Almost 10 years on and still supported: Apple TV HD (2015)

[noanker]

I purchased two refurbished Apple TV HD units from the Apple Store around 2016. Despite their aging A8 processors, they continue to receive tvOS updates in 2025 - nearly a decade of support from Apple, which is quite remarkable. Their performance remains flawless, even after all these years.


When I originally bought them, I never expected such an extended support lifespan, so this has been a pleasant surprise. They are used lightly, primarily for Netflix and Sky News in my home office.


If Apple discontinues tvOS support in the next iteration, I wouldn’t be disappointed, as they have already exceeded my expectations. In that case, I would likely wait a few more years before considering a replacement.


Overall, I’m very impressed with the longevity of these devices.

 

[GMShadow]

They did sell that model until October 2022, so I expect they'll keep support up for another few years. Still though, 10 versions of software is impressive for one device.

 

[splifingate]

I found mine in a dumpster of a Client's house . . . I have it in-play, and rarely us it, but it still gets updated 🤷‍♂️

 

[Boyd01]

I got two from the Apple Refurb Store back around 2020. Had been using two Apple TV 3's before that and was still happy with them, but I had just subscribed to Sling and that wasn't supported. Still working fine for me today, will continue using as long as I can.

But eventually I'm sure Apple will pull the plug, like they did on the Apple TV 3 - there are some threads here that say those lost the ability to access iCloud a year or so back which broke most things for them.

 

[siom]

Yeah, I noticed that too a couple of months ago! We have three in our family.

 

[Cave Man]

LOL. Here's what I did to my original Apple TV. Needless to say, it's not supported! Those were some fun days for those of us experimenting to increase the hard drive capacity of the original ATV.

 

[Hrududu]

It should be supported for a very long time IMO. Roku still supports devices that date back to 2013 release. Apple is making money on the services it provides, not so much the device itself. The TV HD was a significantly more powerful device than the AppleTV 3 it replaced with 2 CPU cores vs 1, 2GB of RAM vs 512MB, and 4 GPU cores vs 2.Probably most importantly a 64 bit CPU which is needed for all AppleOS software versions since 2017.

 

[splifingate]

LOL. Here's what I did to my original Apple TV. Needless to say, it's not supported! Those were some fun days for those of us experimenting to increase the hard drive capacity of the original ATV.

View attachment 2497990

Oooh! I never thought about opening it up!

*looks-around for iFixIt toolkit...*

 

[AF_APPLETALK]

I still have mine and am still using it.

I really only use it with Plex, and it seems to have started to struggle with 1080 or greater video files. It's probably due for replacement, but on the other hand, it's still working mostly okay.

I have been impressed as well.

 

[Spock]

LOL. Here's what I did to my original Apple TV. Needless to say, it's not supported! Those were some fun days for those of us experimenting to increase the hard drive capacity of the original ATV.

View attachment 2497990

I remember when people figured out how to put Mac OS X on it. Recently a YouTuber figured out how to make it a Windows XP machine.

 

[nburwell]

While our three out of four ATV’s we have in the house are the 4K version, we do have the HD model. We have it connected to the basement TV, where my wife uses it for workout’s via the Peloton app. It still works great too.

 

[QCassidy352]

mine is probably close to that old as well and still going strong

 

[iAssimilated]

I'm still enjoying mine as well! I will have it until it no longer works.

 

[Edd70]

I started a similar thread to this last year some time. I had an ATV HD that had been stored for years. I replaced a Roku of a similar age in the bedroom with it because I was sick of using a universal remote with a million buttons to run the setup. The Roku remote could not control volume or power on the TV.

The old ATV with the original Siri Remote solved those problems and I prefer tvOS to Roku’s interface by a wide margin anyway.