“The Apple TV is an incredibly relevant device today,” Anand Lal Shimpi writes for AnandTech. “Apple famously refers to the Apple TV as a hobby, but I view it as more of an experiment. A test for the infrastructure, the delivery mechanism and a test of how to work with content companies. Long term if the Apple TV is to become something much more than it is, it’ll have to be more aggressive in delivering content, but for now it exists as a very successful experiment.”

“Apple shipped five million Apple TVs last year. That’s $495M in revenue for the year just from the Apple TV. That’s not a lot of money for Apple, but it’s a business of considerable size,” Lal Shimpi writes. “Apple still refers to this new Apple TV as a 3rd generation platform, and it doesn’t introduce any new features, but it does carry a different model string. The small increment in model gives you an indication of the magnitude of change here. No new functionality is added, but the device just gets cheaper for Apple to make. How Apple got there is particularly interesting.”

Lal Shimpi writes, “To truly appreciate what’s new about A1469 however, you have to dive inside.”

Much more in the full article – recommended – here.