4K is the “magic” suffix that defines the latest version of Apple's Set Top Box: the black box that does not want to be just another tool for rental or purchase of movies and music but the center of the Apple universe in your home.
The first draft of this review is from the beginning of October 2017. Since then, Apple TV 4K and Apple TV fourth generation have not they have had no successors but the interface has changed, and a lot, and two new services have appeared, available from autumn 2019: Apple TV + and Apple Arcade. No news instead for Siri in Italian.
Interface, remote control and Siri that is not there (yet)
Thanks to tvOS and the strict control of application directives, the interface goes from 1080p to 4K without any problems. ema and together with the power of the A10 fusion processor makes navigation as smooth as ever even with the Siri Remote which is aesthetically pleasing but which with its symmetry and the fact that it is mostly used in a living room in the dark is easy to grasp from the wrong side.
Apple tried to solve the problem with a trick: the menu key now has a sort of embossed white ring that offers tactile confirmation that you have grabbed the remote on the right side.
Unfortunately the Siri button in Italy it works as a simple activator of the search menu with keyboard input and it is therefore impossible to give voice commands to search for an actor, a film, an album or a song as we can to do, at least for music, on iOS and macOS from Sierra onwards.
When asked about this, the Apple managers and experts who previewed Apple TV told us that the company is busily al I work to bring the Siri interface also in the Italian version but you have to clash with the mix of languages necessary to formulate the question in Italian with the subject in English as for an album title or a film with the original title.
«What we are doing – we were told – is to instruct Siri to understand the English spoken by the Italians. There are dozens of people we are using for this purpose, but it is very complicated, because there are numerous ways of pronouncing the same English word for someone who is not a native speaker or who knows English poorly, many of these ways are even far from the correct way. This, of course, is not a problem only for Italians. But we are engaged in this area very seriously and massively, even if there is no precise date we can invite you to look at “
Returning to navigation between pages and lists, this is very fluid. So fluid is the control of the position along the timeline of a film: in this the tactile feedback of the touch surface is a bit “slippery” and not very precise. Furthermore, in some applications such as AirBnB the up-down navigation of the galleries on the touch is not as intuitive and immediate as one would expect, but it is not clear whether this is an application programming defect or an Apple TV interface problem.
The remote control is equipped with a gyroscope and is therefore a convenient tool for occasional games while for more demanding arcade games it is absolutely advisable to use a Joystick or at least a silicone cover that increases a little about the grip and maneuverability of the object. (we talk about it on our page dedicated to recommended accessories). Here, however, we are faced with a “system” problem which we will discuss later.
What TV is needed?
Obviously, to make the most of the video output of the new device you need a 4K TV, possibly with HDR (currently available in the variants HDR10 or Dolby Vision as we explain on this page ) but you can also connect a 4K monitor with HDMI input and audio amplification or even a TV or a 1080P monitor but in this case you will have the best of the processor speed but not of the resolution and you could think instead of a cheaper fourth generation Apple TV (currently on sale at 159 Euros VAT included).
What cable do you need?
While any HDMI cable is sufficient for Apple TV 4th generation, for Apple TV 4K there is you need a 2.0 specification cable but don't worry about the cost, just a simple cable labeled “Hi-Speed” or “Hi-Spee” d With Ethernet ”and you can take advantage of the quality of the TV with 4K and HDR right away. In any case, it is Apple TV 4K itself that takes care of checking if the cable is compatible. Apple sells on the Apple Store and recommends a Belkin cable, but we have carried out the test without problems with a normal Amazon Basics cable
The package
We talked about TV and cable because the first is obviously absent from the package while you would expect to find the second inside : unfortunately it is not included in Apple's offer and you will have to buy it separately with an outlay ranging from 8-9 Euros on Amazon (with the specifications we were talking about above) to 40 Euros for the Belkin on Apple Store.
In the box we find, as shown in our unpacking video, the black Apple TV box which now has ventilation openings on the bottom and three sockets on the back with Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI and power socket in Philips standard at “8”. About the fan and the reasons why it exists, we told in the article in which we presented the disassembly of the Apple TV. The processor is very powerful and needs cooling to be fully functional and for a long time, as in the case of playing long films in 4K.
