The Apple TV can finally show the 4K streams from YouTube in full glory. The 4K model at least. And yes, Apple… it was about time!
There’s always some kind of silent battle going on between Google and Apple. One of the ‘weak points’ or ‘issues’ was (and still is) that Google does offer 4K streams on YouTube, but uses its own codec. And that codec is not available in any Apple mobile operating system, nor on Apple TV (4K). Strangely enough, Google also never compromised by simply incorporating that codec in the YouTube app. Or that was not allowed by Apple, whatever the reason.
Either way: good news for owners of the 4K version of Apple TV: after the update to tvOS 14 that will be released sometime in the fall of this year, they can finally watch YouTube movies in full resolution.
Nothing known about iOS and iPadOS
Whether this feature will finally appear in iOS and iPadOS is unknown. Chances are, with only Full HD, they’ll be able to keep up with it. That’s a shame, because today’s iPads can handle higher resolutions, especially when connected to a 4K TV via a dongle. Why is it that codecs are always so difficult to do ‘in the world’? Yeah, well…