While some developers are gambling on Apple’s trust — 9to5Mac spotted an eBay ad for a fourth generation Apple TV the company just gave out to select developers — iFixit grabbed one to what they do with every new Apple device: tear it apart. Read on to find out what they found inside.
As it turns out, the latest set-top-box packs a lot of goodies, including a 64-bit A8 processor and 2GB of RAM. Under the hood iFixit discovered that Apple has packed a custom memory controller into the Apple TV, the component familiar from the2015 Retina MacBook.
Some of the notable components as highlighted by iFixit:
– Apple A8 APL1011 SoC, with SK Hynix H9CKNNNBKTBRWR-NTH 2 GB LPDDR3 SDRAM
– Universal Scientific Industrial 339S00045 Wi-Fi module
– SMSC LAN9730 USB 2.0 to 10/100 Ethernet controller
– Texas Instruments PA61
– Fairchild Semiconductor DF25AU 010D 030D
– SK Hynix H2JTEG8VD1BMR 32 GB NAND Flash
– NXP 1112 0206 5271B4K
– V301 F 57K C6XF G4
The new Apple TV also has a larger heat sink with a redesigned power supply, rated12V at 0.917A. That compares to that of the 3rd generation device, which pumped out 3.4V at 1.75A.
iFixit also deconstructed the Apple TV remote and uncovered an ST Microelectronics ultra-low power ARM Cortex-M3 MCU, Broadcom BCM5976C1KUB6G touch screen controller (as seen in the iPhone 5s/5c and iPad Air), Qualcomm CSR1010 Bluetooth radio, Texas Instruments’ ultra-low-power digital signal processor, along with other chips.
Finally, iFixit gave the Apple TV 4 a repairability score of 8 out of 10, with 10 being the most repairable, because the latest set-top-box has a modular construction and only a few major components, thus simplifying matters.