The USB-C of the model has disappeared previous that allowed the direct connection to the Mac and the recording of what happened on the screen: this is probably due to the danger that the system could somehow allow the copying of the contents or the impossibility of managing the stream in 4K through the models of older Macs.
Easy or manual installation
When switching on, Apple TV asks you if you want to perform a “manual” configuration or the most effective and simple automatic configuration: just set your iPhone or iPad on the wireless network that the Apple TV will access and this will get all access to the network and the Apple ID passwords needed to get it into your Apple ecosystem. The operation takes only a few minutes and avoids entering codes and letters with the virtual keyboard available on the screen.
If you do not have an iPhone or iPad ready or want to use a different account (perhaps for an ATV to be installed in the office) you can proceed with manual installation.
How Apple works TV with HDR standards?
Once Apple TV has been set, try to understand what kind of TV it is dealing with and if it can activate the HDR option … here too everything takes place automatically and in a few seconds. The LG OLED TV we are testing it with is recognized and the HDR mode activated regamxnet. Even with a Samsung from a couple of years ago, no problem recognizing the TV's specifications.
There is an observation to make on this aspect and it generally concerns all the performance of the device. in the video field, conditioned by Apple's choice to manage HDR and all content, even 1080p, with a frequency of 60Hz and 4K resolution. Everything that passes from Apple TV 4k is therefore “upscaled” to the highest possible frequency and resolution, also transforming, for example, the Dolby Vision content that should be managed on LG 2016 OLEDs at 30Hz into a “customized” HDR by Apple at 60Hz.
Apple claims that this choice avoids problems of flickering on the interface and on the games but the most correct behavior would be to “switch” at the right frequency according to the HDR mode of the film and the TV since it is compatible with both HDR10 and Dolby Vision: in the end the user does not know really if the light balance is exactly what the director wanted or the one who calculated Apple.
If we go to see the video settings we find that in reality you can manually set the correct ones for the TV and the movie we are going to play (for example Dolby Vision at 30Hz) but this is definitely not within everyone's reach users and is still inconvenient even for videophiles. .
In addition there is another notable lack: unless you find a particular trick, the possibility of knowing the resolution and the current bitrate of the video streaming does not exist and this prevents check how effective the internal memory “caching” capacity is.
Minimum speed and streaming performance in our test
While the quality of the photos we send to the TV is unquestionably of a high standard (but the internal screen of the iPhone 8 has such a high tonal range that not even the OLED can keep up with it as it enhances the highlights) the question that haunts the possible user of a streaming service (Apple TV does not save rented or purchased movies in the internal memory) is: my inbound bandwidth and the internal home network will be able to handle the 15Mbps stream that Apple requires for a optimal viewing of 4K content? And when the speed is lower will I have unbearable stops when loading the film?
We did a test with an 8Mbps and a 20Mbps Wil-fi network and we must say that while with the first we did not have any hitch with the second there were no interruptions or waits for caching: similarly to what happens for Netflix, streaming seems “adaptive”: in practice when the bandwidth is low and the cache is not filled the resolution simply goes down and the system tries to fix it with an upscaling.
For our 8Mpbps test we bought Kingsman: Secret Service, a movie for two hours which has been among the reference BlueRay 4K of the past months and that even if it is a 4K upscaled FullHD matrix it has a truly remarkable quality in the management of lights and a low level of artifacts.
We must say that only in two or three scenes the level here litative was evidently below full HD while in a good 5% of the film it oscillated between full HD and 4K: in any case, even at this “reduced” speed the film was completely enjoyable. Don't make it a rule anyway: to enjoy a 4K movie at its best and at the most, the 15Bps rule is absolutely to be followed and if you can't have them at home or on your Apple TV 4K station it's not worth buying it for this primary purpose. . The quality of a film like Logan is also excellent, with details and contrasts in the most evocative scenes that make the dark atmosphere of the subject.
