Nikkei: Apple Working on New Apple TV for Release Next Year

I do hope they change the remote for the Apple TV. It is worse than useless.

I've never had any issues with it... what exactly makes it useless?

HDMI 2.1 and its full feature set please.

Being able to use Airpods Max Spatial Audio with it would be an obvious one, it's been a glaring omission with the current Apple TV units (which others have noted already) that's so glaring one presumes it's because they lack some necessary hardware to do it. (I think that's not the U1?)

Maybe we'll also get a more gaming oriented Apple TV?

I do hope they change the remote for the Apple TV. It is worse than useless.

Maybe we'll also get a more gaming oriented Apple TV?

I think this is really the whole point. With the M1, Apple now has a real GPU they can put on the SOC. The follow-ups to the M1 are supposed to have GPU's like high-end independent graphics cards. I think Apple's going to really try to make Apple TV a real 3rd major gaming console.
This would have sounded ludicrous a few years ago... because they'd have had:
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* A likely insurmountable "chicken and egg" problem with a whole new system - no developers making big-name games, so nobody would buy the system for gaming. And with nobody buying the system for gaming, no developers would make big-name games for it.
* No particular "edge" over the competition. They'd have needed to design it with the same Intel/AMD chips and NVIDIA/ATI CPU's and common motherboards, RAM, etc as Sony and Microsoft. What would be the point in Apple trying to launch a new console as opposed to any other random company. Where's the value proposition?

Now both of those have changed. Major developers are already making big-name games for the iPhone. Porting to Apple TV will be relatively easy. And they'll at least have a big install base of AppleTV users readily available to kickstart the chicken/egg problem.

And on the hardware side, they can do an M1-like SOC with an even bigger GPU and make something that's competitive or even beats Playstation and Xbox hardware for way cheaper than Sony and Microsoft make their consoles. I think Apple can throw console-class performance into Apple TV size, power, and price-range, due to their custom SOC's.

I think it would be a massive business blunder if they don't go after becoming the 3rd big gaming console. I think the console wars are about to change.

And if Apple does a console that is as good or better than PS5 or Xbox Series X for less money, plus it's an Apple TV, then I think they'll do very well in that segment. It'll take a while to gain market share, but they'll be in a strong position.

Also, games developed for the new console would run on M1 Macs, further expanding the potential player base... and allowing Apple to try to compete with Microsoft for gamers again. It's going to be ridiculous if, over the coming years, the big games start being released for Macs, and Apple's chips are so good that off-the-shelf Macbooks and iMacs are beating system builder's nutso cutting-edge SLI towers.