This Apple TV 4K gift card deal is great – but does it hint at something more?

(Image credit: Apple)

Apple has launched its Back to School offers for 2022 in the US, and this year you get a gift card free with the purchase of certain Apple tech: Macs, iPads and… Apple TV. The first two of those are standard for Apple's promotions in previous years, but the Apple TV is an odd outlier. But perhaps it makes more sense when you remember the reports that Apple is planning to launch a new Apple TV 4K (2022).

In the case of the Apple TV 4K, you get a $50 gift card when you purchase one right now. The way the offer works is that you add the product to your bag, where it's discounted by $50, but a $50 gift card is also added to your bag.

• See the Apple TV 4K at the Apple Store here

Apple hasn't launched its Back to School offers worldwide yet, so we don't know if this will hit other countries too.

Apple's school offers are normally focused on productivity and music – in the past, you got free AirPods with Mac and iPad purchases. The Apple TV is an odd addition in that sense – if Apple just wanted to help students out with entertainment, we might expect an offer that gave you a gift card with the HomePod mini.

But maybe Apple is hoping that this offer will help to clear down stock of the current Apple TV 4K (2021) before the new model arrives. It certainly makes more sense than Apple suddenly deciding that the Apple TV is a student essential. There have been some great discounts on the Apple TV at other stores too, recently – bigger than we might expect for this kind of Apple product.

The Apple TV 4K 2021 and its remote sitting on a table — This Siri Remote could be on the way out already… (Image credit: Future)

What's expected in the new Apple TV?

There are two big rumors about the direction of the next Apple TV, and it's hard to say which way Apple will go. The first (and perhaps most likely, since it's the simplest story) is that Apple will pack the new Apple TV with an upgraded processor and more memory, which suggests that we shouldn't expect much of a change in design or price.

But there's also been a suggestion that Apple will launch a cheaper version, and we definitely think it's time that Apple offered a cheap streaming stick to take on the likes of the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max.

Either way, we're expecting another new version of the Siri remote, based on code discovered hiding in iOS 16 that strongly hints at one existing.

There's also no consensus on whether Apple will actually launch it in 2022 (alongside big expected products such as the iPhone 14 and AirPods Pro 2), or will launch it in spring 2023 (the last Apple TV launched in spring 2021).

Maybe it's neither. Perhaps Apple really does just think the Apple TV should be a back-to-school essential these days. Time will tell.

Matt is TechRadar's Managing Editor for Entertainment, meaning he's in charge of persuading our team of writers and reviewers to watch the latest TV shows and movies on gorgeous TVs and listen to fantastic speakers and headphones. It's a tough task, as you can imagine. Matt has over a decade of experience in tech publishing, and previously ran the TV & audio coverage for our colleagues at T3.com, and before that he edited T3 magazine. During his career, he's also contributed to places as varied as Creative Bloq, PC Gamer, PetsRadar, MacLife, and Edge. TV and movie nerdism is his speciality, and he goes to the cinema three times a week. He's always happy to explain the virtues of Dolby Vision over a drink, but he might need to use props, like he's explaining the offside rule.