Apple TV’s Hardware Situation Is Fine

Mark Gurman, in his weekly Power On column:

The best scenario for Apple in TV hardware would be a cheap stick (perhaps with no physical remote — use your iPhone instead). It’s an idea that Apple marketing executives detest, but it would help the company quickly expand its presence. If consumers want more power and storage, they can opt for the current box.

At the top of the line, Apple could offer something like the new Mac mini, providing the best streaming quality and gaming options. For this exercise, let’s call these three tiers the Apple TV SE, Apple TV and Apple TV Max. It would use the same “good, better, best” strategy employed by the iPhone, Mac, iPad, AirPods, Apple Watch and even the Apple Pencil.

Neither of these suggestions makes any sense. The only interesting thing about either idea is trying to decide which one is worse.

Streaming sticks are crap, and Apple doesn’t make crap. I also think streaming sticks are fast going the way of the dodo — they were a stopgap low-cost solution for when TV sets didn’t have “smart” experiences with built-in integration for major streaming platforms. Those built-in integrations obviate the need for streaming sticks, and Apple TV is now built into TVs from all major brands, including Samsung, Sony, LG, and Vizio. That’s the Apple TV app, not the full Apple TV tvOS platform, but that serves Apple’s needs. I don’t think it’s possible to provide a full-fidelity tvOS experience via a stick-sized computer that draws power from an HDMI port, and it’s certainly not possible to do so by omitting the goddamn remote control. Arguing that Apple needs to or even ought to build a cheap TV stick today is like those dumb columns from 2009 arguing that Apple needed to make a netbook to compete against shitty $300 laptops. Apple TV is to set top boxes as the Mac is to PCs — it’s never going to get a large share of the overall market, but it dominates the high-end of the market catering to people who actually care.

As for Gurman’s high-end hardware idea, a Mac Mini starts at $600. What would be the point of connecting such hardware to your TV? A Mac Mini wouldn’t offer better streaming quality than the existing Apple TV 4K offers. 4K is 4K, and even older Apple TV hardware streams it perfectly. And while in theory an M4-powered Mac-Mini-caliber Apple TV could offer better gaming than the iPhone-13-era A15 Bionic chip in the current Apple TV 4K hardware, there are zero tvOS games today that target hardware like that, and there’d be little reason for game developers to target such an “Apple TV Pro” device because almost no one would buy one. Whatever the reasons are for gaming not being a big deal on tvOS today, the lack of a “pro” $500 or $600 hardware tier is not one of them.

I think Apple should get the entry price down to $99 (currently $129), and sooner or later they need to update the hardware, if only to support Apple Intelligence. (Perhaps to the A18 or A18 Pro next fall — the current A15 Bionic Apple TV 4K models came out one year after the chip debuted in the iPhones 13.) But the hardware story for Apple TV is fine.

★ Monday, 25 November 2024