Bandwidth requirements for 4K are a limitation of Apple TV though. THE nfinity and Chili, two pioneers in this field, have much lower requests: 10 Mbps for Infinity and even 8 Mbps for Chili, even if it is true that Netflix has much higher requests (25 Mpbs)
And audiophiles? Dolby Atmos has also arrived
If you are among the insatiable or simply among home cinema enthusiasts who are not satisfied with a small 5.1 system, even here you will have to suffer a little: Apple TV 4K does not go beyond 5.1 and is not compatible with Dolby Atmos although Apple has promised it will bring this option to its set top box in the near future.
Update: Apple supports Dolby Atmos starting from the tvOS versions available from September 2018.
What is the offer available in Italy?
Apple TV comes with a decent choice of 4K titles for rental and sale including some titles that have recently come out of theaters: the purchase price of many of these in the 4K version is around 13.99 euros; if we make a comparison with the titles of Google Play we see that the price for a 4K title is the same as a Full HD movie of the competition. For example, for the rental we have a price of 4.99 Euro for Wonder Woman in 4k against the cost of 4.90 for the HD of Sky (for NON Cinema subscribers who instead have a discount of 1 euro). In these hours one of the most beautiful Marvel movies of recent times, “Logan”, is offered for 9.99 euros for the purchase of the 4K HDR version.
It must be said that Apple makes a good gift to its regular customers: all the films previously purchased in HD version will be available at no extra charge in 4K version when this becomes available in the Cupertino film warehouse with one important exception: the Disney films (but also Marvel and Lucas Art that are part of the group) are not available at the moment in 4K .
As regards streaming with third-party applications, Netflix is immediately present and the Amazon Prime Video app will arrive, probably by the end of the year. As already mentioned, if your TV already has dedicated applications it is better to use them to better manage HDR but Apple TV is able to fill the “gaps” of less equipped TVs or 4K monitors with audio.
For Youtube users there is a serious problem as 4K movies use a proprietary compression movie and Apple TV is unable to handle them and only upscaling the 1080p version. Why Apple has decided not to support Google's constant and free V9 Codec is a mystery. For the same reason, lack of this Codec, even Safari on Mac does not support YouTube 4K
Games with the power of A10X Fusion
The Apple TV 4K has a very powerful processor, at least when compared to the direct competition. This is the well-known, because already seen on the iPad Pro, A10X Fusion. This chip has high performance that Apple would not want to exploit only to play 4K video or manage the interface more smoothly, but to induce developers to invest in the platform to make it attractive as a “casual” console.
During the presentation to the European press of the Apple TV 4K we got to see a demo of two new games that are about to arrive on the App Store: Sky , developed by ThatGameCompany, the studio behind Journey, which will be, at least initially, an exclusive for the iOS and Apple TV world, and Inside , created by PlayDead, the developer of Limbo.
Sky, also demonstrated during Tim Cook's Keynote, is an ad free exploration, of a fantasy setting that for colors, fluidity and 3D rendering, has nothing to envy to platform games of the same category.
The same must be said of Inside, not an absolute novelty (is disponi for a long time for consoles) which did not seem very different to us, indeed it seemed identical, to how it appears on PlayStation. While we could not use the two games directly, the demonstration was convincing and confirms Apple's contention that the power of the Apple TV is high enough to meet the needs of developers who want to create sophisticated and graphically complex games.
However, this only proves that there are solid hardware foundations in Apple TV 4K, the answer to whether this alone can trigger a real developer rush however must be left unresolved. The fact that for now we have only seen two developers interested in creating native titles for Apple TV 4K, inexorably connects to the never materialized statements, by Eddie Cue, who had announced magnificent fortunes for the Apple TV in the field of games. This has happened for numerous reasons, some of which are intersected with Apple's culture in the industry and some dependent on the Apple system.
For example, the Apple TV continues to lack a controller inside the box. The remote control with its 6 buttons offers basic functions, and ergonomics, as mentioned above, questionable; to incentivize gamers, all leading observers and industry experts say, it would take a dedicated controller that Apple doesn't provide in the box. And that doesn't change with the Apple TV 4K. In addition, hardware developers are poorly motivated to embark on the engineering of input devices in the face of an interest yet to be demonstrated by software developers.
