Apple TV Teardown Shows A4 CPU, 256MB of RAM

[JMcEntegart]

Apple's second generation Apple TV is very small; in fact it's a quarter the size of the old one. How did they fit everything inside? More importantly, what the heck is in there?

Apple TV Teardown Shows A4 CPU, 256MB of RAM : Read more

 

[Darkerson]

Pretty interesting how they crammed all that inside there like that. It looks like a decent amount of thought was put into how it was laid out. Granted, I probably wont buy it, but its still neat none-the-less. And Im sure theyll make a pretty little penny off it, considering it probably costs like $20-$25 to make.

 

[Ragnar-Kon]

Old news maybe? I feel like that Jobs said himself that the A4 chip was in the Apple TV during the press release.... maybe I'm crazy.

And this new Apple TV is one of the better products released by the Apple camp as of late. Was playing around with one the other day and I was rather impressed. Still not sure if it is worth $100 though. Hooking up the 3rd output on my video card to my TV is working fine for me.

 

[imapc]

What happened to the "next gen Apple TV to use AMD Fusion chip" article?

 

[ben850]

i'm starting to call BS on this blue "tool" being used in EVERY disassemble photo set.

 

[eddieroolz]

I'm still failing to understand the point of this thing.

 

[tu_illegalamigo]

Well desgined, but HDMI with no 1080p? Wrong.

 

[JMcEntegart]

[citation][nom]ben850[/nom]i'm starting to call BS on this blue "tool" being used in EVERY disassemble photo set.[/citation]

It's a separation tool. The pros use/sell those, the rest of us use credit cards/gift cards.

 

[miloo]

apple decided to go black now ~ interesting ~
99 bucks ? nah, thanx for the offer ~

 

[theoutbound]

It's a well built machine, but until it's feature set improves I will stick to HTPCs.

 

[Simple11]

My pops bought an AppleTV a while ago. I think they are great and nifty, but with all the techy stuff out there, and using my HTPC as a media server works better for me.

 

[dEAne]

wow great, thanks.

 

[bmw2go11]

WHAT!! 30PIN?!?!
The jailbreak is just around the corner. And now that we have the guts exposed..
Solder a 30pin connector on there and slap on the UFAD001973 cram it all in the case with a usb hub that draws from the psu and make some holes in the side for connectivity.
I think apple just wanted to give a little challenge to the hackers.

 

[L0tus]

[citation][nom]eddieroolz[/nom]I'm still failing to understand the point of this thing.[/citation]
It looks cool and sexy.

Apple customers need no reasoning beyond that point.

 

[g00fysmiley]

i hope somebody develops a crack to allow usb to an external hard drive and retool for a cheap video player/ internet browser on tv.

hundred for the box hundred for a 1tb external and you're good

 

[megamanx00]

And yet I just don't care

 

[scubadave]

The point of the Apple TV is actually pretty easy to see honestly. Basically as a co-worker told me.. You basically use it to replace your cable TV, and use Netflix to provide your regular TV experience. As Netflix can stream through the Apple TV, you would have access to roughly as much content you'd get through normal TV (less new stuff, however an incredible amount of other stuff. I.E. older movies, episodes, etc.) Now if I get an Apple TV, and cancel my Cable TV, once you add in what I'm paying for things like HBO and Showtime + On Demand, I stand to save around 50-60 bucks a month by paying for only my cable internet and Netflix. So after two months.. I've completely returned my initial investment.

Now true.. The whole "renting" movies and stuff sucks.. Lord knows I don't want to pay Apple more than I have to.. But at 99 cents a show, or like what.. 2.99(maybe) for full length 720p movies.. I'd still have to "rent" between 16-20 movies or 50-60 shows, or a combination of both, etc.

Honestly.. It's not too hard at all to see the benefits it has. I can save hundreds a year($600-$720 if I don't rent at all and just dl/torrent movies and stream them through iTunes) with it.. and lord knows I don't even watch TV much anyway. I basically only watch it to fill the voids when I'm eating dinner, or having a family movie night. However.. I'm still not sure if I'm going to buy one now.. Or wait until they upgrade it to include full 1080p support.

Which I'm sure they will.. If it's as successful as I hope it is.

 

[thearm]

lol Just like Apple. Always paving the way for other better products.

 

[mbmcavoy]

@scubadave - If you are already have Netflix, you won't need to rent so many movies & TV shows from iTunes.

Also, I fully expect Hulu+ to be on it within 6 months, along with an explosion of apps. (WWDC 2011 at the latest!) Like the original iPhone, it took some time before the dev tools were made available for 3rd party apps. I think the primary reasons for this was to mature the tools and documentation, but most importantly for developers to experience the Cocoa Touch UI approach and change their thinking prior to them porting desktop designs over. (Windows Mobile anyone?)

