MLB App No Longer Available on Third-Generation Apple TV

Tuesday March 2, 2021 8:07 am PST by Joe Rossignol

Last week, the MLB app was removed from the third-generation Apple TV, with a tipster informing us that the app has been deprecated for the eight-year-old device. The MLB app now requires an Apple TV HD or Apple TV 4K.

While the MLB has not provided a reason for the app being removed, the third-generation Apple TV was released in 2012, making it quite old. A few other popular apps are being removed from the third-generation Apple TV as of this month, including YouTube and CBS All Access, the latter of which is being rebranded as Paramount+.

AirPlay remains available for streaming content from an iPhone or iPad to the third-generation Apple TV, although one Twitter user said that AirPlay was not working for the MLB app, so your mileage may vary.

MLB will begin its 2021 season on April 1, with Spring Training underway now.

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Top Rated Comments

Wowfunhappy

34 months ago

I don't watch MLB and I don't own an AppleTV—but this really bothers me on principle. The age of the device shouldn't matter in the slightest; all that matters is whether it's capable of streaming video, which it absolutely is. It has been doing it for years.

Now a bunch of older AppleTV's are going to needlessly end up in landfills.

Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)

nutmac

Can someone with some dev knowledge explain this? If tvOS is still supported on the older boxes then it seems a simple streaming app shouldn't be such a performance hog that an older box can't handle it.

3rd generation Apple TV doesn't run tvOS. It runs Apple TV Software 7.x.

Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Ah, well that explains it I guess, thanks for the knowledge.

It doesn't really though. The app existed, it worked fine.

Now would be a perfect time for new Apple TV.

Apple TV 4K is now 3.5 years old, and the prospect of replacing now-obsolete product with another aging product can be an uneasy decision.

Perhaps Apple has a big thing in store for Apple TV and thus require tvOS 15. But I certainly hope it is coming sooner than later.

Not being able to play YouTube in 4K with 50-60 frames per second or HDR is just embarrassing, as is choppy frame rate on many Apple Arcade games.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

trhoffmann

Yeah, no kidding. I was literally moving my Apple TV 4K to our downstairs TV this week so my wife could watch TSN streaming on the ATV4K in order to watch curling on the main floor of our house because our old 3rd Gen ATV doesn't have TSN on it for obvious reasons of having no app store.

Curling in 4K. Sweet.

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)