Apple TV 4K ➝

Support for 4K video and HDR was inevitable. This is the direction the industry is heading and Apple needed it in their set-top-box in order to keep up. And I couldn’t be happier that Apple is offering 4K titles on iTunes at the same prices that they’ve been selling HD content at for years.

The Apple TV 4K seems like a great piece of hardware, but I’m not thrilled about the lineup’s pricing. Not necessarily the 4K model’s $179 starting price, that’s fine by me, but the current Apple TV remaining in the lineup at $149 is just silly. In an era where reasonably sized smart TVs can be purchased for two or three hundred dollars, it’s hard to justify the cost of an Apple TV anymore. Pricing the old Apple TV at $99 would have lowered the barrier to entry and helped the company compete with inexpensive streaming boxes from Roku, Amazon, and the like.

Regarding the TV app’s live sports and news feature, this is exactly how I believe it should be dealt with. The app surfaces live events that you’re interested in and hides the rest alongside your other streaming library content. It’s perfect. I just hope a wide variety of streaming services add support for it — having the NBA and MLB at launch is a big deal, but I’d like to see more niche content networks like the WWE get on board.

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