Citing ‘overwhelming demand’, Apple has expanded the number of Apple TV Developer Kits available for registered developers who applied for a chance to receive the pre-release hardware last month. A number of developers (but not all) who previously missed out on the initial wave of test units have been notified by Apple Developer Relations that more dev kits have been made available for $1 and will be available for ordering through next Friday at 5 pm local on October 9th.
Apple TV 4 launches “toward the end” of this month as Tim Cook mentioned earlier this week and will include deep Siri integration and App Store for the first time. Apple first began notifying developers entering the dev kit lottery of their status in mid-September. With third-party apps and games being a major new feature of the new Apple TV experience, Apple clearly wants to give more developers the chance to create software for the new hardware before its release in a few weeks.
The new Apple TV ships in two configurations: 32GB for $149 and 64GB for $199. The current Apple TV 3 will remain available minus the new tvOS platform for $69.
Developers who previously entered the lottery to receive the $1 Apple TV Developer Kit chosen during the expanded wave of units will receive the email below for the chance to purchase a pre-release unit ahead of launch:
