Apple TV 4K will gain 4K YouTube support with tvOS 14 update

One of the more notable pain points with the Apple TV 4K will be addressed with the upcoming tvOS 14 update. Although it wasn’t mentioned during today’s keynote (unless I missed it), Apple says on their preview page for the update that 4K support is finally coming to the YouTube app.

As noted by The Verge, the current YouTube app has a max resolution of 1080p on the Apple TV 4K because Apple has thus far refused to support the VP9 codec. Developed by Google, that codec is the foundation of YouTube’s 4K library and is supported by most browsers except for Safari.

So it’s not really clear yet what has happened here to allow the latest version of Apple TV to support 4K YouTube videos. Did Apple cave and decide to support VP9? Or was it a change on YouTube’s side? Either way, 4K Apple TV owners will be pleased to know they’ll be gaining more pixels in tvOS 14.