Teardown of New Apple TV Reveals Same 8 GB Flash Storage, Bump to 512 MB RAM
Following the release of the third-generation Apple TV late last week, one forum member at XBMC.org has performed a teardown of the device, revealing a number of details about its internals.
Context & Ripple Effects
The third-generation Apple TV arrived after months of anticipation that began when 9to5Mac spotted a more powerful Apple TV running a dual-core A5 referenced in iOS 5's file system back in October 2011. An XBMC.org forum member has now cracked open the shipping device and put numbers on that upgrade: RAM doubles to 512 MB while flash storage stays at 8 GB.
The story traveled unusually far for a forum teardown — Engadget, VentureBeat, the National Business Review, iClarified and even an FT blog all picked it up within days — reflecting how little official detail Apple publishes about its sealed set-top box and how much the hobbyist community relies on independent teardowns.
First-order effects
- The XBMC.org community gains double the working memory for sideloaded software on the device, though the unchanged 8 GB of flash keeps any hacked install tightly constrained.
- Apple holds its bill of materials nearly flat on storage, spending only on RAM while keeping the box positioned purely as a streaming terminal.
Second-order effects
- The confirmed internals retroactively validate the October 2011 file-system leak, reinforcing file-system references as a reliable early signal of Apple TV hardware changes.
- With no meaningful local storage, every content experience on the device routes through network streaming, deepening Apple's dependence on its content partners rather than on-device media libraries.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Apple TV refreshes will keep serving software capability rather than storage capacity, entrenching the thin-client model against rival boxes that compete on specs.
- Enthusiast teardowns are becoming the de facto specification channel for Apple's sealed devices, a role Apple neither confirms nor supplies itself.
The trend: As Apple keeps its set-top hardware sealed and minimally specified, enthusiast teardowns have become the primary source of hardware intelligence, while the device itself evolves as a thin streaming client rather than a media store.