At a recent conference, WSJDLive, Tim cook officially announced that pre-orders for new Apple TV will be opened on October 26. In a related development, many users the consoles of previous generations asked a reasonable question: and whether to buy a new product? The answer, as always, lies on the surface.
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Apple TV 3G, presents far in 2012, did not sink into oblivion, and remained on sale for $69. A sort of budget option for those who are not interested in Siri Remote and play on the set top box. In turn, the Apple TV 4 will be distributed at a price of $149 for a model with 32 GB of internal memory and $199 for 64 GB version.
App Store
Perhaps the most significant difference between the old and new generations of consoles is to have your own App Store for tvOS. As stated in Apple, apps will significantly extend the functionality of Apple TV. From now on owners will be available live TV channels and different streaming video services, including domestic: Apple in talks with representatives of the Russian video services ivi.ru, Okko, Amediateka and others. In addition, it is expected that the games will attract a much larger audience of users.
Apple TV Remote
Rethought the console and got a new remote control called the Apple TV Remote with built-in microphones and touch panel. With it you can control the device through voice commands and the touchscreen allows you to more comfortably navigate in the menu. Moreover, the remote can be turned into a makeshift controller, which is now simply necessary.
Universal search and Siri
Apple TV 4 generation enables a multiplatform search by many third-party services and applications, including iTunes, Netflix and Hulu. Thanks to Siri, the user can know in what year this or that film, rewind playback forward or backward, to clarify the last spoken by the actor phrase, and much more.
Resolution
Despite the fact that the technical ability to support 4K (2160p) at a new set-top box is switched off at the software level. Therefore, in this case between the third and fourth generation parity. Both consoles support Full HD 1080p.
Frame rate and audio channels
As for max fps, then Apple TV 4 can boast of widespread support for 60 fps now. Among the supported audio formats are HE-AAC (V1), AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV, Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital Plus 7.1.
Apple TV 3G plays videos with a cutoff frequency of 30 frames/sec. But with the audio channels, the situation is approximately similar, except for the lack of support with 7.1-channel sound. But it has optical audio output.
Hardware
Another significant difference between the two generations of consoles can be called the computational power of the processor. So, the Apple TV 4 is equipped with a 64-bit chip Apple A8, and the third model is content outdated in all senses of the 32-bit A5. However, it should be noted that A5 is still perfectly copes with all tasks, but the extensive functionality of the new consoles has been very demanding.
Interfaces
In this case, no surprises, but some differences still exist. For Apple TV 4 declared support for networks wifi format 802.11 ac (MIMO), and Gigabit Ethernet. In addition, the manufacturer has equipped the console 2015 model year infrared port, HDMI, Bluetooth 4.0 and USB-C, but the latter is only used for servicing.
Apple TV 3 is equipped with an old version of HDMI, optical audio output (which is not the novelty), as well as Wi-Fi 802.11 n, Ethernet, Bluetooth 4.0 and Micro-USB.
Interestingly, the new Apple TV does not support the connection of external keyboards, with what copes predecessor. In addition, the lack of an optical output can have a negative impact on interest in buying music lovers and lovers of crystal clear sound.
What to choose?
Perhaps Apple TV previous generation could buy those (if you haven’t already done so), to whom fundamentally not a presence in the console the built-in app store, games and all kinds of “bells and whistles” in the form of Siri and universal search. These users play multimedia content from local media and streaming content from iPhone and iPad.
The novelty is designed for those who are interested in the idea with apps and games on Apple TV voice assistant, a new more convenient with a remote control and audio format 7.1. The only disadvantage of Apple TV 4 for Russian users is the lack of support for Siri and, as a consequence, all the advantages of voice control.
