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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ?

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.

Read More at:

• HDTV UK
• AppleTVJunkie
• HTDV.biz-new.com

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

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.

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

Andrew Kippen of Boxee has just informed me that the long-awaited Ubuntu Linux version of Boxee will finally be made available for download today at boxee.tv

Like the OS X version of Boxee, the software will be released as an alpha version.  So please keep that in mind.

By the way, if you are working on porting Boxee to Apple TV, I would love to hear your progress on how the port is going.   Can’t wait to see it running on the Apple TV.

By now, you are probably having fun using your iPhone/iPod Touch to control and view media on your the Apple TV with the help of the Remote app. And what a neat app it is.

Now that Apple has shown us what could be done with the iPhone SDK and the new Apple TV 2.1 firmware, I am very excited at the possibilities of other apps to follow (either from Apple or 3rd party).

I wrote a post at AppleTVSource a few days back about what this can lead to: two-way control, video support and maybe even screen sharing.

Apple may have published an extensive documentation on the iPhone SDK but none on how to control the Apple TV. But then again that’s why we hack.

Currently, I am trying to figure out how the iPhone-Apple TV communication works. I haven’t had much time to look into this though. I suspect that the Apple TV exposes a set of web services to be consumed by the client. These web services are used to control and retrieve the media data.

I sent an email to the iPhone SDK support team at Apple but I doubt if I will get anything back from them.

Has anybody looked into this? I would love to hear from you.

Jamie Odell of Jaman just informed me that some new movies from the service will not work with the current JamanTV player on the Apple TV.  These movies fall under the license policy of 30 days to click play and 24 hours to watch after you click play.  (Sounds familiar?)

Anyway, they are working on a fix but don’t have a schedule for its release yet.  Of course, you will be first to know once the patch is released.

So you’ve been dying to use your iPhone/iPod Touch to control your Apple TV?  The previous hacks were just way too hard to follow?  Well, wait no more.  Go do yourself a favor and download the latest software.

Apple TV 2.1 not only supports the newly-launched MobileMe service (well, actually just the Gallery feature), you can now use your iPhone/iPod Touch to control your Apple TV.  To do this, you need the latest iTunes (version 7.7) and download the latest iPhone Remote app for use with your Apple TV.

Another exciting feature is photo thumbnails. No more boring slideshows.  Not just slideshows. You can now go directly to the photos you would like to view by browsing through thumbnails.  However, this feature does not work for “Shared Photos”.  What’s up with that, Apple?

Anyhow, go download yours now.

Ever wish that Apple could have done much better with the Apple TV user interface? I had high hopes for it but I have to say I was a little disappointed. The thumbnail view of videos was nice but that floating text menu is quite unsightly; it is so un-Apple-like.

Apple should have consulted with the Boxee guys first. At least these guys know a thing or two about presenting different types of media in an organized and intuitive manner.

I had a chance to talk to Andrew Kippen and Avner Ronen at Boxee last Friday via a conference call. Like many of us, they expressed their discontent with current media software and hardware; none of them were built with userâ??s in mind. So the Boxee team set out to build what Avner described as â??the best damn media centerâ? software available. And they made it free and open-source.

The boxee guys explained that many people are starting to see the PC as an entertainment source â?? especially with mainstream TV now available from sites like Hulu, ABC.com, and CBS.com. In addition, people are sharing more and more experiences online today, from photos, to videos, to status updates. Why not what weâ??re watching? It is so much more fun to share. So, Boxeeâ??s open source platform was designed from the ground up to include social networking features. With these features, you can keep track of what others are watching/listening to (both local content and content from the web â?? YouTube, BBC, etc.) and exchange recommendations about what you like.

The goal of Boxee is to run on as many platforms possible. Currently, the software is in alpha and only runs on the Mac platform. However, the Ubuntu Linux version is very close to being released, and, of course, a Windows version is in the works. The team has also reached out to the Apple TV hacker community looking for developers to port it to OUR preferred platform. They have gone through great lengths to make the source code very easy to implement and extend (itâ??s very developer-friendly).

I spent the last week playing around with Boxee. I am impressed. The user interface (which I totally dig) is well laid out, with a floating menu to the left and content displayed on the right. Like many media center software, Boxee is a full-screen application, putting every bit of screen real estate to good use. It is also Apple Remote-friendly. FrontRow is no match to this social media software.

The menu layout is predictable; it includes the usual ‘movies’, ‘music’, ‘photos’ and ’settings’. However, it also includes a â??What’s Newâ? menu option in which you can observe what music others have listened to or what movies they have watched.

When selecting an item your peers played, Boxee does one of two things. If the media was a movie, it can play a trailer of that movie, otherwise if itâ??s music, it attempts to connect to the Last.fm service to stream the song, or music like it, to your computer. Since itâ??s open source all of these options are customizable so people could easily code it to work with something like a Pandora or and IMDB for movie information.

For movies, music and photos, you have the option of either browsing through your local files or connecting to online services. For example, under photos, you can browse through pictures on your local hard drives and networked volumes. However, you can also view photos from online services like Picassa and Flickr. For movies, the online sources include blip.tv, c|net TV and many others. You can imagine what they could do once they get a deal with someone like Hulu.

To me, what sets Boxee apart from all other media center software is the extra effort developers put in to make using it very enjoyable. One example of this can be seen in the thumbnail art used to display movies. Instead of taking a still from the movie clip to display as a thumbnail, it uses the filename (and perhaps its metadata) to fetch the appropriate movie “poster” to display. Another example is the ability to display the lyrics of the currently playing song. Very nice touch.

All that being said, I do have a few issues with Boxee. I’m not going to go into the fact this is an alpha and it crashes every now and then. It is to be expected with alpha software. My first issue is that you can only browse for media on the local computer using folder hierarchy. This is very XBMC-like. There is nothing wrong with this but it would be much better if there was integration with iTunes and iPhoto. Browsing through photos using the folder method is just not practical. Secondly, Boxee sometimes displays the wrong thumbnail poster for movies. For example, on my personal file I named “November 2002″, it displays a movie poster from the movie “November”. It would be great to be able to look through choices if a poster or CD label was wrong. Another issue I have is that, once Boxee is installed, I can no longer call up FrontRow up using my Apple Remote; I find this to be a tad bit annoying.

Overall, I like Boxee a lot. I think it has a great potential of being the new standard for social media center software. The development team’s effort can almost be compared to what Google is doing with their Android platform; to have it run on as many types of hardware as possible. With a little help from enthusiasts and outside developers, it won’t be long before Boxee’s vision is realized.

You can check out Boxee at http://boxee.tv. We would love to see this software running on the Apple TV soon. So start coding!