Speaking of Apple TV 4K it is good point out that at the moment there are no games available that are native to 4K or 4K HDR and the fact that the Apple TV 4K upscales all to 4K automatically, could be a disadvantage from this point of view, as developers may have less urgency to create native games. It is also unclear how much work is required to make the games native and whether it is, therefore, economically viable to convert and optimize games for the new Apple TV.
New Fall 2019: Apple Arcade is coming!
Apple's arrival Arcade with the availability of 100 and more first-level games with a monthly subscription of 4.99 euros that can be canceled at any time has benefited Apple most of all on TV and Mac: thanks to the easy portability between an Apple platform and the 'other introduced with iOS 13 and tvOS 13 now it is easier to manage games on different formats of screens and interfaces (think of the diversity of the iPad and iPhone touch screen, management with the mouse on Mac and remote control / controller of Apple TV) . The lineup of games is constantly increasing and makes Apple TV and Apple TV 4K even more interesting as a gaming platform: even if we are not at the levels of a PS4 and an XBox, there are many fun titles and you can also use a controller of the two. Consoles mentioned above as well as third-party Joysticks (you can find references in our guide to the best accessories for Apple TV).
In any case, for all the details on the games available on Apple Arcade, we refer you to to our dedicated section.
Apps for streaming movies and your content
In Apple TV review second part let's start again from the App: among the many designed specifically for the device, those for streaming with Netflix are obviously the masters (for original and third-party films with monthly subscription of course now with HDR and 4K) and RaiPlay to review the broadcasts of the Rai on a deferred basis. They are missing from the Apple Infinity and above all Amazon Prime which has considerable contents in 4K such as the series produced directly and which should arrive by the end of the year.
Then there is access a Vevo , a Vimeo to the specialized channels of RedBull, Artè and producers of original or thematic video content.
From the fourth generation onwards, Apple TV has also opened the doors to other streaming software and there is no shortage of Apps such as Plex able to connect to your archives hosted on the network on NAS: it is in fact impossible to exploit the memory internal to host archives other than Apps.
We have already talked about the first part of the games but on Apple TV we also find fitness applications, kitchen guides and lots of original education software or transpositions from app for iPhone and iPad.
Unfortunately there is no internet browser but aq his is remedied by mirroring from your iPhone or iPad with Airplay (which we will see below).
An option that appears in the latest version of tvOS is to keep the screens “synchronized” access to different Apple TVs that you may have at home: you can switch between them without difficulty in finding the apps always in the same location.
New Fall 2019: Apple TV +
Apple until the end of 2019 has always directly sold or rented films through its platform but has never produced and distributed streaming content of its own creation: things have changed with the arrival of Apple TV +, a streaming platform that uses Apple TV 4 and 4K (the hardware) as the main distribution system but does not disdain smart TV apps such as those of Samsung or Amazon Fire TV. This “universality” detracts a little from the value of Apple TV (hardware) compared to other distribution vehicles but Apple needs a return on investment in production of series and special films. We recommend that you take a look at our special section on Apple TV + to know all the news about it.
Within this review we can tell you that the new “channel” is perfectly integrated in the interface and that perhaps it remains very easy to switch from streaming content for which you are subscribed (the fee is € 4.99 per month with the first month free) to paid ones (films and series available for purchase or rental).
Access to the Apple ecosystem: we read the contents of Mac, iPhone, iPad, iCloud
All the audio, photo and video archives of the Apple ecosystem can be consulted from Apple TV whether they reside on iCloud or in the memory of your Mac which is accessed from a special “Computer” section: if you have classified your archives with iTunes you will have access to all the songs converted from your CDs or purchased permanently on the iTunes Store sorted by artist, album etc. And if you are subscribed to Apple Music you will have access from your home TV to all the songs in the Apple catalog, to the dedicated radio and to Apple's proposals tailored to your tastes but above all to the ability to make real journeys in the history of more recent or dated music by listening to good quality songs.
For photos, access is obviously to those kept iCloud and also to albums but there are also applications to access the Flickr galleries or lesser known photo collection systems.
