MacFormat investigates… Apple TV
- Article 81 of 89
- MacFormat, January 2010
Rob Buckley takes a look at the new-look Apple TV and asks whether it’s as good as it gets or if there are better options available
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If a powerful media centre is what you want, the Apple TV isn’t it. But if you want a very good media centre that everyone can use and matches the Apple aesthetic, the Apple TV is the one for you.
Box out: Hacking the Apple TV
The limitations of the Apple TV means that ever since it was first released, people have been trying to hack it to expand its capabilities. Since it is literally a closed box, this wasn’t easy.
Nevertheless, the hackers succeeded and have found ways to boost the Apple TV’s capabilities. The Apple TV has a USB slot, but it has no official purpose, except as a way for technicians to run diagnostics. However, it is possible to install software onto a USB flash drive, insert this ‘patch stick’ into the slot and then install new programs on the Apple TV.
There are two main sources of software for hacking the Apple TV: the atvusb-creator page (http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/) and aTV Flash (http://www.atvflash.com/). The former is free and will let you create a patch stick that installs ssh utilities for accessing the Apple TV via UNIX on your Mac; it’ll also add XBMC and Boxee, two media centres that let your Apple TV serve additional Internet content including iPlayer. With SSH enabled, you’ll then be able to do more advanced things, such as attach an external drive to the Apple TV using the USB slot. AwkwardTV (http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Main_Page) gives instructions on how to do all of this once your Apple TV has been patched, but you will need to be comfortable with UNIX.
ATV Flash costs £30 but is a user-friendly front end to all of this. Although it doesn’t do absolutely everything possible, it does install additional video codecs and an FTP server so you can copy content directly to the Apple TV. On top of that, it adds NitoTV, a Safari-based web browser, a plug-in manager, an RSS feed reader, a media organizer, a file browser, and support for Jaman Movies. No UNIX knowledge is required, since it’s all done through a simple application.
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