Apple this week unveiled the sixth-generation Apple TV, an updated Apple TV 4K with an A12 Bionic processor, support for high frame rate HDR, HDMI 2.1, and Wi-Fi 6. During the presentation, the company demonstrated a new feature that works with your iPhone’s camera to color balance (calibrate) the Apple TV with your television. The good news is that this new feature also works with older Apple TV models, too!
This feature is part of tvOS 14.5, which will be available for Apple TV HD (2015) and later “early next week,” according to Apple. The company describes this new option as a way to compensate for the poor native color calibration of some TVs, which are not always accurate. tvOS uses the iPhone’s sensors to adjust the colors displayed in the operating system, so you don’t have to manually adjust the colors on your TV.
To get started, you must have an iPhone with Face ID and an Apple TV running the latest version of the operating system — iOS 14.5 and tvOS 14.5. It’s worth noting that color balancing is not available for TVs with Dolby Vision enabled, since the technology already provides its own color calibration profile.
MacDailyNews Take: This is great new for those of us with Apple TV HD (4th generation) and/or Apple TV 4K (5th generation) units.
Of course, the Apple TV model must be capable of running tvOS 14.x, so the following Apple TV models are unsupported:
• Apple TV (1st generation, released January 9, 2007)
• Apple TV (2nd generation, released September 1, 2010)
• Apple TV (3rd generation, released March 7, 2012)
