In Summary
Alongside the new iPad Pro, iMac, and AirTag, Apple launched an upgrade to the Apple TV 4K. Apple TV 4K now comes with a much powerful Apple A12 processor with support to play HDR videos at high frame rates. But the most unique feature of the new Apple TV 4K is the ability to color correct the TV picture settings by just using an iPhone.
While there is no new colorway for the Apple TV 4K box itself, the colors we are talking about are to do with the picture that you will be seeing on your screen through the Apple TV 4K. The major highlight of the new Apple TV 4K is that it has the A12 Bionic chip that lets it play HDR videos at high frame rates along with up to 60fps Dolby Vision playback from an iPhone that supports it. More than the frame rates though, colors are a huge part of HDR or Dolby content, and seeing movies or shows the way the creator intended them to be seen is a whole different experience altogether. Every screen or display is different in terms of colors. Your TV may or may not be calibrated to display the right colors and that can hamper your viewing experience. As a result, you may see unnatural colors or in general, an image that is either not very pleasing to look at or is different from how the actual scene was shot. This problem does not have a universal solution since the streaming device you use can be plugged into any display of your choice and it’s virtually impossible to optimize colors for every single type of display. This is where you trust Apple with its engineering and ingenuity to come up with a genius solution to ensure you see the right colors on your TV screen.
Apple has developed an innovative color balance process that works in tandem with your iPhone and the new Apple TV 4K to ensure that your display is well-calibrated to display the right colors. Apple is doing this by using your iPhone’s ambient light sensors to adjust the color profile of the content you are watching on the Apple TV 4K. What you have to do is take a compatible iPhone and hold it against your TV screen with its display facing the screen and then the Apple TV 4K will run a process that will measure the colors on your TV’s screen and try to calibrate it with the help of the array of sensors on your iPhone.
You will need an iPhone with FaceID in order to be able to do this so if you have an iPhone older than the iPhone X or the new iPhone SE 2020, you will not be able to perform this process. You will also need iOS 14.5 to use this feature. The Apple TV 4K will display a screen on your TV with a rectangular region where you need to place your iPhone after which the calibration process will begin. This will enable all Apple TV 4K users to enjoy content with colors that look the way the creator intended them to, hence improving the overall experience.
Along with this, the new Apple TV 4K also gets a new redesigned remote control with physical buttons that users had been asking for and it will retail starting at $179 for the base 32GB config and will be available to purchase starting on April 30th.
