Yet more rumours have emerged about the prospect of a new Apple TV box launching imminently, and we now know it will likely come with a more advanced chipset in the shape of the Bionic A17 Pro processor that appeared in the iPhone 15 Pro.
That’s according to reports from Bloomberg and AppleInsider, which say that information revealing this detail has been found in the code for tvOS 26 beta.
Apple last updated its set-top box in 2022 with the launch of the current Apple TV 4K, which is powered by the A15 Bionic chipset. The new hardware, expected to launch in September, three years after its predecessor, will run tvOS 26, the reports say.
Apple’s tvOS 26 beta code reportedly contains references to a new Apple TV 4K box, and those snippets reveal that it will run the A17 Pro chip that first launched in 2023. If that is true, the new Apple TV 4K could potentially support AAA console games via cloud streaming, including those with advanced ray-tracing graphic capabilities.
The Apple A17 Pro is said to deliver a graphics performance of between 2 and 2.2 teraflops, which surpasses the power of the Xbox One S and the PlayStation 4 consoles, but not the Nintendo Switch 2, which has around 3 teraflops. In addition, the A17 Pro chip is said to be around 75% faster than the central processing unit found in the Sony PlayStation 5 console, but it’s still 10% slower in multi-core.
As such, the new chipset would be a significant upgrade for the Apple TV 4K device, despite the fact it will be two years old by the time the new device launches.
With regard to what the actual benefit will be for users, they can obviously expect a zippier performance from the tvOS software, and perhaps better gaming experience. That said, the existing Apple TV 4K already has enough processing heft to power games through the new Liquid Glass interface.
Perhaps the real reason for the upgraded chip will be artificial intelligence. It’s rumoured, although nothing has been confirmed and no code has been found, that the new Apple TV 4K may support Apple Intelligence, a suite of AI tools that debuted on the new iPhone 17 models earlier this year. If so, the new device may be able to offer enhanced conversational search features, and perhaps create movies for people on the fly based on natural language prompts.
Earlier reports have said the new Apple TV will once again be focused on 4K resolution, apparently quelling rumours that it might support 8K. There has also been talk of a new Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip designed by Apple, which will enable better synchronisation with devices such as iPhones and iPads.
Some of the wilder reports say Apple is also working on an Apple TV box that will come with its own TV display, resurfacing an old idea that many thought was dead and buried years ago, and possibly another version that’s combined with a HomePod speaker. It remains to be seen if these reports are true, and even if they are, we may not see these devices this year.
Apple has not yet confirmed its plans to launch a new Apple TV box, but tvOS 26 is officially slated to launch in the autumn.
