an App Store and support for its upcoming streaming music service.
It has also been reported recently that Apple plans to unveil a $30-$40/month Web TV service with support for at least 25 channels. Apple’s online TV service will reportedly launch in September with headlining support from ABC, CBS, and Fox.
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The benefit of 4K is far more apparent from your computer monitor, which might be about a foot or so away from your face, than it would be from a television anyway. In regular usage it’s unlikely that anyone could tell the difference from their couch — of course many will claim that they can.
With video that’s in motion this is doubly true than of stills. 4K TVs are great if you’re really close, or using them as an additional display, otherwise, the cost/benefit just isn’t there.
Being able to stream a resolution doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. With network backhaul struggling in so many first-world countries, some time needs to pass before there’s going to be widespread demand for 4K content anyhow.
From tem feet away it’s impossible to disguise pixels on a 60″ 1080p TV and we don’t have bandwidth anyway so it doesn’t matter. 4K TV is a money spinner like 3D.
That’s not true. Just like the folks who say that there’s no benefit from 1080 over 720 at that distance. It’s simply not true. That “fact” is based on a decade of “viewing distance matters” arguments on the Internet.
Go stand 10 feet away from a 4k TV next to a 1080p TV. You can tell the distance. My corrected vision isn’t 20/20 and I can tell the difference. And it’s not just a matter of side-by-side. If the eye couldn’t resolve such small pixels (which is the “distance matters” argument) than a side-by-side would look identical.
In my opinion, which probably means very little, 4k will be useful at some point. If there could be demand for 4k in order to drive higher bandwidths, we’ll all benefit in other ways. At this stage an Apple TV trying to push 4k to your TV wouldn’t be any more useful than a 1080p Apple TV. In fact, trying to slam it in may weigh it down much in the way that the first Retina iPad was a pile of junk really. Later on a 4k feature will be a given. However, if the Apple TV box is going to be something that people would be able to develop software for, I would think that Apple would bring this along more gradually especially with resolution features. 4k would probably require heftier hardware and probably wouldn’t work quite as well with say games for instance. However, who knows what the next box will be like. I would rather focus on what the new Apple TV WILL HAVE vs. what it will leave out.
What’s funny is they just announced the first NATIVE 4K Blu Ray player so what people are actually watching is upscaled 4K. Yeah, I even have problems streaming 720p and 1080p because of my ISP.
A publication from Consumer Reports called “tech electronics buying guide June 2015” just came out. Consumer Reports uses an 8 foot distance when comparing TVs to represent a normal viewing distance.
Let me quote from its discussion about the difference between 1080p and UHD 4K, what Consumer Reports states on page 23 of its guide: “Size matters, too. On a very large screen, say, 84 inches and up, you can really appreciate UHD. But with a 65-inch screen like the ones we tested, most viewers would probably think that the HDTV looked just as good. That’s why the first UHD models were available
only in very large screen sizes (84 inches).” And since Consumer Reports subjects more than 200 different models of TVs to rigorous scientific testing, in their well equipped labs, each year, they have more experience evaluating and directly comparing TVs, than any other organization, magazine, or website.
Plus, since Consumer Reports accepts no advertising, they have no clients to please by going easy on their products. The magazine points out faults that commercial magazines and organizations don’t dare mention. And CR has no interest being a booster for products, or even new technologies, that it does not find to be very impressive, when used in the way that most consumers are likely to use them, such as sitting 10 to 12 feet back from a 65 inch UHD 4K TV and expecting to see a substantial improvement over the same size 1080p TV at that distance.
“your computer monitor, which might be about a foot or so away from your face,”
If your computer monitor is about a foot or so from your face, you are sitting to close to your computer monitor.
I said “or so” … you won’t be more than about two feet away, because desks just aren’t made to be 4 feet deep, so what you’re doing here is picking nits. Enjoy that.
I find this statement ludicrous. The clarity of 4K resolution is easily noticeable by streaming and native playback. 4K allows for bigger screens size without losing the degradation of the content.
Also, many manufacturers have developed upscaling technology to make HD resolution better (i.e. highest resolution for Hulu app).
Apple’s support of 4K in their next TV device could drive adoption of the higher resolution by consumers and content providers. Now that the cost of 4k TVs has dropped significantly, content providers have more of an incentive to help grow the market. It would be nice if Apple could be a leader in this space especially since they released a 5k iMac targeted mostly content creators.