Airplay: we send content to Apple TV
Airplay which is not only a screen mirroring function of iPhone, iPad and even Mac but also a input channel of information at the highest resolution possible on your TV and so you can have your home TV as an “extension” (and not mirroring) of your Mac or as the main screen for some games while the iPhone and iPad one works as a system
Let's not forget that if you have an amplification system connected to your TV, you can use Apple TV as a bridge to transmit the music you have on iPhone directly to the system and also simultaneously with other Airplay speakers creating a multiroom system that can be easily controlled from Mac (through iTunes). With the arrival of Airplay 2 perhaps this control could improve but already today we can exploit it for a considerable series of options.
By the way, for some time now Airplay also has direct transmission capability and therefore no intermediate router is required to bridge between Apple TV and your device. v or iOS: you can then use them for projection sessions with Apple TV near the projector or TV and your iPhone or iPad (or even Mac) to transmit the slides wirelessly to the screen.
Apple TV also has a login screen that you can show to those who frequent your office to provide connection information even to a possible internal network for guests and you can also protect the mirroring with a password that can prevent intrusions and malicious pranks.
All these features are also available on 4th generation Apple TV but Apple TV 4K adds superior quality and resolution to basic capabilities.
Apple's home automation bridge between your home and the world: Homekit
As we saw just a year ago, Apple uses Apple TV as a bridge to external devices you have at home with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technology: for Wi-Fi you just need a good router that covers the house while for Bluetooth, the device must be within a range of about 9 meters. If you have a large house and many Bluetooth devices, you may need to install more than one Apple TV but they don't have to be all 4K or 64GB, the fourth generation model may be enough to complete the network, which has the advantage of having a reduced price afterwards. the release of the 4K model.
Apple has not yet thought about creating a “Home” application for Apple TV. While in Anglo-Saxon countries you can get control using Siri voice commands, in Italy the function has not yet been implemented: on the other hand, any application that uses Apple developer support is able to access, with your permission, to the data of your home and it is on this assumption that the developer of the Looming App has made it possible to control both your favorite scenes and homekit cameras by remote control: in our case we tested it with a D-Link Omna of which you will see the review on these pages in the next few hours. It's not a lot but at least we can enjoy activating the scenes in the TV area and turning off the lights in the rest of the house or the luxury of checking what happens in another area of the house.
The App for home automation and surveillance
If you don't have Homekit devices but simply cameras or thermostats connected to Wi-Fi, there are a lot of applications that allow you to use your Apple TV as a home surveillance or access to external cameras connected to the network. There is also an application created by an Italian developer that allows you to use any iPhone or iPad with iOS 9 (from iPhone 4S, iPad 2 or iPod touch 4G) up as a “camera” to control the house through its shooting equipment. .
We found both those to manage the camera Nokia Home very convenient that the fileless system Arlo of Netgear but more and more companies like Nest for example allow you to integrate safety controls and temperature regulation on Homekit.
Siri Remote, programmable remotes, Joystick and control built into iOS 11
It is hidden from view but in the front of Apple TV there is in addition to the white LED that signals its operation, also an IR receiver that allows any remote control with this feature to control navigation in the interface as it happened in versions up to the third generation.
Programming is very simple of the “point and record” type and you can also manage the fast forward functions, convenient for movies and music. Apple has always provided iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users with an application for remote control of Apple TV via Wi-Fi but with iOS 11 this is directly included in the Control Center options: access is immediate and can solve the problem of finding the remote control which, small as it is, ends up more or less always in the folds of the sofa.
Finally, let's not forget that the Apple TV remote control can be configured to remove from stop the Apple set top box and turn on the TV at the same time by adjusting the volume: in practice if your favorite contents all pass through the Apple world you will no longer have to take the TV remote control in your hand or you can program the TV remote control to not have to use the Siri Remote except for games.
Finally we must not forget the game controllers: none are supplied but Apple recommends and sells the complete SteelSeries in its stores Nimbus that also found in our list of recommended Apple TV accessories.
What is missing?
In Italy the control through Siri is missing (as of November 2018) as we said in the section dedicated to Homekit and it is a real shame since Apple was the first to arrive in our country for the integration between voice commands and home automation without strange clashes. Unfortunately, the need to integrate research on film and music stores for purchase is blocking the implementation of Siri for Apple TV in our country on this side.
