Dream@Tic :: AppleTvHacks.Net

New Apple TV: What We Know So Far

(tomek) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:47:50 +0100

“We’ve sold a lot of them but it’s never been huge hit,” Jobs said last week. How could we not agree: Apple TV wasn’t a game changer for the living room. But hey, there are hundreds thousands of users completely satisfied with the existing ATV (according to the analysts, Apple might have sold 3 million Apple TV devices worldwide) and most of them never even thought of hacking this mysterious box! That’s why here at Apple TV Hacks, we think Steve has figured it out very well: what the average customer wants from his/her HDTV in the living room is to play latest movies, popular TV shows, family vacation photo slideshow and maybe some music from time to time. We, geeks, need more, that’s obvious, and that’s why we are so disappointed with the new device. The only thing we can do now is to try to squeeze as much as we can out of this hockey puck when we put our hands on it sometime at the end of September.

But before that happens, let’s focus on what we know about the second generation Apple TV so far.

The box

3.9 inches (98 mm)x3.9 inches x0.9 inches (23 mm); 0.6 pounds (1/4th the size of existing ATV)
built-in power supply
no power button

Connectivity

HDMI (cable sold separately)
Optical audio
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
Micro-USB (for service and support); loses host USB
Built-in IR receiver

Wireless

802.11n Wi-Fi (a/b/g compatible)
2.4GHz and 5GHz

Processor
Apple A4 chip (replacing Intel Pentium M that powered the old ATV)

Storage
No internal storage – instant online streaming (iTunes, Netflix, Flickr, Mobile Me, etc.) and local streaming (from your mac or pc via iTunes).
But Steve only said there will be no “storage management”, no details were given on what exactly is inside the box, no details on RAM.

Video formats
H.264 (up to 720p, 30 fps)
MPEG-4 (up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 fps)
Motion JPEG (up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 fps)

No 1080p, only720p!
According to Engadget, Apple felt that using 720p allowed them to strike a balance between quality and bandwidth.
In comparison to old, hacked ATV, the new device looses 1080p

Audio formats:
HE-AAC (V1), AAC, protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV;
Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound pass-through

Photo formats
JPEG, GIF, TIFF

Controller

Aluminum Apple Remote (included)
iPhone or iPod touch running Remote app (free). Not so comfortable as Apple Remote device, but facilitates writing: use your device’s QWERTY keyboard to quickly tap out the title instead of clicking letters on the Apple TV screen.

OS
No details on the OS are given by Apple. According to Boing Boing, an Apple spokesperson said that the new Nano and Apple TV don’t use iOS, but other sources reports he has only confirmed that the new Nano doesn’t use this OS.

Since the second generation Apple TV is powered by A4 chip, like other iOS devices, it probably runs some form of iOS, just not identical as iPhone or iPad.

Content

Movies

-          iTunes rentals available in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom:
-          HD: new releases – $4.99, library titles – $3.99
-          SD: new releases – $3.99, library titles – $2.99
-          instant access; you have 30 days to start watching, and once you begin, you can watch as many times as you want in 24 hours
-          availability: often the same day they come out on DVD
-          searching by top movies, title, or genre; trailers, reviews, Rotten Tomatoes rating

Older Apple TVs will continue to work as they have been working up to this point, and they will continue to be able to purchase movies and TV shows even though the new Apple TV is rental-only.

TV Shows

-          iTunes rentals only available in the US
-          titles from: ABC, ABC Family, Fox, Disney Channel and BBC America
-          commercial free
-          99¢ per episode (HD and SD)
-          once you rent an episode, you have 30 days to press Play. Then it’s yours for the next 48 hours
-          Apple TV keeps track of your favorite shows so the next time you turn on your TV, you can see which season you’re watching and which episodes are new

Netflix

-          only available in the US
-          Netflix subscription required
-          watch your content right away or add it to your instant-watch queue

Mobile Me (access to Mobile Me galleries)
Fickr
YouTube
Slidshows (various slideshow themes, music from your iTunes library)
Internet radio
Local streaming

- music, videos and photos streamed from PCs and Mac
- iTunes 10 required

Coming soon: streaming from iPhone, iPod touch or iPad to the Apple TV with AirPlay, a new feature that will come with iOS 4.2 in November. There will be no need to rent or buy a movie or TV show again if you already have it on one of your iOS devices.

Price and availability
Apple will start shipping the new Apple TV at the of September/beginning of October for $99.

Sadly, there will be no updates for current ATV.

Possible hacks
Hacking the new Apple TV will be much more difficult since it has no USB host (no patchstick, no external hard drive) and hard drive (no room for additional files). “The hacking will probably have to be done via hooking the AppleTV up like a hard drive, and I doubt it will be as easy as the original one,” thinks NitoTV. And if the device is truly based on some form of the iOS, we will rather have to talk about “jailbreaking”, not “hacking”.

But we are sure that together with the great and creative ATV Hacks community we will soon make the new device more “usable”. “We’re committed to developing for the AppleTV platform, and will continue to do so once these new models are available,” said Firecore, the developer behind aTV Flash. Fingers crossed!

Interesting comment from our Facebook page:
“The real question is whether app developers will be able to utilize “air play” for their apps.. If so then apps like HuLu+ pandora ect will be able to work on the new aTV that way and apps like stream-to-me and airVideo will be able to deliver any video codec from your Mac or network storage drive (if you have an iOS device).”

Hands-on
Engadget
WIRED
Ars Technica
Boing Boing

Continue reading New Apple TV: What We Know So Far

Second generation Apple TV is here

(tomek) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:00:00 +0100

Continue reading Second generation Apple TV is here

All you want to know about the new Apple TV

(tomek) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:16:41 +0100

[image: fastcompany.com]

It wasn’t too long ago when we heard from Steve that he had NO IDEA on how to succeed in the television market. Any chance it has just changed? Apple’s special event is set for September 1^st and what the world expects to be unveiled in San Francisco that day is an updated, upgraded, renamed, rebuilt, rethought, revamped, refreshed or completely new, long-romored, long-awaited, magic, revolutionary, shiny — Ladies and Gentleman — the new Apple TV. Well, maybe not the whole world, there are those skeptics who ask if Apple is really going to announce a TV gadget at an event with a guitar on the invitation. Pessimists aside, now, when everyone on this planet seems to have its own opinion on what is going to happen on Wednesday and when every little website in the cyberspace has its own rumor on the next Apple’s TV device, let’s sum up the most important ones. Here is a comprehensive list of what has been lately said about the new Apple TV.

General

Engadget: new Apple TV called iTV: $99, A4 CPU, iOS, 16GB of flash storage, cloud-based storage, new iTunes streaming services, AppStore, no 1080p, quite small device with a scarce amount of ports (only the power socket and video out), “an iPhone without a screen”
DigiTimes: “Apple is set to launch a new Apple TV using AMD’s Fusion solution and will not include a hard drive. The new device will adopt a user interface similar to the iPhone with support for social networking websites, network multimedia and the App Store.
Kevin Rose: “From what I hear we should expect to see the iTV launch in September”
Jason D. O’Grady on ZDNet: “iTV would no longer be a hard drive based setop box, but rather a live streaming device. Think of it as a combo iPad docking station and Airport Express with an HDMI port out the back.”
AppleInsider via Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros.: “The biggest potential change to the forthcoming Apple TV refresh is the move to an ARM architecture processor running the same iOS software that powers the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. (…) The new Apple TV will have access to the App Store.”
Gene Munster: Apple could offer an $1,800 to $2,000 “all-in-one Apple television solution that would replace the current amalgam of set-top boxes, Blu-ray players, PVRs, cables, game consoles and TVs in a typical home.
Bloomberg: “Steve Jobs will rather focus on the ability for customers to watch TV shows and movies on their iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches, says a person familiar with the plan. The company will announce that customers can rent many TV shows for 99 cents.”

Name

Engadget: Apple will be officially changing the name of the device to iTV (that was the name of the Apple TV when it was originally announced by the company)
AllNewsMac: Lawyers looking into Apple TV name change as ‘iTV’ is already taken

Hardware

Engadget: A4 CPU, no hard drive, 16GB of flash storage, only 720p support, only the power socket and video out ports
DigiTimes: AMD’s Fusion CPU, no hard drive

Storage

Engadget: cloud-based storage, Time Capsule as an external storage component
Rose: picture and video sharing feature powered by MobileMe

Engadget: iOS
Business Insider: How will Apple’s touch based operating system work on a TV screen that will not be touch based?

