作者:Ryan Christoffel
Apple is reportedly developing a new Apple TV 4K device that will launch later this year. While I wasn’t pining for an upgrade before, Amazon’s new demo of Alexa+ features changed that. It showed me just how great an Apple TV 4K upgrade with Apple Intelligence could be.
Earlier today, Amazon unveiled its long-in-the-works Alexa+ upgrade. The new AI-infused version of the popular Alexa assistant can do an awful lot. But I was especially intrigued by its TV-related features.
Essentially, these three AI capabilities boil down to:
All three of these capabilities would be fantastic in a new Apple TV 4K with Apple Intelligence.
So far we don’t know a whole lot about the upcoming Apple TV revision, but hardware upgrades to bolster AI support seem like a given.
Some may wonder: why would AI features need to be tied to new Apple TV 4K hardware? Couldn’t Apple add AI through a software update, like they’re doing with Vision Pro?
The problem is, to this point all Apple Intelligence support has been tied to an A17 Pro chip at minimum, with at least 8GB of RAM.
Apple’s most recent Apple TV 4K hardware launched in 2022 and has an A15 chip and 4GB of RAM. That’s significantly underpowered for what modern AI features demand.
Is it possible Apple could find a way to support a subset of AI features in current hardware? Perhaps, but it seems highly unlikely.
For years it’s felt like the Apple TV 4K was actually overpowered for a streaming box, but that’s about to change.
Just as Apple Intelligence has spurred big hardware changes across the iPhone, iPad, and Mac lineups, expect to see the same with the new Apple TV 4K this fall.
Would you buy a new Apple TV 4K to get Apple Intelligence support? Let us know in the comments.
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