Apple TV 4K turns out to have a hidden Lightning connection in the Ethernet port

The Apple TV 4K set-top box has hidden pins for a Lightning connection behind the Ethernet port. Apple presumably used the port for debugging during development. There is no further USB connection on the device.

With only HDMI and Ethernet as connections to the Apple TV 4K, the discovery of a possibility to connect Lightning offers hope for a jailbreak, reports developer Steven Barker. The pins for the Lightning connector are behind the Ethernet port, which would require any Lightning cable to enter through the Ethernet port, where users would need to install a Lightning port for it to work. As far as is known, it has not yet been possible to connect it. Student Brandon Sellers is tryingbut to no avail so far.

The pins have been on the set-top box from 2017 since the beginning and can be seen, for example, in the iFixit teardown, but until now it was not public that it concerned the connection of a Lightning port. So far no application has been found for it.

The Apple TV 4K only has Ethernet and HDMI, leaving users with no way to transfer data in ways common with other Apple devices, such as USB or Lightning. The TV 4K came out in 2017.