Siri AI on the box launches in beta in English across eight countries: the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and India. You can ask for recommendations in natural language, such as the best nature documentaries on Apple TV, and a personal context feature can pull from an Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone, so a request like "play that show my friend texted me" searches your messages. Unlike on HomePod, Siri does not speak its answers here; they appear on screen instead.

The surround-sound setup also expands: the new box can pair up to four second-generation HomePods or HomePod Mini 2s, up from two on current models, with Apple saying the speakers calibrate automatically to the room. The feature is exclusive to the new Apple TV 4K.

The Siri Remote gains Find My, so it can play a ringing sound when lost, and the Find My app can track its precise location thanks to support for Bluetooth channel sounding, a positioning technology similar to ultra-wideband but without needing a UWB chip. Elsewhere the specs carry over from the discontinued top-of-the-line model, with 128GB of storage, an Ethernet port and Thread and Matter support, plus a bump to Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.

The $299 price is more than twice what the previous Apple TV 4K debuted at. TechCrunch, citing a Bloomberg report, says Apple had wanted to launch the box in 2024 but delays to the AI-powered Siri pushed back its home devices too, a wait that has already proved costly: in September, Apple agreed to pay $250 million to settle US claims that it failed to deliver an AI-upgraded Siri on recent iPhones.