Clearly you’ve not seen an 85″ TV.
Of course I have, I just haven’t been plastered right up against it.
Maybe the problem is I’m not living a sportsball lifestyle, where the TV is way too big for the room, and my cheap beer habit is subsidising the aluminium industry.
I agree with Bruno here completely. Massive TV’s don’t work well for video games as much because you have to scan edges more. I don’t play games but my friend returned his new 60″ and went back to a 50″ because FPS were harder to play on it at his seating distance.
I however use my TV for nothing but movies, and for me the bigger the better. I use the rule of 1.5 x screen size = minimum seating distance, so for an 80″ screen the couch would be 120 inches back and at 10 feet the resolution matters a lot. TV shows broadcast in 720 look kinda terrible and even some 1080 Blu-rays are sorta meh in quality. I don’t have a 4k tv, but I would side on the argument that the benefit is there.
Although this is a little disappointing, its not at all surprising. I really feel as though 4K is not yet ready for primetime. Most uses do not have the bandwidth necessary to adequately stream 4K without interruption or dropouts.
As a Comcast customer, I found that 1080p was an unfathomable luxury. So I don’t see Comcast supporting 4k within the next decade.
Who cares anyway?innthese days I u want new technology apple is last that I look for:)
4 times the bandwidth of 1080p? Not so much. H265 only requires 1.5 times the bandwidth.
4k vs 1080p is very similar to the 720p vs 1080p debates. Some people simply cannot tell -screen size and viewing distance be damned.
Too often lost in comments on 4k is that 4k involved more than resolution. There’s support for 60fps and a much, much higher color gamut.
4k is a resolution, it has absolutely nothing to do with color accuracy or framerate. You are referring to the UHD standard, which is not synonymous with 4k.
Evidently Apple does not want to pay for h.265. I took a blu-ray and ripped to h.264 and h.265 and 265 was far better that 264 and took up a lot less room. I want to oonvert my library to 265. But maybe someone will enable it.
that is not true at all, h.264 is payed for by apple from the moving pictures experts group (MPEG), that same group owns the h.265 HEVC standard. h.265 HEVC is at least 6 months to a year away from being able to go mainstream. Hardware decoders and encoding still needs to be ironed out. The standard was just finalized last year. This is why 4k players are just barely coming to market and are doing so without everything being ironed out. On these first players they will need a lot of firmware updates just like blue ray did. The real only reason that blu ray is updated now is to update the anti copy routines. (BD+ and AACS).
4k blu ray discs by the way use h.265 HEVC to encode.
MPEG licenses h.264 and h.265 on there website mpegla.com. Just for your info Apple is listed there as a licensee of h.264 and h.265.
Apple uses h265 in the iPhone 6/6 Plus for FaceTime.
Hopefully Apple will bring more contents to European AppleTV users, here in the Netherlands the contents is………
4K TV will remain pointless for years. For starters the difference in resolution is only barely noticeable on the largest screens and not everyone has a need or desire for a 70+” TV set. Then there’s the dearth of quality 4K content. And last but not least we have the enormous amount of bandwidth it requires, which is a major issue considering how many people in the US lack access to true high speed internet and how badly internet connections are impeded by ISP throttling.
Yes, but it will soon catch on. It will be the default in a few years. I would think it’s simply common sense that Apple should support it so you don’t have to upgrade it within just a few years.
You think 4k will be the default in the next few years? Heck, Comcast’s default is still 720. 1080p is well over a decade old and firms with a hundred million customers still aren’t there.
Sure, but at the same time supporting 4K doesn’t suddenly mean you have to stream it at that resolution. It can be entirely optional, so if your display only supports 1080p that’s all the streaming service should transmit, where 4K displays that have a decent enough connection and the viewer hasn’t opted into lower quality video can get that.
Netflix for example already allows quality controls to let users grab the same content at varying qualities. Our data cap wasn’t large enough to cope with the demands of HD despite the display and internet connection being capable of it, so we opted into SD content.
No reason why other services can’t do this.
Everyone remember when the first Apple TV didn’t support 1080? Here we go again. The current box, already insanely outdated, already supports 1080. I don’t see the point in a new version if it’s not going to be significantly better – and part of that includes its rendering and output stages.
