Apple TV Hasn't Changed in Years, but Has Sold 25 Million Units Anyway

For the record: Tim Cook told Wall Street that Apple has sold 25 million Apple TVs over the product’s lifetime. That’s up from 20 million in April of last year, the last time Cook provided an update.

But this is an Apple stat whose importance decreases even as the number goes up. Because it’s increasingly clear that Apple doesn’t see its existing box as much more than a placeholder.

Cook periodically says that the company is broadly interested in doing more with TV — and last year, Cook made a point of describing Apple TV plus video sales as a $1 billion business — but the Apple TV that it’s selling today is more or less the same box it has been selling for years.

The only difference is that over the last year or so Apple has onboarded several new TV app providers; today it brought on 120 Sports, the video venture backed by Time Inc. and several sports leagues.

One thing that has changed in the last couple years is that Apple no longer has the TV streaming gadget market to itself. Roku, which is preparing for an IPO, says it has sold 10 million of its boxes and sticks in the U.S., and now Google and Amazon have their own hardware, too. All of them do essentially the same thing.

If Apple wants to do something significantly different, it will either need to make headway in its talks with the TV Industrial Complex, or decide that it’s going to go to market with something amazing and hope the TV distributors and programmers come aboard later.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple reasons that we can't rely only on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.

That’s why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via