Of all the streaming boxes available in South Africa, the Apple TV 4K feels the most alien. Sure, it’ll watch Stranger Things as well as the rest, but the lack of an Android soul can, ironically, feel a bit disconcerting. If the talk traversing the grapevine has an ounce of truth, the Apple TV may become even stranger.
Seeing as it’s been four years since the last release, the Apple TV 4K (3rd Gen) is in desperate need of a re-up. Apple will likely give the A15 chip the boot, and instead favour the A17 Pro. You might think that overkill, being the chip that powered the iPhone 15 Pro, but it may just be necessary to power whatever else Apple has in store.
Giving Apple (TV) sentience
A new-old chip would certainly help Apple’s little streamer get its smarts up. Way up. It’s about the only way to cram Apple Intelligence (AI) into this black box, anyway. That, if you haven’t followed Google’s playbook, will enable the Apple TV 4K to do things it previously couldn’t — like chatting to Siri, as naturally as possible.
What you’d ask Siri is up to the user. You might pause a movie to ask who the actor in a film or show is, instead of hovering over IMDb as a normal person would. Siri’s supposed omniscience would theoretically extend across all of the streamer’s apps, rather than being limited to just Netflix or Disney. If that sounds a little outside of Siri’s expertise, it is. The rumour reckons the box will only release after Google’s done all the hard work.
That likely means we’ll only see Apple’s next take on the TV box sometime after September this year, when iOS 27 gets its start. If you’ve got enough smart home tech, there’s a chance your Apple TV could become a hub to control it all. Making that all a little easier is the reported addition of Apple’s N1 network chip.
Read More: Apple turns 50, and it’s still thinking different
There’s more speculation that the next-gen Apple TV will introduce a camera to its black plastic body (which, incidentally, won’t see a redesign). That could make FaceTime much simpler, as the current iteration requires an iPhone to serve as a camera. Whether you want Apple to stick another camera in your home…
In terms of updates we actually care about in a TV box, it seems on track to introduce Dolby improvements. Enhanced black detail, for example, can provide greater clarity during darker scenes without compromising quality. It’s also set to add optimisations for sports and fast-moving content, specifically aiming to improve motion handling and clarity.
What it’ll cost if that September 2026 date is real, we couldn’t tell you. Our hopes aren’t high, seeing as the 2022 Apple TV 4K still demands a fairly high R3,000+ price in the big ’26. We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?