Content

Engadget: new iTunes streaming services
Engadget: iTunes streaming video service coming soon? (“A new Apple iTunes customer survey lists “Titles are available to watch instantly” as a reason you might totally love watching video on the iPad. This could be a big hint that instant streaming is coming quite soon.”)
Bloomberg: Apple Said to Prepare 99-Cent TV Shows (“Apple is in advanced talks with News Corp. to let iTunes users rent TV shows for 99 cents. Viewers would be able to rent programs from Fox for 48 hours. CBS, NBC and Walt Disney also are in talks about joining the effort.”)
Rose: Expect to see an iPhone/Pad like marketplace for television applications. Video sharing/streaming/recording apps, interactive news apps, and of course games.
Rose: a la carte (app) stations “With Apple’s iAds, content producers (eg. ABC/NBC/etc.) can directly monetize and distribute their content. This will eventually destroy the television side of the cable and satellite industry.”
David Gewirtz on ZDNet: FaceTime could be Apple’s iTV killer app (“You no longer just have little tiny screens talking to little tiny screens — you can have grandma on the couch, talking to Baby Biff in his crib.”)
Hardmac: Apple working on a new video format (“The ultimate goal for Apple would be to promote this new format to support 4 K video – up to 4096×2160.”)
Macworld: Apple could let third-parties deliver the video content to the ATV (“So the next Apple TV becomes another iOS device that uses third-party apps. If Netflix or Hulu or ABC or NPR or whoever wants to get its content on the device, it simply makes a compatible app for it.”)
new media age: Cloud-based iTunes “Apple purchased cloud-based music service Lala last year only to close it, prompting speculation that it will incorporate the online music streaming service into iTunes.”
Apple Insider: Apple’s potential Web-based iTunes will be ‘social, not streaming’ (“Apple may reveal a “big overhaul” of its iTunes Music Store next week, likely to be a lightweight Web version, but the service will not be updated to allow users to stream their content from the cloud.”)

Controller

Rose: The iPad will turn into one big badass remote control (“Imagine watching monday night football on the TV while viewing/exploring other camera angles on the iPad.”)
Jason D. O’Grady on ZDNet: 7-inch iPad like touch device (iTV Pad)
Venomous Porridge: An iPhone without the screen (“It’s the love child of an iPod touch and a Magic Trackpad. It has the same inertial and gyroscopic motion sensors as the iPhone 4, and the same multitouch surface we’re familiar with. A home button. Bluetooth. No screen.”)
The Russians Used a Pencil: “Apple would never require a user to have an iPhone / iPad in order to use their Apple TV.” Other options: 1) Apple Remote, 2) Bluetooth Keyboard and Trackpad, 3) Game Controller

Games

Bloomberg via Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros.: “Apple TV could be a popular, low-cost game console for people who don’t care about running the most cutting-edge, graphics intensive games.
Macworld: an iOS Apple TV could take a chunk out of the huge game-console market (“I know more than a few people who’d be happy to spend $200 or so on a system that doesn’t require you to spend $30 to $50 a pop for “family” games that are matched, both in visuals and gameplay, by $1 to $5 games for iOS.”)
Macworld: “Provide an Apple TV that can play high-resolution games—with surround sound, an HDMI connection, and hardware controllers, yet—and you’ve got a fairly formidable hunk of hardware sitting next to your TV.”

Price

Engadget: $99
Jason D. O’Grady on ZDNet: By integrating the existing engineering from the Airport Express and scaling down the iPad technology (no need for Retina display, nor do you need 10 hours of battery life, or even 64 GB of storage) Apple could easily deliver a TV solution for $249.
Mark Sigal on his blog: The $99 price tag implies one of three paths for Apple TV: 1) Limited Storage, cloud dependency path, 2) getting to $99 via Subsidy, as is the case with iPhone, 3) running on top of the Mac Mini as a $99 software add-on, with the user being able to choose between a $69 Magic Trackpad, a $200 iPod touch, a $99 iPhone or $500 iPad as the controller

Release date

Rose: September
Bloomberg: September 1st
MacDailyNews: “Multiple” sources say that Apple’s busy prepping telesales employees for a new product that will be “huge” or “very big” and coming in “October”
DigiTimes: Mass production of the device will start in December.”

Other interesting thoughts on Apple TV and IPTV

NYT: In the Living Room, Hooked on Pay TV
CNET: Content kings control the future of IPTV
Associated Press: Apple’s 99-cent TV show idea is no game changer
ZDNet: Apple, Google TV: Does Pay as You Go Make Dollars and Sense?
LA Times: Murdoch may be key to Apple’s plan to offer 99-cent digital rentals of TV shows
Game Theory: How App TV Disrupts the Console Industry

Apple TV Hacks will be providing all the latest news on the new Apple TV/iTV. If it’s coming… Stay tuned!

[images: ZDNet.com, venomousporridge.com, blog.monty.de]

Continue reading All you want to know about the new Apple TV

New Apple TV with iOS, App Store and AMD Fusion arrives in early 2011

(tomek) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:37:43 +0100

Hungry for a new Apple TV rumors? Sure you are! So, there is no other thing to do for you right now than dig deeply into the bunch of Apple hardware-related rumors Taiwanese DigiTimes brought to the Mac world today. The most interesting part for us says:

Apple is set to launch a new Apple TV using AMD’s Fusion solution and will not include a hard drive. The new device will adopt a user interface similar to the iPhone with support for social networking websites, network multimedia and the App Store. Mass production of the device will start in December.

Well, Engadget’s findings that came earlier this year seem to be (almost) fully confirmed: no HD (cloud storage instead), iOS, App Store. Ok, there will be no A4 CPU, but, hey, AMD Fusion knows how to do the job well. According to AMD, the chip offers the following:

CPU and GPU capabilities for HD, 3D and data-intensive workloads in a single-die processor called an APU. APUs combine high-performance serial and parallel processing cores with other special-purpose hardware accelerators, enabling breakthroughs in visual computing, security, performance-per-watt and device form factor. Software developers, utilizing AMD drivers, libraries and either the ATI Stream SDK2 or the Microsoft DirectCompute API, can enhance the user experience and speed application performance by developing applications that fully utilize the unique computer power of the AMD Fusion™ Family of APUs and AMD discrete GPUs.

Already started to look for a buyer for your old device? If only someone could confirm the rumored $99 price.

Continue reading New Apple TV with iOS, App Store and AMD Fusion arrives in early 2011

WinX DVD Ripper: review and giveaway

(tomek) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:26:54 +0100

If you need a DVD backup program which offers stable conversion process, great video quality and very fast conversion speed and if you are looking for DVD backup solution for DVDs of the new generation copy protection, this DVD ripper should be your choice.

WinX DVD Ripper for Mac is an all-in-one DVD ripper designed to make 1:1 DVD copy to hard drive and rip DVD movies on Mac OS to iTunes, MOV, MP4, FLV, etc., that playable on iPad, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, PSP and much more.

Let’s see how it works.

The program installs in a few seconds, the interface is friendly and very clear.

The options give you a complex control of the application. The ability to create your own profile is very useful and allows you to convert tones of movies without the necessity of adjusting the parameters manually each time.

Once the DVD is in (you can load from DVD driver by clicking “DVD Disc” or from DVD folder by clicking “DVD Path”), you first choose the output format (file format or the device of destination) and then select previously created profile or choose all the options individually for the exact movie.

Among the settings you can choose are:

Audio settings: audio quality, audio sample rate and volume.

Video settings: video quality, video frame rate, output image ratio, video resolution; you can also choose whether you want to use High Quality Engine or not (select for better image quality).

Output settings: language and audio format, subtitles, duration and output folder.

Advanced settings let you decide how many CPU cores you want to use, and whether you want to use Advanced De-interlace Accelerator and Intelligent A/V Synchronizer or not. “Run as Safe Mode” is said to guarantee you “unsurpassable stability and speed.”

Once the settings are done the only thing you have to do is to enter the movie title and director name and click Start button. The conversion is fast and the program doesn’t eat up all of your RAM. You can view the conversion progress and are able to cancel the converting process at anytime.

WinX DVD Ripper also supports extracting music from the DVD files and saving as MP3 format and taking pictures from the DVD movie and save as JPG, BMP.

According to the Digiarty Software, the developer, WinX DVD Ripper for Mac is perfectly compatible with Mac OS X Tiger/Leopard/Snow Leopard, working on PowerPC & Intel Mac.

GIVEAWAY!

We have 10 free copies of the WinX DVD Ripper for you! To enter the contest follow us on Twitter and retweet the contest message (Win DVD Ripper for Mac! Follow @appletvhacks and RT for your chance to win http://su.pr/8OAqci #giveaway #appletv). The winners will be announced next Friday (July 30).

