Make it make cents
Perhaps the Apple TV 4K 3’s biggest con is its updated, illogical pricing. The entry-level model now costs $199 while the pricier one sells (or doesn’t) for a whopping $249—a 67 percent increase and the most expensive it’s ever been. While it’s understandable to see iPad and Mac price hikes due to the memory crisis, the set-top box is four years old and packs a five-year-old A15 Bionic chip with just 4GB of RAM. It’s neither new nor powerful enough to justify such a crazy price bump.
For comparison, Google’s TV Streamer costs just $99, and there are a ton of more affordable TV sticks from Roku, Amazon, and others that get the job done for a fraction of the price. Unlike personal computing devices, smart TVs don’t heavily revolve around essential ecosystem integrations and personal data sync. Most users exclusively rely on them to download streaming apps like YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, and Hulu. These services typically share the same main UI across different smart TV platforms and let you quickly sign in with any smartphone by simply scanning a QR code.
While nice to have, a pretty interface and the Apple ecosystem tie-in won’t be worth it for many budget-conscious iPhone users, especially when the app’s already on their other devices.
Siri-ous setbacks
In the age of AI, smart assistants are expected to be baked into all of our everyday devices. Despite costing 50 percent less than Apple TV 4K, Google’s TV Streamer has managed to port the Gemini experience, letting users control their big screens via speech, ask complex questions, and more. Amazon Fire TVs similarly offer an Alexa integration to assist viewers with various tasks.
When tvOS 27 arrives, Apple TV 4K will still ahve the old Siri.
Foundry
The latest Apple TV 4K, on the other hand, is still plagued by the outdated Siri, which can barely answer any meaningful questions or get anything done. It’s true that Apple Intelligence and the overhauled Siri AI require at least 8GB of RAM on iPhones, iPads, and Macs, but that didn’t not stop Apple from bringing Siri AI to 2023’s Apple Watch Series 9 with the S9 chip. Granted, it needs an iPhone nearby, but it’s safe to assume nearly every Apple TV 4K will also have an iPhone connected to the same network.
Furthermore, the Apple TV 4K won’t need to generate Genmoji or index emails, messages, and documents, so it shouldn’t need as much memory as an iPhone. tvOS could’ve at least adopted the more conversational Siri with world knowledge and ChatGPT integration, as it heavily relies on cloud processing anyway and isn’t locally demanding. Its omission sends the wrong message to anyone who has or may be looking to buy an Apple TV 4K.
