The market for smart streaming boxes/sticks is certainly a bit weird. There are all kinds of options, but each has distinct problems and limitations. Generic Android boxes are plentiful and can be powerful, but often offer suboptimal software experience and technology and form factor support. There are some famously cheap and readily available options, like Amazon’s Firestick line, although this could become even more locked in with the move to Vega OS. Walmart has their “onn” line, but it’s sort of US-only. Anyone who is really serious about this device swears by the Nvidia Shield TV Pro, from 2019, or an Apple TV. The latter has newer iterations, like the 2022 3rd generation Apple TV 4K.
We already know that Apple is gearing up to unveil a whole bunch of new smart home devices on October 13 and apparently that will include at least one Apple TV device. This has been rumored before, but is now confirmed by the fact that Apple recently relegated the original Apple TV 4K from 2017 to a “vintage” device. In Apple’s common parlance, “vintage” means that more than five years have passed since a product was no longer available for sale, while it is also “obsolete,” meaning that more than seven years have passed since sales stopped. Obsolete devices are almost impossible to officially maintain, while vintage devices are difficult, but still possible.
What does this mean if you own a 2017 Apple TV 4K? Most likely, you will be able to continue using it just fine if it meets your needs and if it works properly, of course. If the latter isn’t true and you have one sitting in a drawer for some reason, you may want to take it to an Apple service center soon. Or, of course, you can just wait and receive the new Apple TV that will be released in a few days.
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