The New Apple TV

What's Been Added and Removed from the New, Lower-Priced Apple TV 4K Models

- Michael Heiss

Prior to October, Apple had three major events in 2022, including two product-centric announcements and the annual World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC), which is their developers’ conference. After each of these events my question was, “Where is a new Apple TV?” To be clear, while iPhones and iPads, as well as the various OS versions are typically on a yearly replacement cycle, Apple TV has not been. After all, it was three and a half years between the first Apple TV 4K and the second-generation model brought out in April 2021.

Thus, it was both a surprise and not a surprise that a press release from Apple popped up in my inbox on announcing the latest third generation versions of the high-end streamer.

For whatever reason, Apple brought its third-gen Apple TV to market without the fanfare of their all-out launch events. Yet, it is an interesting product as it adds and improves some of the current features while, at the same time, deleting and reducing others. It must, however, also be said that Apple also unveiled new iPad and iPad Pro models on October 18 without the usual press conference or fanfare.

Both of the two new Apple TV models have lower pricing, with the 64GB model coming out at an MSRP of $129, $50 less than the current 32GB entry model. The step-up version with 128GB is also $50 less than the second-generation model with 64GB.

Compared to the current generation, there are some additional features that go along with the obvious memory increase. From a performance standpoint, the biggest one is the upgrade from Apple’s A12 chip to the latest A15 Bionic processor used in some of the latest iPhones.