Apple tv how much memory

Even if you download dozens of streaming apps to the Apple TV, you will be left with plenty of storage, regardless of which model you choose. And if you stick with Apple's first-party media for video or music, you still aren't going to be using a ton of storage space, even for the content you own.

Music and movies or television episodes must be streamed. However, movie rentals will be downloaded, as will individual episodes of any podcasts you are subscribed to. But even then, once the rental period has expired or a podcast has been listened to, the files are deleted. Another reason you will struggle to completely "fill" the storage on the new Apple TV is because tvOS manages storage and resources automatically using a on-demand system called App Thinning.

In fact, Apple TV doesn't even show you storage usage information, so you never really know how much is free or available at any given time. App Thinning ensures that when you download an app on the Apple TV, you only download the resources necessary for the Apple TV meaning resources specific to iPhone and iPad are not downloaded.

It also downloads the data in chunks. The initial application download is limited to just MB. After the initial download, an application can download up to 2GB of additional resources. For a game, this might be the first five levels. As you progress through the game, the resources for played levels will be removed from the device's storage and new levels will take their place, seamlessly. So, which model should you choose? Apple TV is designed mainly as an access point for streamed media content.

This means that music, movies, TV shows, and other multimedia content you access with the system are nearly always streamed on demand rather than stored on the Apple TV. That's not a hard and fast rule; as you collect games, apps, and watch movies, the storage on your device is used and filled, although usually, this is only temporary.

Whether or not the price difference between the models is a consideration, understanding how Apple TV uses storage, caches content, and manages bandwidth should help inform your decision surrounding which model to purchase. Apple TV uses storage for the software and content it runs, including any of the thousands of apps and movies available at the App Store and through iTunes.

To mitigate the amount of space used, Apple developed clever on-demand, in-app technologies that only download the content you need immediately while getting rid of content you don't need anymore. This enables apps to offer high-quality scenes and effects during games.

For example, the device only downloads the first few levels of a game when it is first downloaded. All apps are not equal: Some occupy more space than others, and games tend to be particular space hogs. Just tap the Trash icon beside the app name.

Apple TV also lets you access your images and music collections in iCloud. Once again, Apple thought this through, and its streaming solution caches only your most recent and most frequently accessed content on the Apple TV.

Older, less frequently used content is streamed to your device on demand. The simplest way to understand this is that as new content is downloaded to your Apple TV, old content is chucked out. One thing that affects storage is the proliferation of 4K content. Also, the size of graphics components of games and other apps available on the system has become larger, which may make the amount of local storage on the system more important. That's great for games because you won't need to stream as much graphics content.

The performance of an Apple TV depends heavily on robust bandwidth because even as you watch a movie or use certain apps, the system streams some of the content. Using on-demand streaming technology to delete already used content to make way for the content you now need is a clever concept, but it fails if you have insufficient bandwidth. One way around this is to use the 64 GB model if you suffer bandwidth constraints because more of your content will be kept cached on your box, reducing the lag you might experience as new content is downloaded.

By Matthew Keys , The Desk — If the rumors and reports are correct, Apple will begin taking pre-orders within the next few days for its forthcoming Apple TV set-top box. In the fist generation Apple TV, the storage was meant to accommodate movie and TV show downloads from the iTunes store; this time around, the storage is meant to accommodate a number of apps expected to be offered in the first-ever app store for Apple TV.

The biggest difference between the two will likely be how many apps you can store on the device before you reach your limit and which kinds of apps you intend to use. Apple has a few plans in place to keep users from having to constantly delete old apps in order to make room for new ones. The bits of the app that are immediately downloaded are known as on demand resources , and the idea is that it downloads app content faster while saving space on the device.

Given the size limitation on Apple TV apps, a person could download well over apps and still have some room to spare.