Disclaimer
In the case of copyright protected materials such as movies or DVDs, it is our understanding that in nearly all jurisdictions it is not illegal to produce a copy of a DVD that one already owns, for backup or similar purposes. The legality of DVD ripping will vary based on your country of residence. We do not in any way endorse violation of the valid rights of copyright holders, and strongly recommends that you consult your country’s copyright and fair use laws before copying any video content.

Continue reading WinX DVD Ripper: review and giveaway

Remote HD for Apple TV [+giveaway!]

(tomek) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:46:36 +0100

Recently released Remote HD is an iPad/iPhone/iPod touch universal and powerful application that gives you complete access to your AppleTV, Mac or PC. It works like an Apple Remote, but it can do a lot more – one of the greatest features is Remote View that brings your AppleTV’s display to the iPhone/iPad or iPod touch.

Remote View now also works with XBMC and Boxee.

The app allows you to reconnect to last connection – - if you use Remote HD mostly to connect to the same Apple TV, you can save the time of searching for available connections and tapping to connect.

Using Remote HD you can also put the Apple TV to sleep, restart it or even shut it down altogether. In addition, selecting “Log off” will perform a “soft” restart on the Apple TV.

Other great feature is that when you connect to your computer or Apple TV using the mobile network (3G, EDGE, GPRS), Remote HD kicks into a mode designed to save data transfer and optimize its performance based on the available bandwidth at any given time. Check out the rest of the features here.

The app is XBMC and Boxee compatible. aTV Flash has already added support for Remote HD (can be installed through the Maintenance –> Install Extras menu).

We have 5 free copies of the app to give away! To enter the contest follow us on Twitter and retweet the contest message (Win RemoteHD and access your AppleTV from your iPhone/iPad! Follow @appletvhacks and RT for your chance to win #giveaway). The winners will be announced on Tuesday (June 29).

Continue reading Remote HD for Apple TV [+giveaway!]

Watch the World Cup live on Apple TV

(tomek) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:11:19 +0100

There have already been some great shots, some howlers, some nice Dutch supporters, and even some North Korean “fans”, but the best of the show is yet to come. And there is finally a way to watch all the games live (!) on your Apple TV: World Cup 2010 app has arrived to Boxee. Find it in the app library, fire up and enjoy. Thanks Univision, thanks Boxee! Sadly, for those of you who don’t live somewhere between the RFK Memorial Stadium and the Home Depot Center, it is US only.

Continue reading Watch the World Cup live on Apple TV

“Jobs is an excellent liar”, new Apple TV by next Christmas

(tomek) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:09:15 +0100

Whether Steve Jobs was bluffing at D8 conference when he said he didn’t have any idea how to succeed in today’s television market or not, one thing is now absolutely clear: there was no word on any new set-top box (or platform) by Apple at Jobs yesterday’s WWDC10 keynote. But here comes Jason Calacanis, Mahalo founder & CEO, bringing hope to our wounded hearts once again. He says Jobs is “an excellent liar” and he claims that Steve will be doing a new television soon, so that we can expect next Apple TV coming to our living rooms by the next Christmas. Watch the interview with Calacanis and tell us in comments whether a) you absolutely love Jason because he reminds you that there is always a HOPE, b) you think “htf does he know what’s in Jobs’ brilliant, A4-powered head?!,” or c) you are just bored to death with all these next-apple-tv rumors and you will never ever read this blog again if we mention a single rumor once again.

Continue reading “Jobs is an excellent liar”, new Apple TV by next Christmas

No new Apple TV at WWDC10? No new Apple TV at all?

(tomek) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:40:54 +0100

Steve Jobs was on stage at the D8 conference and he shared with us some of his thoughts on the television market. Well, taking his words literally and assuming that Steve honestly shared ALL of his most important thoughts on the TV market, we’d say there will be no new Apple TV coming at WWDC 2010. We’d also say that nowadays Apple has no idea on how to succeed in the television market.

Listen to Jobs:

The problem with innovation in the television industry is the go-to-market strategy. The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everybody set-top box for free, or for $10 a month and that pretty much squashes any opportunity for innovation, because nobody is willing to buy a set-top box. Ask TiVo, ask ReplayTV, ask Roku, ask Vudu, ask us, ask Google in few months. Sony tried as well. Panasonic tried. A lot of people tried. They all failed.

According to Apple CEO, we end up with table full of remotes, cluster full of boxes, bunch of different UIs. That’s the situation we have today.

All you can do is add a box under the TV system, Jobs said.

The only way that it’s ever going to change is if you can really go back to square one and tear up the set-top box and redesign it from scratch, with the consistent UI, across all those different functions, and get it to the consumer in a way that they are willing to pay for it.

And right now, there is no way to do that! – Jobs said firmly (damn…!)

So, that’s the problem with the TV market. We decided what product do we want the most: a better TV or a better phone. The phone won out. But there was no chance to do a better TV because there was no way to get it to market.

What do we want more: tablet or better TV? Well, probably a tablet, but it doesn’t matter because if we wanted a better TV there is no way to get it to market.

The TV is going to lose until there is available go-to-market strategy.

Otherwise you just make another TiVO. That’s the fundamental problem – it’s not a problem with technology, it’s not a problem with vision, it’s a fundamental go-to-market problem.

Is there any chance you partner with some cable operator? – Steve has been asked.

Then you run into another problem, which is: there is no cable operator that is national, he answered.

There is a bunch of cable operators. And than, this is not like there is a GSM standard where you build a phone for the US and it also work in those other countries. No, every single country has different standards, different government approvals, it’s very balkanized.

I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out. But that’s why we say Apple TV is a hobby; that’s why we use that phrase.

Well, this could all mean that Apple focuses on iPhone and iPad, and they are not planning to introduce a new TV (new set-top box) in the near future. Hopefully there are people who see things differently: Engadget notices that Steve has all this stuff really mulled over – according to the guys at the tech blog this confirms that we’ll be hearing some next-Apple TV news at the WWDC10. TechCrunch even thinks that this all may push Apple to build televisions.

We hope Jobs hasn’t really figured out that there is no way to figure out good go-to-market strategy for the new TV by Apple.

Continue reading No new Apple TV at WWDC10? No new Apple TV at all?

New $99 Apple TV with iPhone OS, A4 CPU, 1080p and online storage

(tomek) — Fri, 28 May 2010 19:31:18 +0100

Engadget has just revealed some details on the next version of Apple TV. According to their sources “very close to Apple”, our new shiny boxes will run iPhone OS 4, will be powered by A4 CPU and will bring 1080p straight to our fancy wall-sized plasmas (without the necessity of hacking). And all this for shocking $99. Yes, only $99.

“The device is said to be quite small with a scarce amount of ports (only the power socket and video out), and has been described to some as “an iPhone without a screen,” says Engadget.

Engadget also claims that Apple will be focusing the new ATV on cloud-based storage, although there will still be an option to utilize a Time Capsule as an external storage component.

We can’t say we are surprised. We say: this is exactly what we expected to see happening.

First, Apple introduced iPad. What does the iPad have to do with Apple TV? “Well, take the Wi-Fi iPad, remove the screen and the battery, add A/V ports and presto, you have then new AppleTV hardware,” said awmyhr on his blog a few month ago. So, we already had the hardware.

Then, a job offer has been posted:

The Core Platform team within Apple’s Core OS organization is looking for a talented and inspired manager to lead a team focused on bring-up of iPhone OS on new platforms.

That was a first signal Apple was thinking of powering new platforms with iPhone OS; of expanding iPhone OS beyond iPhone, iPod and iPad.

“With the iPad having already been introduced, many believe the next logical device to receive the iPhone OS is Apple TV,” noted eWEEK. “Apple TV is the obvious choice,” confirmed Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research.

Gottheil said the primary benefit that the iPhone OS would bring to Apple TV is its browser. “In addition to being able to play your own content and App Store content, you’d be able to browse the Web,” he said.

Later, Apple introduced iPhone OS 4. We got brand new, powerful OS.

And finally, Google introduced Google TV. If Apple have already been working on the new set-top box for a while (according to Engadget, “this project has been in the works long before Google announced its TV solution”), the only choice they had to cat the “oh!, ah!” Google TV disccusions was to do a controlled leak about forthcoming update to the Apple Tv. Besides, iPhone OS for Apple TV is just a logical response to Android powering Google TV.

Also, MacRumors.com reported that Intel’s forthcoming Google TV hardware platform to be found in Sony TVs and Blu-ray players and in a standalone set-top box from Logitech utilizes the same PowerVR SGX535 graphics processor used in the iPad. “Hardware similarities between Google’s television offering and Apple’s mobile devices further reinforces the idea that such a transition [of iPhone OS to Apple TV] could be relatively feasible,” said guys from MacRumors.

