Third-gen Apple TV is now officially discontinued
It's no secret that Apple didn't exactly want customers to buy the old, third-generation Apple TV instead of the new, tvOS-powered one -- the company all but hid it from its store -- but up until recently, it was still available for purchase.
This is no longer the case. 9to5Mac has obtained a company email sent to employees informing them that the third-gen Apple TV has been discontinued.
"Effective immediately, Apple TV (3rd generation), MD/199LL/A, has reached end of life and is now discontinued. The Apple Supply team is going to fulfill all shippable backlog," Apple's memo said.
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Currently, the only way to get the old version of Apple TV from Apple is to buy a refurbished one, but these will likely go out of stock fast.
The fourth-generation Apple TV was a major update, bringing tvOS, Siri and an app store to the mix, so not many folks will mourn the death of the old version. Still, at $69 (compared to the $149 price tag of the new version), it was a pretty cheap option for those on a tight budget.
Given that the competition is quickly upgrading to 4K -- Xiaomi and Google have launched 4K-capable media streaming devices in the last couple of days -- it's not unimaginable that Apple is preparing to launch an updated version of Apple TV, but there's currently no official word on that.
Topics Apple
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