If we have to refer to the package let's say that an HDMI cable is missing: apple forces you to buy it separately but the investment is not so exaggerated: just a simple cable with the words High Speed produced in recent years and we will be sure that all the 4K HDR signal will be managed without problems too thanks to the test that Apple TV does on the connection. For additional accessories, please refer to the Cyberlayman article prepared a few months ago for the previous generation of Apple TV and still very valid since the form factor and basic accessories are the same as the previous model.
Conclusions
For the videophile who has at his disposal a recent Smart TV equipped with 4K with HDR or Dolby Vision capabilities or better yet an OLED TV, Apple TV is an object, thanks to the recent updates completed in September 2018 on HDR and Dolby Atmos management, fully managed.
The lack of top audio modes will also be a disappointment for videophiles who for the moment cannot have Dolby Atmos (but Apple promises it will come) but will have to “settle” for 5.1 sound.
Nor should it be forgotten that for some reason (be it political or technical, since we are talking about a service from Google and Google technologies) Apple TV 4K does not support the major source of video. 4K video to the world, aka YouTube. This is an important gap and a very serious problem, theoretically solvable, but which until and if there is no software upgrade, could be a disincentive factor to buy from the general public.
As for games, even if the possibility of direct recording on the Mac has disappeared, which perhaps could have been useful for some Youtubers, the gain obtained with the presence of the A10 Fusion processor of iPad Pro and the use of Metal leads to results from a small console that deserves the upgrade from the small remote control supplied to a more complete Joystick; this might not turn the Apple TV 4K into an overnight console, but it could improve its appeal as a gaming platform, which today, despite Apple's commendable efforts, is far from being.
Under these two aspects Apple TV has to fight both with consoles like PS4 and X BOX One that are born for games but that can turn into excellent tools for streaming and especially with “native” TV applications more recent which, although not equipped with a large cache, adapt more easily to the different configurations of the original material.
However, we must not forget that first of all Apple TV is a platform for Apple users which focuses on Apple services. From this point of view, the fact that it easily brings to everyone the 4K iTunes movies whose cost is the lowest we have ever seen on the market, is an important gateway to popularizing this video format. In addition it is a tool, thanks to the simple, fluid and intuitive interface, truly within everyone's reach, which erases the complications and question marks that inevitably arise when it comes to complex and arcane issues like 4K and HDR, as well as being a complete system for the Apple ecosystem, from games to music.
The most important aspect to consider in the (non) final judgment of the Apple TV 4K is that it is a product destined to evolve also through constant software updates and that Apple now seems to have abandoned the net so dear to Jobs who called it “a hobby” and therefore is also doing seriously in the power of attorney and creating content.
Finally, if you have a minimum of interest in home automation and use Cupertino devices, it is an excellent way to expand the “control outside your home”. All these considerations are also valid for the basic model (fourth generation still on sale in the 32 GB model at 159 Euro) but the new Apple TV 4K adds with the extra of a higher price even more power for games and video processing and a Ultra-high resolution output to keep up with increasingly easy-to-find content.
At this point and in conclusion the real limitation of Apple TV 4K is the price of the hardware if you take it as a simple device for video. 200 euros is not much in itself, especially if you consider that those who buy it will have already thought they can invest 1000 euros (at least) in a K4 HDR TV and probably 1000 euros in an Apple phone and 2000 (at least) in an Apple laptop. , but they are compared to the rest of the market of competitors who, although of lower quality, offer more opportunities to access 4K content, starting with YouTube. Not to mention that, excluding iTunes, all TVs today give practically the same opportunities to see services such as Netflix and Amazon; indeed some services such as Infinity, a leader in Italy, have no application for Apple TV, but are available on all TVs
[usrlist Design:4.0 Facilità-d’uso:5.0 Prestazioni:3.0 Qualità/Prezzo:3]
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Cons :
Retail price Apple TV 4K 64 GB for 219 Euros (including VAT), Euros Apple TV 4K 32 GB for 199 Euros (VAT included), Apple TV 32 GB for 159 Euro (VAT Included) on the Apple Store.