Apple TV handles very well with the local content. But what is missing? Online content. We think: add apps with the ability to stream online content and you kill Boxee Box, Roku’s HD XR, TiVo Premiere.

Then, App Store is the world biggest free games platform. We say: add games (not only free) and — with the accompaniment of some good controller (iPhone?) — you kill Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3.

And Blu-ray? Don’t be funny! Apple wants us to BUY content (iTunes, apps), not to PLAY already paid content.

The only thing that is quite surprising — if Engadget is right — is that Apple will not introduce its new addition to our living rooms at the upcoming WWDC. We thought that it is going to happen after MacRumor revealed an e-mail exchange between Bryan Webster and Steve Jobs. “I hope you have some good WWDC announcements to blow [Google] out of the water,” Webster wrote to Jobs on Saturday. “You won’t be disappointed,” the CEO responded.

The mail may be fake. Engadget may be wrong. Anyway, we’re counting down to Steve’s keynote.

Continue reading New $99 Apple TV with iPhone OS, A4 CPU, 1080p and online storage

Weather forecast plugin for Apple TV

(tomek) — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:40:33 +0100

We can imagine your windows are tightly curtained while you’re watching latest Vampire Diaries episode. Zombieland requires dark vibe too. But in case you suddenly need to pop out for extra popcorn, don’t be surprised with the nasty weather outside. Here is the WeatherFront, a weather forecast plugin for the Front Row. It fetches the weather forecast from the internet and displays the current conditions and a three days forecast for your area. Stefan, a German software developer who sent this to us says it’s not the final version, but works already quite okay. Thanks, Stef!

Continue reading Weather forecast plugin for Apple TV

New version of Boxee Beta released

(tomek) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:24:07 +0100

Boxee has just released next version of the Boxee Beta, which now includes:

• File Identification Progress (shows how many files Boxee is scanning, has identified, and doesn’t recognize within the media collection)
• Manual Movie & TV Show identification (you can now tell Boxee what’s in your collection and/or change incorrectly labelled files)
• Facebook & Twitter in your Boxee feed (recommendations from friends on Facebook & Twitter can now be seen within Boxee)
• New & Improved RSS Management (a brand new way to manage, discover and play RSS feeds in Boxee)
• hundreds of bugs fixes.

Find the latest version of Boxee here.

Source: Boxee

Continue reading New version of Boxee Beta released

Twilio & Boxee Hackathon

(tomek) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:17:35 +0100

Hack Hack Hack, All Day Long,
Hack the phone while I sing this song,
Gonna hack TV too, gonna make it ring (bro?)
make it SMS & call, with Twilio

With these rhymes Andrew from Boxee tries to encourage developers to participate in “TV Meets Telephony” Hack challenge. Boxee has partnered with Twilio, a SF-based startup that has a very cool web-service API for telephony, to host a hackathon to see what kind of Boxee apps people can come up with using the telephone. The contest will culminate in a 29-hour Hack Day on April 10th and 11th in both SF & NYC.

More details here.

Continue reading Twilio & Boxee Hackathon

How to Recover Data from Apple TV

(tomek) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:14:58 +0100

You are trying to boost your pc performance in some less conventional way and then, suddenly, there is only gray smoke what have left from your 1 TB heard drive and your enormous movie collection? Your ‘puppy’ buried your brand new tiny netbook in the garden and you will never find out where? Lost your music and last holidays’ photos? You’re crashed but you recall you had copied it to your Apple TV some time before. Yes, coping files to the Apple TV is making a backup without knowing it. The only question now is how to get it back. Here is what you have to do to recover your priceless media files from your atv.

1. Enable SSH on your Apple TV

(here is how to do it: Enable SSH & AFP on your Apple TV)

Omit this step if your Apple TV runs software v2.2 or later (OS versions older than 2.2 don’t support ssh v2 protocol) or if you have SSH already enabled.

2. Execute the following command:

$> scp -1 -r frontrow@:/mnt/Media// /

example:

$> scp -1 -r frontrow@192.168.27.150:/mnt/Media/Photos/ /tmp/

In this case all the photos stored in Apple TV will be copied to the local directory /tmp/

That’s all. Yes, it’s that simple.

In case you want to recover all the data without specifying any subdirectory use the following command:

$> scp -1 -r frontrow@192.168.27.150:/mnt/Media/ /myAppleTVfullbackup/

NOTE:

It will work on Mac, Linux as well as on Windows with openSSH.

The structure of directories and file names on Apple TV is the same like the one used in iPods

Enjoy and good luck!

Continue reading How to Recover Data from Apple TV

Adding DVDs to AppleTV

(tomek) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:28:15 +0100

A simple how-to for those who still haven’t figured out they can move their DVD collection do the atv. “Ripping your personal DVD’s for the AppleTV adds convenience. Selecting them from My Movies is so much simpler than finding and then loading up the DVD,” says Guy and we do agree. Guy recommends using DVD43 for ripping and HandBrake for converting to mp4, but remember there is a lot of other software that can do this job. For those who like to organize their movies with DVDpedia, PARA9 has just released DVDpedia FrontRow and AppleTV plugin 2.0.6 with AppleTV 3.0.1 support.

Read How to add your DVDs to AppleTV

Continue reading Adding DVDs to AppleTV

Is an iPad a Revolutionary Device?

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:59:08 +0100

After all the rumors and geek’s dreams… I’m almost sure some people get disappointed about the device and the general consensus among the people I spoke with about the iPad is that “Wow! But is not for me,” or “It’s only for geeks.”

Yeah, Wednesday’s presentation was quite impressive and I have to agree that it would be nice to have such a device. But if I already have a computer and an iPhone… the only reason to buy the iPad would be that is not so expensive and that I love to have gadgets.

But I have to be positive on it. I think it will make a huge difference and it’s the first of a new category of devices that will come sooner than expected.

I see two main market segments for the iPad. Well, three if we include the geeks.

Who does not have a photo album at home? The experience of opening the book, sharing and commenting the pictures while handling it and sitting close to our friends… Digital photography has reduced the amount of printed pictures, and we have started to use TV and computer slideshows to view it.

I can imagine my parents using the iPad just like they were using an ordinary photo album, having it ready to show the pictures of their grandsons to unexpected guests. No need to open the TV, no need to bring the computer.

In order to fit in this category it will require over the air iPhoto synchronization, something that Apple TV already does. Also, it would be great to have bi-directional synchronization to be able to play with the photos (re-arrange, comment, tag) on the iPad.

Another area is a segment of professional applications. The list here is long: from doctors handling it in the hospitals, decoration outlets and architects showing their projects and interacting with their customer’s work, to more basic, like a restaurant menu or beauty salons offering it instead of newspapers and magazines.

What the device is missing?

Clearly it needs a video camera for video conferencing. It would be great if it also had a rear camera.

Size is important… and most probably we will see this device in smaller, portable 6” format as well as in a larger format to facilitate reading newspapers and magazines.

A memory slot and USB connector to connect with the rest of the world are also more than welcome.

And networking capabilities! Why do I have to have the media in the iPad? Why not let the device mount an AFP or SMB drive, so that it could have virtually unlimited storage capacity?

My conclusion is that it is only a first step, but the iPad is definitely a revolutionary device.

Jordi Duran i Batidor

Originally appeared on Smartphone.Biz-News.com

Continue reading Is an iPad a Revolutionary Device?

Boxee Beta Now Works on Apple TV

(tomek) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:13:55 +0100

Although there is still no official release from Boxee team, the community has already brought the Boxee Beta to the Apple TV. On the Boxee Blog, Jim Wiley posted a step by step guide on how to enable the Beta on the atv.

The guide assumes that you have SSH enabled on you ATV and you know how to log in to it to issue commands via a Terminal and that you know how to copy files over from your PC/Mac. But in case you were a complete noob, Jim has also given a short explanation on how to do this.

It was already verified on the latest ATV 3.0.1, as well as on ATV 2.4 software.

Find the guide here.

The FAQ and comments below the post clarify a bit how to solve some of the Beta issues (online content, scraping issues).

Great job, Jim!

Continue reading Boxee Beta Now Works on Apple TV

1080p Coming to Apple TV

(tomek) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:25:24 +0100

That’s a great news: several TeamXBMC/Redhat developers and the Broadcom Media PC Group made it possible to play 1080p content on Apple TV! It is called Broadcom Crystal HD and it’s a cross-platform hardware decoding of mpeg2, h.264 and VC1 video content up to 1080p.

It will be coming to XBMC on OSX, Linux, and Windows via the Broadcom Crystal HD Hardware Decoder (BCM970012). It is available now in a mini-PCIE card with ExpressCard and 1X PCIE form factors.

