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First Evidence of Fifth-Generation Apple TV and tvOS 11 Possibly Spotted in Developer Logs

Thursday March 16, 2017 9:36 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

Just one month after Bloomberg reported that Apple is testing a new Apple TV capable of streaming high-resolution 4K video, which it said is codenamed "J105" and could launch as soon as this year, the first evidence of the rumored fifth-generation streaming box may have surfaced in developer logs.

Firi Games, the developers behind arcade games Phoenix HD and Phoenix II, told us they have seen a single device identified as "AppleTV6,2" and running "tvOS 11.0" connect to Phoenix HD for Apple TV from the United States in its logs. The IP address falls within a range linked to Apple's headquarters in Cupertino.

The current Apple TV has a model identifier of AppleTV5,3, and Apple TV6,2 does not correspond with any released model.

While the details could be faked, similar evidence of an iPhone 5s running iOS 7 showed up in January 2013, around nine months before the device was announced, and the timeline is appropriate if Apple is indeed testing a new Apple TV. The current Apple TV, the first to run tvOS, launched in October 2015.

No other details surrounding a fifth-generation Apple TV are known at this point. In December 2015, hit-or-miss Taiwanese website DigiTimes, citing supply chain sources, claimed the next-generation Apple TV would feature a new CPU with dramatically improved performance, but that report has yet to materialize.

Last quarter, Apple financial chief Luca Maestri said Apple TV sales declined compared to the year-ago quarter, when the fourth-generation model launched. The product still remains something of a hobby for Apple, which reportedly shelved its rumored streaming TV service and only has its "toe in the water" with original content.

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Top Rated Comments

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thisisnotmyname

31 months ago

Nice, I know the Apple TV gets a lot of hate around here but I really like the ones I have.

Rating: 26 Votes

mcfrazieriv

31 months ago

PLEASE, TIM COOK, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD... MAKE THIS 4K.

Rating: 18 Votes

camnchar

31 months ago

Some day Apple will, hopefully, come to learn that crippled products are not in Apple's best interest. Crippled products allow the competition to offer the same product for much less cost.

Amen. It's become harder and harder to evangelize Apple under Tim Cook because he bases decisions on the next upgrade cycle: "If I offer 32gb base storage now, how can I upsell the user next time? If I offer 4K Apple TV now, what could possibly be the 'next big thing' next time?"

Cook intentionally cripples products now so that he can sell the next one down the line, and that's been obvious for years. So what we have now, and for the foreseeable future, is a hobbled Apple whose bottom line is more important than making great products -- exactly what Jobs hated about other tech companies and feared would happen to Apple.

Rating: 11 Votes

BlandUsername

31 months ago

I think it has earned both respect and scorn. What it does it does well, What it doesn't do, it does at twice what the price the unit should be. :(

Rating: 11 Votes

oneMadRssn

31 months ago

We've been a predominantly Apple household for the last 10 years and I've owned Apple TVs since the original. But over the past couple years, the Apple TV lost it's luster and fell far behind the competition, so I've since moved onto Chromecasts, FireTVs, and now an Nvidia Shield TV unit. The only advantage the Apple TV offers is access to iTunes content, something I stopped purchasing years ago do to Apple's draconian restrictions. No Amazon content, no Google Play content on the Apple TV either---content I can access on pretty much every other device made today. The Shield TV and Fire TVs are such far more capable devices, I can't see Apple including anything in a new Apple TV that would entice me back.

The thing that always makes me return is the ease-of-use. A total technophobe can pickup the AppleTV remote and have it figured out pretty quick. That is not the case with any others. Chromecast requires the use of a smartphone, AndroidTV is a bit too complex and cumbersome. FireTV comes close, but isn't quite as polished and smooth as tvOS. At the end of the day, I'll choose the easier to use option every time.

Rating: 8 Votes