The Apple TV 4K is missing a pretty obvious feature

Summary

Apple TV 4K’s missing Apple Intelligence could offer substantial new features, such as enhanced Siri functionality.
Lack of Apple HomeKit support for Apple Intelligence is a significant missed opportunity for user convenience.
Despite missing features, ongoing updates like new aspect ratio support keep the Apple TV 4K relevant and reliable.

I’ve been outspoken about the Apple TV 4K being the best streaming box on the market, and I’m not alone. I don’t own any other Apple products, yet the Apple TV 4K gets daily use in my house, and it left my old Google Chromecast 4K and smart TV UI in the dust. Despite all the positives the device brings to my life, there are still some improvements that can be made.

While I don’t particularly have many issues finding my next thing to watch, there are still moments when I’m stumped and don’t feel like watching anything I put on my watchlist. That’s where Apple Intelligence could come into play. This feature rolled out on the new iPhones, but it hasn’t yet appeared on any of the Apple TV 4K devices. The Apple TV 4K already has Siri support, and it can do some cool stuff like automatically putting subtitles on the screen for you. Still, I can’t help but wonder if some functionality is being left on the table.

Your changes have been saved

Apple TV 4K (2022)

Brand: Apple
Bluetooth codecs: 5.0
Wi-Fi: 6

The sneaky two-second tweak every Apple TV owner needs to know

Sometimes, it takes a force-close for your Apple TV 4K to run smoothly again.

Bring in Apple Intelligence

A big Apple feature is missing

Apple Intelligence is one of the big selling points of new Apple products today. For right now, it’s only available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, but there’s no reason to suspect it won’t eventually roll out onto other devices like the Apple Watch or Apple TV 4K. To be fair, many of the features Apple Intelligence pushes would be lost on the Apple TV 4K like writing or making images, but it’s easy to imagine how it could help find your next TV show.

The big addition of Apple Intelligence for the streaming box would be the improved Siri. Siri already does a decent job finding things for you if you ask, but it’d be nice to have the improved version of it on my Apple TV 4K. The big thing for me is that I wish Apple had kept all of its products up to date so I wouldn’t feel like I’d been left behind. There’s a non-zero possibility that Apple Intelligence could be saved for a potential 4th-gen Apple TV 4K. I only have a first-gen Apple TV 4K, so I’m aware that if Apple Intelligence eventually rolls out for the streaming box, my model might be too old for it to work.

AI requires a lot of power, and the seven-year-old device might not be up to the task, and that’s where a new model could come into play. The third-gen Apple TV 4K has 4 GB of RAM, and that might be pushing it for the Apple Intelligence functionality. We still don’t know what another Apple TV 4K will have in terms of specs, but there’s no doubt it’ll be more powerful than the current one, and that might be what we have to wait for to get the new Apple features.

Apple Intelligence has one feature that’s actually useful

Apple Intelligence has yet to win me over, but iOS 18.1’s new Clean Up tool is doing some serious heavy lifting.

Apple Intelligence would open up the Apple TV 4K’s functionality

It could be a big change

Something I like about the various Google devices around my house is the functionality between all of them. I can tell my device downstairs to turn on the lights upstairs, and it works without a hitch. Since I have a first-gen device, I don’t have access to the Apple HomeKit features seen in the second generation and beyond. However, even if I did have a HomeKit functional Apple TV 4K, Apple Intelligence wouldn’t be part of it.

As of the time of this writing, no Apple HomeKit devices have Apple Intelligence, and that feels like a bigger missed opportunity than anything. I have no doubt this feature will eventually roll out onto every device, but it feels strange to have such a flagship feature not available at all on a big chunk of Apple products. I have no doubt Apple Intelligence will eventually be available on more devices, but it feels like Apple is a step behind Alexa and Google in this regard.

Apple Intelligence is one of the big selling points of new Apple products today.

I have to stress it’s not a deal breaker if the Apple TV 4K never gets this feature as it’ll still be my favorite streaming device. I just can’t help but wonder how much better it could be if it caught up with features seen in other Apple products.

How I replaced the Apple TV remote with my Apple Watch

Your Apple Watch can now do everything your Apple TV Remote can do.

The future is still bright

The Apple TV 4K is still solid

Apple / Pocket-lint

While Apple Intelligence would be nice to have, the Apple TV 4K is still getting regular updates that make it relevant, even seven years after its release in my case. For example, the December update brings in a slew of new aspect ratio support that’ll give your home theater a big boost. Updates of this nature help the product continue feeling fresh even if it doesn’t get some of the other flagship Apple features we see other products get.

While I’m not quite there yet, it seems like there will be a time soon when I’m forced to upgrade to a newer Apple TV 4K, and when that time comes, I hope a fourth-generation model will be on the horizon. There are currently a lot of rumors floating around about the existence of the next generation, but nothing has been confirmed by Apple. Considering Apple typically has large events to announce new products, it looks like the ship has sailed on an announcement happening this year, but 2025 will represent three years since the last iteration was released, and technology has advanced enough for there to be a new piece of hardware.

Some things I’d like to see, outside of Apple Intelligence support, are a faster processor and more RAM. The Apple TV 4K can play games, and a better chip could turn it into even more of a gaming powerhouse. While it’s not going to rival a PS5 or Xbox Series X, you can connect a controller to the device and play games on Apple Arcade. The current devices have power limits, but seeing what’s powering the latest Macbooks makes it easy to see how much performance is being left on the table for an Apple TV 4K. While I mainly use mine for watching TV and movies, there’s no reason it can’t be a jack-of-all-trades.