Apple engineers not sure about the ‘bright future’ of Apple TV ecosystem: Report – Times of India

Apple has made its mark with iPhones, Apple Watch, iPad and Macs but there is one segment, its engineers are not sure about. As per a newsletter for Bloomberg by Mark Gurman, Apple’s living room hardware strategy is not very exciting and Apple engineers are “pessimistic” about Apple TV. Recently Apple discontinued the HomePod smart speaker and the HomePod mini hasn’t done a lot to excite buyers.
With cheaper set-top boxes from Amazon and Roku, there’s little hope that Apple may make it big with the existing lineup. Gurman said, “Apple engineers tell me that the company doesn’t have a strong living room hardware strategy and that there isn’t much internal optimism.”
Apple reportedly doesn’t have any major plans to introduce more products for your living room. Having said that, the tech giant is said to be working on a combined device that will include the Apple TV, HomePod and FaceTime camera. This device will be able to cater to music, videos and video calling needs. But it is not coming any time soon. “It’s developing a combined Apple TV, HomePod, and FaceTime camera home hub device for release around 2023,” he added.
Apart from upgrades to the Apple TV and HomePod mini, there isn’t much that Apple has got to offer for the time being.
In India, Apple introduced the Apple TV 4K in April 2021. The new Apple TV 4K is powered by the A12 Bionic chip that provides a significant boost in graphics performance, video decoding, and audio processing. Apple has also introduced an all-new Siri Remote with the Apple TV.
The new Apple TV 4K is available starting at Rs 18,900 while the new Siri Remote is available separately for Rs 5,800, and is compatible with the previous-generation Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD.
As for product innovation, Apple made the Siri remote more user-friendly. The new Siri Remote features a clickpad control that offers five-way navigation for better accuracy, and is also touch-enabled for the fast directional swipes. The outer ring of the clickpad supports an intuitive circular gesture that turns it into a jog control.