During Apple’s press release extravaganza on Tuesday revealing the new completely redesigned iPad (10th gen.), the supercharged M2 iPad Pro, and the powerful A15 Bionic- powered thrid-generation Apple TV 4K, the venerable Apple TV HD bit the proverbial dust at the ripe old age of seven, a veritable eon in tech time.
The Apple TV HD debuted in 2015, and it was the first Apple TV to run tvOS, with its own App Store. Up until its discontinuation this week, it included a now-aging A8 chip (the one from the iPhone 6). By contrast, the new Apple TV 4K has the A15 chip found in the iPhone 13; it’s dramatically faster. The 2015 model was also the first to introduce Apple’s controversial touch-based remote, which was radically redesigned in response to user feedback in recent years.
MacDailyNews Note: This mess (left) became this much less of a mess:
At present, you can’t even find the Apple TV HD in Apple’s refurbished store, so this appears to mark the end-of-life for the non-4K Apple TV. It’s not too surprising, though; 4K TVs have been a hit. More than half of United States households had a 4K TV as of last summer, and the percentage has been growing substantially year over year.
MacDailyNews Take: The new Apple TV 4K with Siri Remote (Wi-Fi, 64GB) and the new Apple TV 4K with Siri Remote (Wi-Fi + Ethernet, 128GB) cost just $129 and $149, respectively, and offer a far superior product that’s significantly more powerful and “thinner,” too; not as tall: Apple TD HD was 1.4 inches (36 mm) (h) X 3.9 inches (99 mm) (w) X 3.9 inches (99 mm) (d) vs. Apple TV 4K (3rd generation) at 1.2 inches (30 mm) (h) x 3.66 inches (93 mm) (w) x 3.66 inches (93 mm) (d). Apple TV HD weighed 15 oz (430 g).
The new Apple TV 4K is svelte: 7.3 oz (210 g) (Wi-Fi model), 7.5 oz (210 g) (Wi-Fi + Ethernet model).
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The even older A5 version, before tvOS and third-party apps, was the thinnest (and lightest) of them all, by a lot. Apple TV HD isn’t “dead.” It runs latest tvOS and does its job of selecting/playing content on HDTV just fine. Probably lagging in the games area, but I don’t play games on my TV so don’t know. Apple probably ran out of its stockpile of A8 chips to make them; I can’t imagine A8 chips being continuously produced just to use in Apple TV HD. The $129 price for new A15 version is probably close to breakeven price, no need to make a version aimed only at customers with older/cheaper HDTV.
How ’bout dis (albeit minimalist) mess!
That old simple remote… Still works on my Apple TV HD for most things I do. If you have one from earlier Apple TV -and- also the original unpopular Siri Remote, and want is navigation with ↔️↕️ buttons. Bonus is it’s 100% IR (not combined with Bluetooth), so it can be paired along with a Siri Remote.
Tragic when Apple removed IR receivers from their Macbooks a decade ago. Those remotes were excellent for Keynote presentations, using an unreliable iPhone instead without physical buttons was a massive step down, I went back to the keyboard to change slides for 100% consistency.