Apple Reportedly Developing New Apple TV Featuring A12 Bionic SoC

Along with the iPhone 11 lineup, it’s starting to sound like Apple’s upcoming September 10 “By innovation only” event will be pretty busy, so much so that we may actually get a new Apple TV, too.

According to Twitter user “never_released” (via MacRumors), a refreshed Apple TV is on the way. Codenamed “AppleTV11,1” (also known as J305AP), it will be a new generation that will see a spec bump with the A12 Bionic chip.

The current Apple TV 4K uses the A10X, which launched way back in 2017. While that’s a sturdy processor and can handle the job for the most part, with the upcoming Apple Arcade service on the way — and a bigger focus on gaming — an upgrade to the faster processor certainly makes sense.

The Twitter account has a good track record of sharing information about Apple products, in particularly their internal codenames. Additionally, MacRumors confirms the modifier “AppleTV11,1” and codename J305 are found in an internal build of iOS 13.

Rumors aside, it would be reasonable to expect a new Apple TV next week, as the device has been updated once every two years for the past three generations: a revised third-generation Apple TV in March 2013, the fourth-generation Apple TV in September 2015, and the Apple TV 4K in September 2017.

The launch of a new Apple TV would lineup well with both the Apple TV+ launch and the new Apple Arcade service that is expected to launch this fall.

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