Apple’s iPhone 12 launch is undoubtedly its biggest announcement of the year, but 2020 isn’t over yet and neither is what we expect from Cupertino. While the
Apple’s iPhone 12 launch is undoubtedly its biggest announcement of the year, but 2020 isn’t over yet and neither is what we expect from Cupertino. While the events may be virtual these days, the new hardware headed out to Apple Stores is very much real: here are four big things we could still see before the year is through. It’s been a whole three years since Apple last updated its set-top box, with the Apple TV 4K bringing higher resolution video and a performance boost. Since then, though, even as we’ve seen tvOS updates, and new TV apps and services like Apple TV+ launch, the core hardware itself hasn’t changed. Certainly, Apple has proved it can do plenty with new software. Dolby Atmos support, for example, arrived in tvOS 12. All the same, there are clearly some areas where improvements could be made. The remote is arguably the most significant of those. Apple’s minimalistic controller just isn’t all that pleasant to use, particularly if you’re trying to focus on the screen and not stare at what buttons you might be tapping. The addition of the dedicated Siri button helped a little, but the fact that it’s still easy to confuse which way around to hold it suggests there are low-hanging ergonomic improvements Apple could make. The Apple TV box itself, though, has a wealth of chipset upgrades Apple could choose from. Inside right now is the A10X Fusion which dates back to 2017: it can do things like 2160p, HDR10, and Dolby Vision, but Apple isn’t short on faster chips with better GPUs. That could help turn Apple TV into the gaming box that the company has always seemed to want it to be. It’s in the smart home where a new Apple TV could really shine, however.