If the new Apple supports third-party apps and has its own app store (or section), then it will be meaningful, otherwise, speaking as a shareholder, just reduce the price on the current one again or GTFO out of TV. The current box is solely used as a video adapter for an iPad in this house. I already have far more capable and better video streaming devices than what’s offered in the current ATV.
Not a surprise, Phil Schiller will come on stage at this years event and tell us 4k doesn’t solve any real world problems and then next year tell us how revolutionary 4k will be.
Over the years as TVs have gotten bigger and better, never have I been too impressed to drool over one until I witnessed a 4k tv in person. The difference is remarkable and above and beyond any in a long time.
…but if there is no real content available for it today, then spending that kind of money to today is cool if you have it to burn,
A friend bought a huge 3d tv with extra glasses for an arm and a leg a few years ago. Guess how much he uses the glasses?
No need for 4k. Have you ever seen sports or fast moving scenes on a 4k tv?
Same issues as the current led/lcd junk. Sure you can “upscale” to 240z, but then you get that garbage soap opera effect.
Plasma baby. My Panasonic 65VT60 blows away any 4k junk. Wait for the 8k OLED.
4k was rushed out because 3d didn’t stick. 8k has been where the next step is.
What a pile of crap!!ive seen spirt in 4K and it’s amazingly…perfect
This is hear say, I’ve always heard the TV industry agreed to skip 2k , which there are some monitors you can get it with 2k in stores today
Come on guys thats nothing to be surprise, and don’t get me wrong I love apple products.
I don’t care about 4k, all I want is to be able to authenticate my appletv once and not have to do it app by app.
I see no rush, 4k is expensive, most folks I know just now getting 1080p
Plus don’t Apple like to stretch out the time before they update something like that, or Would they like to stay ontop of the HiFi Video & Audio to make sure iTunes has a little edge, things that make you say hmmm
Here is the key for me. It is not necessarily the 1080P vs 4K content. I was at a Sony store and saw native 4K content. It was a nicer picture sure but not jaw dropping. Then I was at Best Buy and saw a 1080p OLED tv. I have never seen a better picture on a TV in my life!!! So I can only imagine what an OLED 4K TV would look like! Still too expensive but lets see what the companies do with the so called “quantum dot” display. I won’t buy another LCD display.
Did they finally get rid of the OLED rot issue? That was the killer that has kept OLED from really hitting the market for nearly a decade. When you have “Organic” as a main ingredient, you have “food” as a main ingredient. How will the OLED hold up after 5+ years?
My question is why the f*ck anyone would have thought that it would. It’s WAY too early for that. The whole idea is ridiculous.
It’s like people forgot that the Apple TV didn’t even get 1080p until 2012.
As TVs get bigger the quality increase will become more apparent. Now 50″ is the standard and its debatable if you’d appreciate the jump to 4K at a normal viewing distance.
As 65″ and then 75″ TVs gain market share, then 4K makes sense. Also, if you’re seriously into your home cinema kit and have a projector, you’ll have been wanting 4K for years.
It’s odd from an Apple perspective though to forgo a high end feature. It’s good marketing if nothing else, and all Mid and high end TVs will be 4K within the next few years. At least build the ATV with 4K in mind – apparently the PS4 and the Xbox One will both get OS updates later this year to allow 4K streaming.
While I do not disagree with your assessment (I have a HDTV projector) – Apple is not known for being the first to market with any new tech. Apple is known to wait until they have the bugs ironed out, and delivering a nearly flawless product to market. The 5K iMac seems to be the exception to the rule.
The article says it wont support 4K _streaming_, which does not mean it wont support 4K at all. Because there is not only streaming video. You could also view your own pictures (taken with you iPhone or other) at almost full resolution which will look amazing on a 4K set. And what about these home-made 4K movies? Though the iPhone still does not support 4K video recording, many cameras and smartphones do.
Also, what about games? Wouldn’t they look so much great at 4K? If Apple opens the App Store to games, that is…
4K TV sets are dropping in prize every week and you don’t need to have a huge one. You’ll only be sitting much closer to the screen than you do today. It would be very strange that Apple will go for a 5K Retina iMac, and not implement 4K on the Apple TV. But it will need a powerfull processor and quite some memory for buffering. Hence it wont be as cheap as the current one. Bandwidth is not the only limitation here.
