-->
Save your FREE seat for Streaming Media Connect in November. Register Now!

Apple to Release 4K Apple TV With HDR Support, Reports Bloomberg

Article Featured Image

It's Apple rumor time. Tech publications have been buzzing that Apple will announce the iPhone 8 at an event on September 12. Yesterday, Bloomberg added that Apple will announce upgraded Apple TV and Apple Watch models at the same time.

The report cites "people familiar with the matter" and is light on details. The new Apple TV will support 4K video and include HDR support, it says. The report didn't include any information on pricing. Apple is in discussions with movie studios to get 4K versions of movies, it adds.

The Apple TV has declined in popularity in the last year: A research report released two days ago from Parks Associates said the Apple TV makes up 15 percent of streaming device ownership by U.S. households, putting it behind Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Google Chromecast. A Parks analyst suggested that Apple TV's price—it currently starts at $149 while Roku starts at $29—was largely responsible for its fall.

While Apple hasn't paid much attention to the device—it was last updated in September 2015—it's serious about succeeding with streaming video. News broke last week that Apple will spend $1 billion developing original programs, and is now in Hollywood shopping for original ideas. Perhaps those new programs will show exclusively on Apple devices, boosting the Apple TV's perceived value.

The upcoming iPhone 8 is rumored to offer facial recognition technology to unlock the phone, wireless charging, a glass body, and a larger edge-to-edge screen.

Streaming Covers
Free
for qualified subscribers
Subscribe Now Current Issue Past Issues
Related Articles

Apple TV Gets Zero Sign-On; FaceTime Gets Group Chat

What's better than single sign-on? Never signing on, at all. Also, people will be able to get up to 32 participants on a FaceTime chat starting this fall.

Samsung, Sony, LG, TCL, and Panasonic: A CES 2018 TV Wrap-Up

The living room TV was connected to the internet years ago. Now, it's getting connected to intelligent home networks full of Wi-Fi-enabled appliances.

Amazon Prime Video and Samsung Announce First Use of HDR10+

Dolby Vision isn't the only HDR game in town, although consumers might wish it was. Royalty-free HDR10+ is finally available for streaming.

Apple TV Goes 4K

Company finally catches up with Roku, hints that the new video encoder for iPhone 8 and iPhone X is HEVC

Roku Takes the Lead and Runs With It: Most Popular for Streaming

Roku and Amazon have had a successful year and increased their share of the U.S. broadband market, while Apple and Google have lost ground.

Apple HEVC Move Means Higher Encoding Costs

Hardware acceleration and field programmable gate arrays may be the answer to the rising costs of encoding for multiple codecs including H.264, H.265, VP9, and soon AV1

Is Apple Giving Up on Live TV and a Skinny Bundle Offering?

There may be peace in our time between Amazon and Apple. While that's good news for home streamers, it suggests Apple is no longer interested in creating a skinny bundle.