Ok, so we knew the chances of a new Apple TV 4K being announced during Apple's 2023 iPhone event were slim, but I'm disappointed every time an Apple event comes and goes and there's no new Apple TV device, simply because I flipping love the Apple TV 4K.
But that sort of touches on the issue, doesn't it? I love the Apple TV 4K not simply because it's a great product (that also fits squarely into my AV wheelhouse), but because it's vastly superior to all of its rivals.
In fact, it barely has any real rivals: it's in a different league to the likes of an Amazon Fire TV Stick and Chromecast with Google TV, and even the Amazon Fire TV Cube, which is in theory an Apple TV 4K challenger, falls well short of the mark. In fact, let's face it, there's a strong argument that the original Apple TV 4K is still better than every non-Apple video streamer.
So, not only is it not a huge surprise that Apple didn't announce a new Apple TV 4K during an event primarily dedicated to the iPhone 15, but until the current Apple TV 4K has a serious challenger, why would Apple announce a new model?
Actually, there is one, rather nerdy reason that it might: AV1. This is a next-generation video codec that can deliver higher-quality streamed video and sound quality through more advanced compression, and Apple has just announced that the iPhone 15 Pro has hardware decoding of AV1 built in. That's surely reason enough for Apple to produce a new Apple TV 4K? I'd like some new innovations, too, of course (a smaller, neater design would be nice), but I'll take what I can get.
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