Finally, if the upcoming refresh on the Apple TV wont support 4K (at all), what technology will it gives that the current Apple TV does not have? Siri?
It doesn’t support 4K streaming – so how would you play your home-made video’s on the AppleTV? Streaming means not only your home network, but the internet. Seems to me that if you absolutely gotta have 4K video’s playing on your 4K set, you are going to have to use some other method.
Reminds me of the DVD vs. Blu-Ray argument. It’s a matter of scaling. If you have less than 50″, odds are you won’t notice – but if you are running a HDTV projector in the 50-120″ range – you begin to see the difference. With 4K vs. Blu-Ray, I question the bang: buck ratio.
Some people are happy with Aperion speakers, others demand BGW speakers – depends upon your tastes and budget.
For me, the only reason to ever use an Apple TV over a Roku, PS3, PS4, smart blu ray player, etc. is the AirPlay feature. That’s it. Everything else about it sucks in comparison.
Huge Mistake if no 4k is available, my Vizio with Netflix @ 4k, is unbelievable, Best quality no streaming issues using the new H.265 codec compression. Apple you need to niche the 4k and upward, it is not a 3d gimmick 4K is real and demand will only grow, I will buy only 4k streaming components, 1080p is old and tired.
The content is just not there. Distribution is very limited. I’m fine with a 1080p box until 4k is widespread enough, and then I’ll expect a 4k box.
I use all Retina displays and I’m still more than fine with a 1080p TV and content.
Why release 4K to catch up with the crowd? They should jump straight to 8K 3D with smell-o-vision.
4K is not in its infancy. The cable industry is in its old age. Many people own cameras that shoot 4K today. Drones shoot 4K. Even cell phones shoot 4K. Everyone is moving to 4K. There are already shows on NetFlix in 4K and a vast number of 4K videos on YouTube. If the content you want to watch is streamed in 4K and you have the bandwidth to watch it, you won’t be getting an Apple TV if it is limited to 1080p. I would rather Apple hold off on its release a year than release this update limited to 1080p.
More of a question. Where does HDR fit in the discussion? Netflix says HDR is more important than 4K.. HDR enhances luminescence. Dolby also has Dolby Video
I just got a new Samsung 4K TV Set (55″). I just watched Daredevil in 4K (using the SmartTV version of Netflix). Um. yeah, you can tell the difference. Cityscapes look great and the scene where Fisk talks to Gao in the park between NYC buildings was memorable.
Does apple tv 3 directly play h.265 hevc 4k movie files?
People can distinguish the pixels of a 1080p display from even more than 10 feet away. I realize that you may of course see well under 20/20 however some people see not only 20/20 but much higher than even that. Secondly it would also depend on screen size. So if you are virtually blind than yes 4k has no benefits at all. If you have corrective lenses or are like some who see beyond the point where you have to get them, IE 20/20 and above it makes perfect sense. The over all screen size would of course depend on your vision. As far as the Apple TV being capable of it, it should be it has an HDMI 1.4 port which is capable of sending out 4k at 30hz. Not just that but all of the colors that normal movies that aren’t 4k just simply do not have, even if you cannot disguise between the pixels the colors you should be able to unless of course you are in some fashion color blind. As far as 3d goes, I love it personally but than again my tv does passive 3d which is the same varriation that the movie theaters have. If you have a display with active 3d you might use it once and than never again, you will likely get headaches if you use active, but passive is safe. That is the only reason why 3d has not taken off. Simply put manufactures put bad tech in there TVs disguring people from utilizing depth ie 3d. Now that passive 3d TVs are readily available, everywhere it should come into popularity. That is of course if any one begins to educate people on the difference of them, and explains why the tech in that 3d TV you watched at your friends or where ever was just bad. The Apple TV could give me and many others more access to 3d films, I have a 4k passive 3d Sony. I love it, the 3d the colors and of course 4k. The key is getting the correct tv with good tech.
As someone who just purchased a 75″ 4K UHD TV, this news is really disappointing. I simply want choice. If Netflix chooses to stream in 4K and I have the capability to do so through my Apple TV, I should have that option. I really do enjoy using my Apple TV for all of my streaming needs but I can’t do that if I want to use the 4K capabilities. I’ll need to use the apps on my Samsung TV to do so. It seems odd to just not include the option. Why include constraints?