Good news is that it has a common programming API and it’s an open source solution with full source code for driver and library available for OSX and Linux under a GPL/LGPL license. Go ahead, 3rd party developers!

The Windows driver binary, as well as the Linux source code for the driver and library can be found at the Broadcom web site. For OSX, the binaries and source code for the driver and library will be hosted at google code. Users in the USA can purchase the Crystal HD mini PCIE card from Logic Supply for $69, and of course there’s always ebay for those outside the USA.

Source: XBMC

Continue reading 1080p Coming to Apple TV

Boxee Beta Unveiled

(tomek) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:54:18 +0100

This Monday, at the Boxee Beta Unveiling event in Brooklyn, the Boxee hit beta status. The Beta comes with completely re-designed home screen – the menu is now put front and center. Below you will find Feed (recommendations from friends on boxee, Facebook or Twitter), Featured (recommendations from Boxee’s staff) and Queue (things we’ve saved for later).

The new additions – global menu – makes it easy to access helpful resources (Logout, Settings, Queue, Feed, History), the main menu (Photos, Music, Movies, Home, TV Shows, Apps, Files) and shortcuts to our favorite apps, TV shows or movies.

The Boxee sidebar has been extended to Music, Photos, and Apps.

Boxee overhauled Movies and TV shows to include both internet and local content. If you know what it is you want to watch, there is no need to go through an App now.

The Beta organizes TV shows by season and episode, and let’s you filter by whether freely available or not.

Along with the Beta Bexee introduced three new Content Partners – Clicker (a TV Guide to the Web), The Escapist (a video game review site), and Suicide Girls (sexy nude photos & videos of tattooed girls).

Boxee team have also increased what people can do with Boxee Apps. Developers can now use OAuth to give Boxee access to private resources meaning users can easily access their accounts across the web.

We can now not only watch video, but also start browsing websites that don’t already have a Boxee App or RSS feed using a Boxee browser.

The Beta also brings official support for Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Karmic.

The graphical back-end has been switched from OpenGL to DirectX to take advantage of Direct X Video Acceleration. Boxee has also worked closely with NVidia on their ION platform to offload video processing with DXVA and Flash 10.1.

Boxee Bata will be open up to the public at CES 2010, Jan 7th.

Continue reading Boxee Beta Unveiled

Boxee Beta coming today

(tomek) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:04:48 +0100

Boxee is having an unveiling event today at 7pm (ET) at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, NYC. They will demo the new Beta, launch new applications from partners and start a 4-weeks early-access for users to test the Beta before they release it to the public at CES on Jan 7th. Boxee team say the Beta will look, feel and behave differently from the Alpha. It will feature new user interface, improved navigation, search TV Shows and Movies, a user controlled Queue, shortcuts and more.

There will be a live broadcast (by Livestream) on Boxee blog and via Boxee.

Three unveiling presenters – Missy Suicide of SuicideGirls.com, Jim Lanzone from Clicker.com and Tom Kurz from The Escapist, will be talking about their new Boxee apps for the event.

Boxee will be sending Beta invites to people attending the event, people who sign up for early access and over time to all existing alpha users.

In case you want to get your name on the early-access list you can fill this form.

Source: Boxee blog

Continue reading Boxee Beta coming today

Apple TV 3.0.1 update

(tomek) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:29:53 +0100

In case you didn’t have enough fun hacking your boxes for 3.0 update, here it comes…another “revolutionary” update. Apple says it prevents content from temporarily disappearing. According to them, when you have to update to 3.0.1? “When you are using Apple TV software version 3.0 and all of your movies, TV shows, and songs appear to be missing” or “When you are using Apple TV software version 3.0 and all of your movies, TV shows, and songs appear to be present, but you have not yet updated to Apple TV software version 3.0.1.” Interesting… Wasn’t it easier with “Don’t think too much, update your box immediately!”

Official Apple instructions here.

- XBMC launched beta 3 of Launcher 3.2.
We can confirm now – it’s compatible with 3.0.1

- Boxee says it is already working in 3.0.1 (with Launcher 3.2 beta 3)
Also confirmed.

- nitoTV released 0.8.2 with 3.0.1 Support
(RSS, USB and watchdog patches updated for 3.0.1 as well)

- aTV Flash released 4.0.1 version with 3.0.1 compatibility.

- Patchstick 3.0.1 is also available (with Sapphire and RSS)
You need to use LaunchMore version 0.4 or 0.4.1 to apply this update.

Continue reading Apple TV 3.0.1 update

Apple TV 3.0 – nitoTV, XBMC, Boxee and others now working

(tomek) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:52:39 +0100

It took not more than a few days to get almost all the important hacks and plugins working in 3.0 update.

nitoTV

Released yesterday, 0.8.1 version (direct download) now supports 3.0 update.

nito says some features may have no chance of making it back in. Couchsurfer and RSS are not working, but they have restored the functionality for DVD, MPlayer, QuickTime, Weather, Network, download, installer and Application Launching sections.

Audio volume and sub toggling and resume returns in QuickTime playback! It is possible to turn off the volume control in General settings if this is not a desirable feature.

Guys warn things may be a little buggy from the OS transition.

Follow nitoTV thread at Hackint0sh.org

XBMC

Launcher 3.2 beta 1 (beta 2 is already on the way!) works with 3.0. However the new version is not ready for public use, and only people who are comfortable with the command line should install it.

Installing:
1) “patchstick” the 3.0 ATV
2) ssh into it and download Launcher-3.2.beta2-debug.run
3) install Launcher chmod +x Launcher.. ; ./Launcher-3.2…
4) install XBMC with Launcher or just re-symlink your old install (ln -s /Users/frontrow/Applications/XBMC.app /Applications/XBMC.app)
5) run XBCM

XBMC forum thread

Boxee

Today XBMC guys made it possible to run Boxee on ATV 3.0.

That’s how to do it:
1) “patchstick” the 3.0 ATV (You should just use your old patchstick you used previously on the ATV )
2) ssh into it the ATV and download 3.2 Launcher
Type:
wget http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/858897/XBMC/Launcher-3.2.beta2-debug.run

3) Install the Launcher
Type:
chmod +x Launcher-3.2.beta2-debug.run

Type :
./Launcher-3.2.beta2-debug.run

Enter the appropriate password “frontrow“ and answer “Y” when it asks to restart the finder.

4) From your ATV Menu> Launcher > Downloads, install Boxee alpha 0.9.14.6992.

Note: Please do not select the Launcher 3.1

5) Launch Boxee from ATV Menu >Launcher >Boxee .

[via Boxee Support forum]

Others working in 3.0

Patchstick created with OS 2.1 (SSH enabled; accessing AppleTV with Cyberduck (sftp) works great)
Patchstick created with OS 3.0
QuickTime components
Composite Colour
AppleFileShare Server (AFP) (working using afpinstall.sh and ATV-Recover image)
LaunchMore! 0.4 (with ATV firmware 3.0)
atvPWN (Not all of the plugins that can be installed through the latest atvPwn are actually compatible with 3.0)

Not working:

ATVFiles
aTV Flash (they say an update should be available by the end of the week)
Sapphire
Software Menu

In case you needed to downgrade back to firmware version 2.4.

Continue reading Apple TV 3.0 – nitoTV, XBMC, Boxee and others now working

Apple TV 3.0 Update

(tomek) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:16:19 +0100

Well…, as we all already know, new Apple TV software release didn’t bring anything really interesting to our shiny boxes, so let me not focus on the new features and start with a short article our friend wrote for HDTV Biz-News.com. More details about this poor update to come later.

***

After months of speculations whether Apple will release completely new Apple TV device making it a high-end media center for our living rooms or rather leave it, more or less, as it is (means without all the latest true HD capibilities, IP streaming, Blu-ray, live TV ability, HD recorder, 1080p support, etc.)… we still don’t know the answer.

The company introduced new Apple TV 3.0 software that gives us not more than a redesigned main menu – which is said to give a faster access to the content, possibility to watch iTunes Extras and enjoy iTunes LP in fullscreen and listen to the internet radio (including stations in high-quality HE-ACC formats).

Adding only cosmetic changes to a device with such a huge potential doesn’t mean Apple gave up developing Apple TV and converting it to a set-top box with all the capabilities offered by the HD market, but it gives a next signal that the company will do nothing that would pull people away from iTunes.

On-demand HD movie rentals and purchases, HD TV shows, music and podcasts from the iTunes Store give Apple a millions. According to the company, Apple TV gives direct access to a catalog of over 8,000 films on iTunes including over 2,000 in HD video available for rent or purchase. Users can also choose from a selection of 11 million songs, 10,000 music videos and over 50,000 TV episodes. Renting a movie in iTuens runs from $3 to $5, buying will costs us $14,99. And there are 65 million users of iTunes out there.

