Citing unnamed “sources familiar with the company’s plans,” a new report claims that Apple’s long-awaited Apple TV revamp is finally about to appear, with the company allegedly planning to show off the new device at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference this June. According to the report, the set-top box would see an increase of storage, its own dedicated App Store and SDK, a revised interface, and more.
The Buzzfeed report gathers together much of what has previously been conjectured about any upgrade to Apple TV alongside some previously-documented facts, notably Apple’s plans to have Apple TV serve as a kind of HomeKit “hub” for remote interaction with HomeKit-based devices. Despite the claim of insider information, there is nothing new revealed or confirmed.
It has long been expected that a future Apple TV revamp would include the ability to operate selected iOS apps, particularly as Apple TV has been running a variant of iOS for several years now. The recently-reported “Apple planning an Internet-based TV package” story is mentioned but not confirmed, and the idea that Siri will be used to better control the currently-awkward navigation system is nothing new either.
The report does claim that storage on the device will be dramatically increased, and the processor updated to the latest A8 chip, but these again come off as educated guesses rather than confirmations, with a notable complete lack of quotes from the “sources” and a heavy reliance on previous reporting done by the Wall Street Journal, which itself does not have a stellar track record on Apple reporting.
The article paints a picture of the revamped Apple TV has a central hub for home-based infotainment — pretty much the function the device serves now — with the addition of voice-based (instead of text-based) navigation and functioning as a HomeKit traffic cop that will receive commands from remote apps and pass them along to smart devices, rather than each individual device having to use up IP addresses connecting to the Internet independently.
How these planned changes will change the prominence of Apple TV in the company’s lineup, or whether it will offer anything that competitors would have difficulty matching, depends heavily on the alleged plan to offer its own set of Internet-based TV services that don’t require a cable company subscription. Currently, the company works primarily with cable providers, but recently announced it would offer HBO Now, an independent streaming service, as an exclusive for the next three months to buyers and owners of the current Apple TV model, which also saw a price cut to make it more competitive.
