The Apple TV 4K rumor train continues. A new version is expected to pull into the station sometime this fall, supposedly after being delayed for a year or more. A few people have claimed that the delays were made up, and that news sites just shifted their goalposts when they were caught — but what those people are missing is that reports have long tied the upgrade to Apple Intelligence. With that platform broken until the recent Gemini-based revamp, the hardware had to wait too, if the company was going to make a meaningful splash.
The latest word, though, is that Apple isn’t planning much in the way of hardware changes. There will be a faster processor for the sake of Siri AI, and there should also be upgrades to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but the only other hardware change is expected to be a tweaked Siri Remote.
That’s disappointing, and not just because it’s hard to make a remote all that sexy. Rather, it’s because there have been off-and-on hints that Apple has greater aims, and those seem increasingly unlikely to arrive this year.
Giving the Apple TV raison d’être
Making the most out of a black box
Specifically, I’m thinking of a rumor suggesting Apple wants to add a FaceTime camera to the set-top. You can already make FaceTime calls in tvOS 26 — but you need to pair your iPhone, and needless to say, having to configure that every time you want to talk to someone is a hassle when you could just use the phone itself.
You might be thinking that you have no interest in video calls on a media streamer, but having owned Meta’s Portal TV, I can vouch for them. If nothing else, having a camera under your TV means being able to go hands-free, allowing you to continue with things like eating, cleaning, or yes, scrolling on your iPhone. It shines when you’ve got other people in the room with you — it’s a lot easier to have a family-to-family or couple-to-couple chat, since the alternatives are passing a device around, or trying to squeeze everyone into a tiny frame.
One advantage Apple would have over Meta’s failed product is privacy. While there were never any reports of the Portal TV spying on owners (to my knowledge), Apple’s privacy policies are all-around tighter, since its fortune is built off hardware and subscription sales instead of ads. Even if an upgraded Apple TV was always listening for voice commands, or watching for specific users, buyers could reasonably assume that Apple wasn’t eavesdropping.
Conceivably, a camera and Apple Intelligence could land a one-two punch that would be hard for Amazon and Roku to recover from. There’s increasingly little reason to buy an add-on device if you’re not chasing the best of the best.
With that assurance in place, there’s a lot more that a camera can enable, as smart displays have shown us. Imagine, for instance, having tvOS automatically log you in before you sit down, and adjusting your apps and settings accordingly. It could also be used as part of an Apple Home security system, flagging people it doesn’t recognize and triggering phone notifications when you’re away. And of course, some apps might be configured for gesture control, say if you want to play a dancing game. Hopefully Apple’s tech would produce better results than the old Xbox Kinect.
Is the next Apple TV going to bomb without a camera? Hardly. Customers seem to happy with the current device, which is still more powerful than rivals like the Roku Ultra or Google TV Streamer. It can even handle a number of games. The performance of the next model will probably be enough to tackle console-level titles like Resident Evil 8, if not at the same detail as a Steam Machineor PS5 Pro.
In fact, as I recently argued, Apple Intelligence alone could deal a serious blow to streamers from Amazon and Roku. Roku’s voice assistant is limited, and many people distrust not just Alexa+, but Amazon more broadly. Apple Intelligence should open up new possibilities without the privacy concerns of most AI chatbots — and one of the cardinal rules of any business is that a feature is meaningless if you can’t persuade people to use it.
Really, the issue with delaying a camera is that having one would give the Apple TV more raison d’être, perhaps rendering it unassailable. Starting at $129, it’s currently one of the most expensive media streamers available, yet what you get for that cash is mostly just raw horsepower and the Apple platform. The value of that isn’t obvious to a shopper who doesn’t have hands-on experience, and may not understand the practical difference versus a $60 Fire TV Stick 4K Max. A camera would be an obvious differentiator versus any other streaming device on the market. Conceivably, that and Apple Intelligence could land a one-two punch that would be hard for Amazon and Roku to recover from, if only in the add-on streaming arena. There’s increasingly little reason to buy an add-on device if you’re not chasing the best of the best.
What are the prospects for more dramatic hardware features?
Don’t hold your breath, folks
If the 2026 model doesn’t include any serious changes, you’ll probably be waiting a while. The Apple TV has almost never been updated on an annual cycle. The only exception to this came in 2022, and that model may have been an admission that the 2021 product was hampered by a 2018-era processor and absent HDR10+ support. Once the 2026 hardware is out, I wouldn’t expect a sequel until 2028 or 2029.
Apple and other tech companies regularly explore products that never see the light of day. It spent billions on an EV project that never produced a single commercial vehicle.
That said, it’s obviously possible for Apple to surprise us, and the company is rumored to have revived smart home ambitions that extend beyond your TV. Those include new HomePods, a dedicated smart display/hub, and possibly other camera-equipped accessories like a doorbell. It could be postponing a camera for the Apple TV because other products will better fit those calling and security niches, or because it wants to test the waters first before adding a feature that might force a price hike. In the second scenario, a 2027 update isn’t out of the question.
It’s also possible that the camera idea has been completely scrapped. Apple and other tech companies regularly explore products that never see the light of day. Indeed, it spent billions on an EV project that never produced a single commercial vehicle — the only things that may have come out of it are incidental technologies like CarPlay Ultra. As wasteful as that might sound, the hits Apple scores tend to make the gambles worth it. In this case, it’s just a matter of whether Apple is still rolling the dice.
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Apple
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5.0
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6
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Gigabit (128GB model only)