“HD movies and HD TV shows from iTunes have been a huge hit with Apple TV,” confirmed Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services.

Adding anything that would take Apple from iTunes revenue (like additional drive – Blu-ray or, at least DVD, IP streaming or live TV) wouldn’t have any sense from the economical point of view. The only thing can happen is that Apple will add to the Apple TV an access to App Store to maximize revenues from the application market.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicts that Apple will sell 6.6 million AppleTV units this year.

***

The new Apple TV software is available immediately free of charge to existing Apple TV owners. Apple TV with 160GB capacity is available for $229.

Apple TV requires an 802.11b/g/n wireless network or 10/100 Base-T Ethernet networking, a broadband Internet connection and a high definition widescreen TV.

Apple has also released iTunes 9.0.2, adding support for Apple TV 3.0.

Originally appeared on HDTV.biz-news.com

Continue reading Apple TV 3.0 Update

DVDpedia Comes To Apple TV

(tomek) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:18:18 +0100

Thanks to PARA9 it’s now possible to browse DVDpedia movie catalog on Apple TV. This small Montréal based team, specializing in web and Mac OS X development, released DVDpedia plugin for Front Row that now also supports Apple TV 2.4 (and only this version).

The plugin is offered as a free download.

To install it on Apple TV you need to enable at least SSH and AFP (if your device isn’t hacked yet) – find the instructions here. Then just copy the plugin from the Front Row library to Apple TV, make your DVDpedia database accessible from Apple TV, reboot the device and then make DVDpedia desktop application open the database at the new location.

The plugin enables to browse movies by Title, Director, Actor, Genre, Year, Country or Recently Added. You will also get a little info for each entry selected. And if you have a movie linked to the entry, you can start playing it right there in Front Row.

For more details and download links go to PARA9 website.

Continue reading DVDpedia Comes To Apple TV

How to run BitTorrent on the Apple TV

(tomek) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:38:03 +0100

Another great work from Danny! He has published a tutorial explaining how to install transmission (bittorent client) on the Applet TV and run Clutch web-interface to control bittorrent from browsers.

To go through this new tutorial you first need to enable SSH on your Apple TV (check out Danny’s previous tutorial). The new hack is generally based on installing transmission, MAMP web server and Clutch.

It’s then possible to control the Clutch even via the iPhone.

Users had reported some errors but the problem seems to be solved now, after Danny made some corrections. Go to the comments to learn more.

Check it out!

Continue reading How to run BitTorrent on the Apple TV

aTVitter – the first Twitter client for Apple TV

(tomek) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:53:12 +0100

Patchstick.ca has released the first Twitter client for the Apple TV – aTVitter.

For the present, the application lets you access and display the three timelines: friends’ timeline, your own timeline and the public timeline.

It’s also possible to display the detail view of a selected tweet.

In order to read your and your friends’ timeline, you need to login to your twitter account using the “Settings” menu. To logout, simply delete the current user name in the Setting menu.

aTVitter also provides full iPhone integration for the Twitter account maintenance.

aTVitter it’s free and can be installed via the free base version of PatchStick 3.0 as well as via the newest Update 2.4a

Patchstick’s team ensure they are working hard to release more features soon. Full Twitter account management would be nice and the layout improvement – more than welcome.

Contact patchstick.ca to post suggestions, opinions and ideas of any kind.

Continue reading aTVitter – the first Twitter client for Apple TV

Hacking Apple TV to run boxee, XBMC and enable an external hard drive

(tomek) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:20:19 +0100

On his blog dannyruchtie.nl, Danny has published short but exhaustive tutorial on how to hack the Apple TV to run boxee, XBMC and enable an external hard drive.

In just four steps he explains how to create and install a patchstick, access Apple TV and enable external USB drives. He ensures the whole process is completely free.

Read the article here.

Continue reading Hacking Apple TV to run boxee, XBMC and enable an external hard drive

NitoTV Take 2 0.7.9 released

(tomek) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:36:27 +0100

The latest NitoTV Take 2 version improves Gesture Support in MPlayer and DVD Playback, fixes various bugs and adds subtitle size toggle for MPlayer.

What’s exactly new in 0.7.9?

· Fixed gesture issues in DVDPlayback and MPlayer playback. The “options” button in the remote app is mapped to “hold menu” for changing between keymaps in DVD and MPlayer playback.

· Fixed Smart Installer bug for DVDPlayback framework stub not being moved if update was preformed rather than a restore.

· Fixed one crash bug in adding suffixes, blacklist volumes or MPlayer arguments (there is still another elusive bug that casuses some crashes there).

· Fixed another file browsing crash bug.

· Added subtitle size toggle for MPlayer (only works to toggle between the default fonts installed with nitoTV, Arial-14 – Arial-24). As dafranca noticed on Hackint0sh.org forum – “This will help many foreign speakers, because the default font size was Arial-14 (kind of very small), and to to changed it has required same knowledge on shell”.

Find the 0.7.9 AppleTV version here

Follow the discussion about the latest NitoTV’s releases at Hackint0sh.org

And in case if you have never had an opportunity to read this article:

nitoTV – one plugin to rule them all

Source and more at AwkwardTV.org

Continue reading NitoTV Take 2 0.7.9 released

Waiting for the new Apple TV

(tomek) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:54:54 +0100

There are a lot of rumors and expectations about new Apple TV last time in the Web. Although Apple has never said a word that they’re going to release new device, it seems like people are very impatiently waiting for the new ’shiny box of joy’.

A few days ago Michael Wolf from GigaOM asked on his blog: what’s next for Apple’s living room strategy? “Some have speculated they will produce their own television, others might suspect a Blu-ray player could be on its way” he writes and thinks it is time for Apple to refocus its attention on atv device: “Since the launch of Apple TV, the company has launched its app store, pushed into gaming, and started offering HD video content on iTunes (…) Add it all together on a refreshed box, and it could be a potent combination” claims Wolf.

GigaOM has asked their readers to share their perspectives. We summed it up and added some other “web’s voices”. Here you have the most frequently repeated expectations:

-   Media streaming (Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Last.fm, etc.)
-   Blu-Ray/DVD/BD drive
-   App store access with ability to run iPhone apps on the Apple TV
-   App/widget channel for news, sports, stocks, weather, etc.
-   Live TV ability
-   Expanded gaming ability
-   Full Social Networks support
-   Support for 1080p content
-   TiVo functionality
-   HD video chat
-   Possibility to play ISO files without having to hack ´n crack
-   Desktop support and flash enabled web browser
-   A built in iPhone/iPod dock and Sync
-   Dual Cable Card slot
-   Price staying around $200-300

Feel free to suggest your ideas in the comments section.

Continue reading Waiting for the new Apple TV

All you want to know about 2.4 update

(tomek) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:31:05 +0100

It’s been a few days since Apple released its 2.4 software update. Time to sum all the rumours up! But first, let’s take a look at new features that come to our ATV devices:

Remote app directional control: Control your Apple TV with simple finger gestures via the Remote app. This feature requires Remote 1.3 running on an iPhone or iPod touch with iPhone OS 3.0.

Flickr Search: Search Flickr photo tags to find recently updated photos of interest. Save searches to quickly find new photos or use as a screen saver for Apple TV.

New view options: View movies By Genre, By Movie, or Unwatched. View TV Shows and Podcasts By Date, By Show, or Unwatched.

Updated transport and chapter modes:During video playback, click right or left to fast forward or rewind. Additional clicks increase the speed. Click down to show chapter markers.

Updating Apple TV software is more than easy. Check it out here.

Certainly the most important feature is a support for controlling Apple TV from your iPhone or iPod. You can control audio or video playback by flicking left or right to rewind or fast forward. Flick down to show chapter markers when watching video and then flick left or right to skip. You can also tap the screen to play/pause either video or audio.

As TUAW reports, their in-house Apple TV geeks, Megan Lavey and Christina Warren, both installed the updates and gave them a try. “Megan indicated the gestures were quick and responsive, and coupled with the ability to use the iPhone/iPod keyboard to search for shows, the new versions made it much less tedious to navigate through your shows¨.

This video seems to confirm these observations.

The main question for many ATV users was if boxee will be running on the device after updating? Boxee quickly responded to that kind of doubts, tweeting: “if you upgraded your Apple TV to 2.4: run patchstick again, update launcher, download latest boxee and you’ll be back boxeeing” (http://twitter.com/boxee). They also reposted a short tutorial ‘so how do i get boxee on atv?’ on their forum.

On various forums users confirmed the full boxee functionality on ATV.