The AppleTV is iOS based, but the UI layer obviously isn't multitouch, and there need to be different interaction paradigms. Apple would want to get people used to their "Cocoa TV"-based apps, so the apps get a consistent quality, look and feel. Most of iOS is mature, but Apple will probably need to spend time cleaning up the new parts before opening them up.

Now, I suspect that jailbreakers get apps within a month, perhaps XBMC or Boxee will make an appearance! (Drool from a guy is has no interest in jailbreaking his iPhone here)

I'm kind of split between the AppleTV and Roku. As of today, I think the Roku has better value, but the AppleTV has better potential value. I could buy both for less than a Boxee Box, or three months of cable. Almost disposable!

The HTPC route is interesting, but I don't think will be a good fit, and a bit more expensive.

 

[scubadave]

@mbmcavoy - Absolutely correct. +1. I'm just trying to point out to people who may not see the value in Apple TV. But as far as Netflix is concerned.. They don't get access to all the new content as quickly as say, HBO, On Demand, etc. Thats the only reason I may/may not rent movies or shows from Apple. So while I can save up to a possible $720 a year.. I bet my actual will be more likely about 500-600ish.

But at the end of the day, Apple TV is/can be a very simple and elegant solution for TV that might better fit a person's lifestyle, myself included, for a relatively cheap price tag. Not to mention I bet the power requirements for this thing would be well under the power draw for a typical HTPC setup(a review I'd be most interested in seeing btw), not to mention the costs of making/maintaining one.

However, as I said before.. the only thing that might keep me from addopting this solution would be 1080p support. And that, I think, will all depend on how successful the new Apple TV is. On the bad side however.. I bet a 1080p version would likely double the price. Which sucks, but even that is still cheaper by far than what I'm paying for now.

 

[failboat]

boxee or xbmc won't run on powerpc

 

[kelemvor4]

[citation][nom]miloo[/nom]apple decided to go black now ~ interesting ~ [/citation]
Once they go black, they'll never come back.

 

[nottheking]

The title/article here shows a bit of a misleading statement... The Apple TV doesn't include an "A4 CPU and 256MB of RAM." The A4 isn't a CPU; it's a "system in a package." It packs a CPU, GPU, and two RAM chips all in that single black package; four chips in total.

It grants no special abilities for the device, but DOES allow Apple to cram those four chips into a much-smaller space.

[citation][nom]failboat[/nom]boxee or xbmc won't run on powerpc[/citation]
The A4 doesn't use PowerPC. The name is a misnomer; it's not an Apple-designed processor at all, but rather a combination package that includes a perfectly standard, run-of-the-mill ARM Cortex-A8 CPU. The GPU is an ordinary PowerVR SGX535, and the RAM is (currently) plain Samsung mobile DDR1, @333 MHz.

 

[tu_illegalamigo]

Great call on the SOC clarification, +1. It also shows that apple is wrong for me because they`re trading too much size for not enough power. with an Atom board and Geforce 9 series igp (like zotac makes) you gain a good deal more extensibility and customization ability, for a reasonable amount of extra power and the ability to develop the machine to my personal needs through FOSS. Speaking of that, anyone got a good netflix-on-linux workaround?

 

[kinney]

[citation][nom]scubadave[/nom]Not to mention I bet the power requirements for this thing would be well under the power draw for a typical HTPC setup(a review I'd be most interested in seeing btw), not to mention the costs of making/maintaining one. However, as I said before.. the only thing that might keep me from addopting this solution would be 1080p support. And that, I think, will all depend on how successful the new Apple TV is. On the bad side however.. I bet a 1080p version would likely double the price. Which sucks, but even that is still cheaper by far than what I'm paying for now.[/citation]

I think it's somewhere around 6watts max and 4watts idle for the ATV. 720 isn't a big deal as no one really offers high bitrate 1080 over the internet. You're better off with high bitrate 720P/60, way beyond whatever 1080 you could be streamed over a cable connection.

The only real disadvantage is streaming a video from iTunes to the ATV would be transcoded into 720 if you have any BR rips.

You keep getting voted down, but honestly, you are right about ATV. There are alternatives, with the Roku being one of my favorites. I prefer these boxes to HTPCs (I currently have a very powerful HTPC btw, quadcore 5870 Intel SSD rig..). I have no consoles, PC gaming only.

With Roku you get Hulu+ but no Youtube, or local network streaming (something I want).
With AppleTV you get Youtube but no Hulu+ and no 1080 (which would be great for photo viewing and local content). I'm guessing it will be added but it's something that definitely competes with the iTunes store.

I use an OTA antenna as I hate TV and think it's garbage. I will really only watch movies so I'm a fan of Netflix. I actually prefer some Youtube "shows" over network/cable TV programming, that's how bad it is anymore. AppleTv has Youtube, which is mandatory for me.

For me, Apple's device makes perfect sense and at $100 you can't go wrong. I know there's a lot of non-thinking nerd rage against Apple, but the device is a pretty good deal.