Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said today that Apple will unveil a 4K-capable Apple TV set-top box alongside new iPhone and LTE-enabled Apple Watch models at a media event in September.
The publication first reported in February that a new Apple TV with 4K video support had gone into testing, saying the new herder would launch later in 2017.
The device will run a faster processor capable of playing HDR video content from movie studios and apps, corroborating earlier findings discovered in the tvOS beta code and on Apple’s own iTunes service.
The new Apple TV will also focus on live streaming content such as news and sports.
An excerpt from the report:
In order to play 4K and HDR content, Apple will need deals with content makers that can provide video in those formats. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant has begun discussions with movie studios about supplying 4K versions of movies via iTunes, according to people familiar with the talks.
The company has also discussed its 4K video ambitions with content companies that already have apps on Apple TV, another person said. Popular video apps on the Apple TV that support 4K on other platforms include Vevo and Netflix.
At this year’s WWDC, Tim Cook said “you’ll be hearing a lot more about tvOS later this year”.
HDR, or high-dynamic-range video, uses the wide-gamut Rec. 2020 color space, a bit depth of 10-bits and other features to deliver pictures with more vivid colors than the sRGB gamma.
Aside from HDR, the device should support other wide color video standards, including Dolby Vision and Hybrid Log-Gamma. Both HDR and Dolby Vision require dedicated chips.
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HDR is currently supported by select monitors and TV sets from Dell, LG, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Vizio, as well as Microsoft’s Xbox One S and Sony’s PlayStation 4 consoles.
The Cupertino technology giant is also said to be testing an updated version of its TV app that can aggregate programming from apps that already offer live streaming, said the report citing people familiar with the matter.
Apple TV held a fifteen precent share of the market for US streaming boxes at the end of March, according to a survey this month from Parks Associates, trailing streaming gadgets from Roku, Amazon and Google. Apple’s chief of finance confirmed earlier in the year that Apple TV sales had declined annually in the 2016 holiday quarter.