According to awkwardTV, 2.4 update works fine also with XBMC Media Center 9.04, NitoTV Take 2 0.7.6+ (but isn’t able to install Perian) and LaunchMore. But they also reports some problems:

Divx (Perian) has no audio when installed like this or by this article “Install_Perian” (it’s maybe related to “fooled” files);
SoftwareMenu right from atvusb-creator (mac b10) causes Finder to crash, had to ssh and remove frappliance, then downloaded latest version and it is OK now;
ATVFiles (Version 1.2.0 (479)) crashes when browsing files.

We’ll be following all 2.4 update-connected news and will inform you immediately.

Continue reading All you want to know about 2.4 update

What’s your favourite boxee app?

(tomek) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:56:53 +0100

Guys from boxee certainly don’t waste their time and can be now proud not only of boxee’s high popularity but also of its fast-growing community. More than 40 apps were developed in response to their App Dev Challenge. The apps are being successively incorporated into boxee. If you still haven’t tried it out on your TV, you can take a look at some of them on boxee´s blog and vote for the best one in each category. Polls are open till June 22nd.

Winners will be announced at boxee event in San Francisco on June 23rd.

Continue reading What’s your favourite boxee app?

Using Loop Pointer now possible with aTV Flash

(tomek) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:48:44 +0100

aTV Flash version 3.6 is now available. This new version includes the newly released Couch Surfer Pro and AirControl applications.

Couch Surfer Pro adds mouse/pointer support, easier navigation, and faster page loads. Couch Surfer Pro is everything you love about the Internet right on your AppleTV.

AirControl beta adds support for the new Loop™ pointer from Hillcrest Labs. Consumers who use aTV Flash (version 3.6 with AirControl) will be able to use the Loop pointer to navigate menus, control video and browse the web with the flick of a wrist.

This new version is available for both Mac and PC. Current customers will have access to the new version immediately in their online account.

Find more at aTV Flash.com

Continue reading Using Loop Pointer now possible with aTV Flash

Latest Apple TV-related software updates

(tomek) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:46:42 +0100

There have been some software updates lately released and announced:

Jaman , a movie download service, has released new version of their Jaman Player that lets you synch Jaman and other movies to your AppleTV. Here you?ll find how to watch Jaman movies on your AppleTV.

aTV Flash, a patchstick that enables installing plugins and other applications on Apple TV, has released 3.5.5 version of their installer program. This version includes a number of efficiency improvements for the installer application as well as support for the popular Hotspot Shield application that enables private web browsing. New aTV Flash has been released for both Mac and PC.

Finally Boxee announced that their Windows version, earlier available only for invites, will be open to all June 23rd.

Continue reading Latest Apple TV-related software updates

Boxee?s App Development Challenge ? UPDATE

(tomek) — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:10:41 +0100

boxee published an update about its App Dev Challenge:

see you at Mezzanine! - we were able to book Mezzanine in San Francisco as the venue for the event on June 23rd. following our meetup in Webster Hall in NYC, we thought we should find a similar place in San Francisco.

how to build a boxee app - there are now two examples of boxee apps that could serve as a good starting point for building your own app. the first one is ThruYou and the second is songza. if you have any question about the API or the development process you can check out the boxee dev forum, or connect with idan on twitter.

Drobo + 4TB - our friends at Seagate are sponsoring 4TB of Barracuda drives for each of the 3 Drobos we are giving away at the event. Drobo + 4TB is my personal setup at home, connected to my Mac Mini over the network and serving all my videos, music and pictures. it is excellent!

ideas for boxee apps - want to build an app, but don?t have a specific idea? you can look at what people are asking for on getsatisfaction, search on twitter, look at services with open APIs, or just think of what you?d love to see on boxee and is not already there. fred wilson will be happy to see someone build a La Blogoteque app.

As with the previous event, there will be a new version of boxee released on the night of the event which contains updated features and content.

working on a boxee app? let us know http://bit.ly/boxeedevchallenge

Continue reading Boxee?s App Development Challenge ? UPDATE

Boxee?s App Development Challenge

(tomek) — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:31:25 +0100

To encourage both companies and individuals to add new content and features onto its platform, boxee launched app development challenge that will culminate with a boxee meetup in San Francisco on June 23rd.

Here you have some details:

The boxee dev challenge will have 3 categories: Video, Music and Photos.

In each category we will have a People?s Choice award and a Judge?s Choice award:

People?s Choice Award: Drobo + 4TB from Seagate
Judge?s Choice Award: Sony Bravia XBR9 46?

The deadline for submitting your application is June 14th at 11:59pm PT, but we encourage you to submit early and often as we?ll be talking up cool applications as they come in.

Voting will take place between June 15th - June 22nd.

On June 23rd will have a boxee event in San Francisco (RSVP here) announcing the People?s Choice and our esteemed judges will choose a winner from the 10 most popular apps in each category.

The judges at the event will be:
Veronica Belmont - Tekzilla, Qore
Ryan Block - GDGT, former EIC Engadget
Cali Lewis - host of geekbrief.tv
Avner Ronen - boxee founder and CEO

Looking for more info on how to develop boxee apps: check out http://developer.boxee.tv and take a look at the sample app (we will publish additional sample apps). Please submit your app to dev_challenge@boxee.tv.

Whether you?re a developer or just a boxee fan, we look forward to seeing you @ the event.

Continue reading Boxee?s App Development Challenge

Apple TV To Get a Wii-like Remote

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:06:30 +0100

Apple has filed a set of patents for a Wii-style remote control for Apple TV.

In the two patent applications Apple describes a “wand” for controlling the operations of a media system, suggesting the iPhone-maker may be considering games for Apple TV.

That would involve distributing them to the device through the iTunes App Store, as is currently the case for the iPhone.

In January, it was suggested that NVIDIA’s Ion platform is likely to be included in the next Apple TV.

Among the uses proposed by Apple for the wand are zoom operations, a keyboard application, an image application, an illustration application and a media application.

Other possiblities for the wand include it being used to call up a dock, and then to select an option from the menu by moving the wand across the screen.

The controller could also scroll through a CoverFlow display and be used to manipulate photos by zooming in and out and rotating.

Source: HTDV.biz-news.com

It will be interesting to see how it develops, and if this will finally move apple to invest more in the platform.

Continue reading Apple TV To Get a Wii-like Remote

AppleTVHacks Forums offline for a while

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:44:11 +0100

It’s true that lately we did not put much attention to forum moderation, big mistake, sorry!
Unfortunately the forum has been taken by unrelated posts (to be polite).

As cleaning the forum will be almost impossible, we have decided to stop that service for the moment. And perhaps starting it again with a more clear rules and mechanism to avoid spammers and unrelated content.

Thanks for your comprehension.

Continue reading AppleTVHacks Forums offline for a while

Apple TV Software Update 2.3.1 available

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:10:07 +0100

Apple has just released its latest update for the Apple TV, version 2.3.1 breaks all the third party add-ons for the Apple TV as Boxee and will break functionality for most of the applications, as expected by this continued cat and mouse game between Apple and the hacking community.

This release has at first sight no additional features, looks like a maintenance release.

Continue reading Apple TV Software Update 2.3.1 available

Hulu request to be taken down from Boxee

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:59:16 +0100

We have received the following e-mail from the Boxee team, and as they are asking feedback from the community, we are reproducing it here for your consideration.

Friends,

For those of you following the Hulu / TV.com story, we wanted to share the news that Hulu has also requested to be removed from boxee at the request of their content partners.
We’ve put up a blog post on our site (http://blog.boxee.tv/2009/02/18/the-hulu-situation/) giving a little more insight, but we wanted you to hear it from us first.

Here’s the text of our post:
we love Hulu. they have built a great product and brand (including one the best Superbowl ads this year). since our early days in private alpha, Hulu was the most requested site by our users. so we built support for browsing Hulu on boxee, reached out to Hulu, showed it to them, and on Oct 20th, 2008 shared it with our alpha testers (without a formal partnership with Hulu). the response has been amazing. people love watching many of their favorite shows on Hulu via boxee. last week we generated more than 100,000 streams for them…

two weeks ago Hulu called and told us their content partners were asking them to remove Hulu from boxee. we tried (many times) to plead the case for keeping Hulu on boxee, but on Friday of this week, in good faith, we will be removing it. you can see their blog post about the issues they are facing there.

our goal has always been to drive users to legal sources of content that are publicly available on the Internet. we have many content partners who are generating revenue from boxee users and we will work with Hulu and their partners to resolve the situation.

we will tell them how users love Hulu on boxee, why it represents a great opportunity for them to better engage with fans of their shows, how boxee can help in exposing their content to new people, and why they should be excited about future opportunities of working with us.

we will blog/tweet as soon as we have any updates and hopefully we’ll be able to bring back the Hulu experience to boxee sooner rather than later.

Best,
Andrew

For that post, I will request you to comment and send feedback to their blog.

Continue reading Hulu request to be taken down from Boxee

Patchstick 3.0 from AppleTV & More, available from now

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:11:46 +0100

AppleTV&More, the Montreal based specialist for Apple TV enhancements, has released the version 3.0 of their “patchstick”.

From their press-release:

Patchstick 3.0 provides a flexible software solution that is customized to take the hassle out of the patching process.

The Patchstick 3.0 comes with an online update process, is fully reversible, retains standard functionality, adds remote access and support for all available codecs (wmv, mpg, avi, divx, xvid, …) and enables access to networks shares and more.

Patchstick 3.0 comes with 2 custom plugins, the LaucnhMore! and atvdigiframe plugin, and it allow to manage the installation of ATVFiles 1.2.0, Sapphire 6.5, XBMC, Boxee, HotSpot Shield and other available plugins for firmware version 2.3.

There is a Free version of the Patchstick, that can be found at google code.

The Paid solution contains all future updates and allows to install and deinstall the software plugins, and can be found here.

We did not had time to test it yet, if you have been playing with it, send us your impressions in the comments.

Continue reading Patchstick 3.0 from AppleTV & More, available from now

Apple TV sales Triple. Why ?

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:21:07 +0100

In those difficult days, full of lay-off, profit warnings and other depressing news, learning that a product has increased sales by 300% in Q4, is big news.

Apple TV sales were up over 3 time vs the year-ago quarter.

Some examples:

CNN Money: Can Apple save Hollywood?
PC World: Apple TV Sales Triple
Cult of Mac: Apple TV Cable Support Could Bring In $1B Per Year
AppleInsider: Sales of the Apple TV are up more than threefold over the past year.

All those news, focused on what’s next for Apple TV, most of them forecasting cable box support for Apple TV.

Personally, after the huge success of the iPhone App Store, I think next move will be App Store for the Apple TV.

What I think is more interesting is why now sales of Apple TV has tripled ?
Is because people plan to stay more at home, watching more films and going out less… ?

Some people think it’s because of Boxee!

What do you think ?

Continue reading Apple TV sales Triple. Why ?

How-to post at Lifehacker about Boxee and Appletv

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:23:52 +0100

Interesting post at Lifehacker.com by Kevin Purdy, describing a how-to convert an appleTV into a full featured media center thanks to Boxee.

Continue reading How-to post at Lifehacker about Boxee and Appletv

Apple adds HD video donwloads for UK users

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:55:45 +0100

Looks like previous post about Apple TV revamp will start by adding HD Downloads for AppleTV owners in the UK via iTunes.

The first offerings in high def are episodes of the current series of ABC’s Lost, which will be sold for £2.49 each.

This compares to the standard USD $2.99 rates charged for HD downloads on the US version of the Apple digital store.

A season pass will be £41.99.

A free five-minute HD trial is available from the store to give UK users a flavor of what’s on offer.

It?s time for AppleTV revamp ?

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:00:33 +0100

Apple reaffirmed support for AppleTV after announcing first quarter sales of the digital media receiver were three times higher than for the same period last year.

When asked about AppleTV, acting CEO Tim Cook was fairly emphatic about the device’s future.

“We still consider this a hobby, however, it is clear the movie rental business has helped AppleTV and there are more and more customers who want to try it,” he said.

“We fundamentally believe there is something here for us in the future. We will continue to invest in it.”

Strong video sales also helped the iTunes store to a record quarter.

Source: HDTV.biz-news.com

Continue reading It?s time for AppleTV revamp ?

ATVDigiframe plugin to use AppleTV as a DigitalFrame

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 03:11:52 +0100

Based on comments made by the company behind the product to appleTvHacks.net

Our plugin allows to setup any period of time between 2 slides in the “Slideshow” screensaver mode of AppleTV. The time can be set up in 1 second steps from 1 second to 9999 hours. The standard Apple TV application cripples the slideshow mode and only allows 2,3,5,10 or 20 seconds of time between 2 slides, which is not really usable for displaying digital art. Our ATVDigiframe plugin integrates seamlessly and matches the minimalist style of the AppleTV UI.

They idea came from a photographer willing to have a nice solution to display photos, non satisfied with the current solutions

I’am a huge AppleTV fan and I am a photographer myself. Before buying an AppleTV, I had looked into digital picture frames to display my own photographs. But they were either too small or they were really expensive when they had a nice size.
Also using an iMac mounted on the wall is a rather expensive solution. So I came up with the idea to use AppleTV as my own digital picture frame. However there are limitations on the AppleTV software that do not allow to use the slideshow function in a practical way.
So I decided that a piece of software has to do the job and allow people to share their photographs with their loved ones without having to be crammed in front of a computer screen. These days many people have nice Plasma and LCD TV’s so why not use their already existing “picture frames”? This is how the idea was born.

The company is base in Montreal Canada, and is providing the installation as a service for $78.91 or you can purchase an appleTV with the plugin already installed. They also allow you to download trial version (here) of the software. Cost for registering the plugin is $59.99

You can download the plugin for free and use it as long as you want. The trial version has the same features as the full version, but has a limitation regarding the time between the slides. The trial version is restricted to durations of up to 2 minutes between two slides. To remove this limitation, you need to purchase a registration key.

It looks like a basic hack, but it could be quite useful.

What do you think ?

More info at: http://atvdigiframe.blogspot.com/

Continue reading ATVDigiframe plugin to use AppleTV as a DigitalFrame

NVIDIA?s Ion For AppleTV?

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 01:42:37 +0100

Reports are circulating about the likely inclusion of NVIDIA’s Ion platform in the next AppleTV.

HDTV.biz-news.com repots:

The Ion platform makes use of the 9600M GPU, which can easily decode full HD video. Along with the Ion’s inclusion in AppleTV there is the possibility that it could also be used in the next Mac Mini

More sources seam to confirm it.

Continue reading NVIDIA?s Ion For AppleTV?

nitoTV take 2 - For AppleTV Take 2

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:40:15 +0100

nitoTV take 2 version 0.6.4 has been released on Jan 12th 2009.

NitoTV appliance is a front end for the popular mplayer media player perian and Apple’s DVDPlayback.framework (if installed).

You can create/edit playlists and add files or folders of your choice. By now it should support just about any media format. Create afp, nfs and samba mounts (with bonjour support) Install the kextloader, a variety of kexts/frameworks/binaries, perian, mplayer codecs, play nes, snes, genesis, game gear and gameboy advanced roms, view RSS feeds and 3-day Weather forecast, Launch Applications, and much much more!

Click here to read whats new in 0.6.4

Installation instructions and more information can be found at here

Continue reading nitoTV take 2 - For AppleTV Take 2

Boxee comes to Apple TV

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:01:52 +0100

Boxee, an open source media center with a focus on UI and social networking is now available on Apple TV!

Boxee will play any non-DRM content, and let users share information with each other and their existing social networks about what they’re watching or listening to. It will also aggregate all your entertainment (video, music, images) into one place and add in any RSS/XML/MMS feed (with mainstream content from sites like Hulu & ABC coming soon).

You can read more about Boxee in this article, or watch the video below.

The installation is very simple, thanks to an installer which formats a USB drive and sets it up to do the installation for you once plugged into your Apple TV.

If you would like to get an invite to the Boxee alpha, simply follow this link http://www.boxee.tv/atvhacks. You can then grab the USB-drive installer software from here.

Continue reading Boxee comes to Apple TV

USB flash drive creator released

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:43:22 +0100

The atv-bootloader team have today launched atvusb-creator, which creates USB flash drive based installers that include patchstick, factory restore and various Linux distributions.

This version is comes with ssh, bin tools, and two plugins (XBMC for Mac and Boxee for Mac). That’s right, two full blown OSX applications with their own AppleTV plugin to launch and get updates.

Currently, it is only available to run on OS X, but Linux and Windows versions should be following within the week.

Download it http://atvusb-creator.googlecode.com.

Continue reading USB flash drive creator released

Install XBMC Media Center on Apple TV

(editor @ AppleTVHacks.net) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:22:12 +0100

XBMC, an open source, cross-platform media center is no installable on Apple TV. XBMC supports a very complete spectrum of of audio and video multimedia file formats and codecs right out-of-the-box.

With the built in features and third party plugins, this really is a flexible media center. You can find out more on how to install XBMC on your Apple TV at this thread on their website.

A USB installer is in the works, but is currently not quite ready. For now you have to do the installation manually.

Continue reading Install XBMC Media Center on Apple TV