Apple TV

Apple TV 2.2 update information glut: HD TV, navigation features, more

Posted on Oct. 3, ’08, 12:14 PM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple TV

Derik was amazed this morning at all the details Apple provided about the Apple TV 2.2 software update, but that was just the tip of the iceberg, my friends. Apple’s actually put up a whole knowledge base page with a carefully delineated table of the new features in this version. All this information? Out in the open? I think now we know what gave Steve Jobs a fake heart attack.

Besides the previously mentioned Genius features, the Apple TV now supports HD TV purchases—still no rentals, sadly—directly from the iTunes Store (in the US only); you can now browse iTunes movies by actor and director by selecting “more” on the movie page; and pressing and holding the Play/Pause button while playing a movie pops up a menu that gives you access to chapter selection, alternate audio tracks, and subtitle displays (those last two only on films where they’re available, naturally).

Wow, that’s pretty good; sounds like a nice set of improv—wait, there’s more? Huh. Seems you can also add a currently playing song to an On-The-Go playlist, and make mixed playlists of music videos and songs. And there’s also a standby mode that you can trigger by holding the Play/Pause button for about three seconds, or selecting from the menu by navigating to Settings > Standby.

It’s awfully thoughtful of Apple to put together this chart of feature changes. Is this a new age of transparency for our favorite company? Combined with the death of the [expletive] NDA earlier this week, it would seem like quite a shift. You’re on a roll guys—keep it up.

Apple TV Take Two and call me in the morning

Posted on Sep. 30, ’08, 2:36 PM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple TV

Despite the fact that Steve Jobs and other Apple execs like to refer to the Apple TV as a “hobby,” that’s always struck me as a rather inaccurate term. A hobby, after all, is something that you pursue out of passionate interest—two words you’d be hard-pressed to use in Apple’s attitude towards the little set-top box. Then again, I suppose referring to it as “a desperate attempt to extend their presence into the living room video market” is a bit wordy.

The Apple TV is, to my mind, Apple’s beachhead in TV-based entertainment. They want consumers to be aware that there is a living room component to the their media strategy, even if it’s not fully developed yet. However, having established that foothold, Apple’s still made only a small effort to expand their presence further. By all accounts, Apple TV Take Two, introduced at Macworld this year, is an improvement on the first iteration, offering movie rentals, a refined interface, and other major features. But what Take Two says to me most importantly, is that Apple TV Take Three is inevitable.

Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer clearly thinks this is the case too, but in his mind, this requires a hardware update.

Apple’s first step should be to throw a disc reader in there and make it a high-end DVD player replacement, something people will still need/use for years, for $199 or less. Then, get a good deal from Sony (SNE) to offer a premium Blu-ray edition for cheap — $399 tops; ideally $299 or less. And now you have a much, much bigger potential market than if Apple TV were just an iTunes player.

I’ve long stood by the idea that Apple envisions the Apple TV as a gateway to the future of television-based entertainment, whereas incorporating a physical media reader would be a concession to the past. But given the apparently low adoption rates of the Apple TV, there is some merit in Frommer’s argument that what the Apple TV needs is a kick in the pants from the outside world.

Apple TV doctor (of magic!) is in

Posted on Aug. 19, ’08, 3:45 PM PT by Scott McNulty

Category | Apple TV

Last night I was streaming some tunes to my sweet sound system via my Apple TV when the music started to sputter. When I tried stopping the music, the Apple TV wouldn’t respond; I tried retreating to the Apple TV’s main menu, but, like a technological nightmare, all I got was more stuttering music. I figured there must be a way to restart the darned thing without actually getting out of my chair (that’s why Thor invented remote controls, after all) and the procedure turns out to be quite simple.

This Apple Knowledge Base article spells it out for you: hold the Menu and scroll down buttons on your Apple remote for 3 or 5 seconds. That’ll cause the Apple TV to reboot into a recovery screen. From that screen you can either:

1. Restart your Apple TV
2. Run diagnostics
3. Reset to factory defaults

Given the conniptions the Apple TV was having, I figured running the diagnostics wouldn’t hurt. The spinning cursor of perpetual waiting was displayed for a few minutes while the diagnostics were run—it would have been nice for the Apple TV to display a little information about what, exactly, it was doing during this time—and after a few minutes the screen displayed a message letting me know that my Apple TV was working correctly (I took a picture of the message, and have included it in this post). Sure enough, my smooth jazz was no longer sputtering.

What it did, who knows. But it would seem Clarke’s Third Law is in effect.

Apple TV 2.1 update

Posted on Jul. 14, ’08, 5:25 AM PT by Derik DeLong

Category | Apple TV

Amidst the MobileMe roller coaster ride of operability, we missed the Apple TV 2.1 update. This lovely little update adds support for MobileMe and the new iPhone Remote App. With that latter edition, you can officially superglue that new phone to your left hand. I’d still like to see an app to tap into one of those home automation systems, but I suppose nothing is perfect.

Also a part of the update is a number of security improvements. It’s good to keep on top of that as well. Most non-iPhone users will appreciate the new Wish List that you can use to track movies you’d like to see. Overall, not a bad update.

Behold, the World’s First SSD-equipped Apple TV

Posted on Jun. 16, ’08, 7:36 PM PT by Aayush Arya

Category | Apple TV

Over at Apple TV Hacks, an Apple TV user, Josh Lee, has sent in a photo of his device outfitted with a 32GB flash drive, laying claim to the prestigious “World’s First SSD-equipped Apple TV” award.

Originally, the set top box had a 40GB hard drive inside but that, apparently, wasn’t good enough for him (for reasons unknown) and that prompted him to buy a Transcend 32GB SSD for 160 bucks and take a screwdriver to the Apple TV.

An uncomplicated process—taking apart the unit, making an image of the hard drive and copying it over to the SSD, doing a factory restore and using the patch2stick—and voided warranty later, he was done.

Since this did not result in an increase in storage space or any other benefit at all for that matter (except for a little quieter operation) and cost him north of $160 (someone’s gotta pay those shipping charges too), it was kinda pointless. But hey, anything for the “World’s First SSD-equipped Apple TV” award, right?

The Fine Print: MacUser or any of its representatives do not condone physically hacking into any of your Apple products, or any other products for that matter. Most companies do not take kindly to it and you’ll void your warranty. Do not try this at home (but if you do, let us know).

[Via TUAW]

aTV (gone in a) Flash

Posted on May. 30, ’08, 5:22 AM PT by Derik DeLong

Category | Apple TV

Thanks to eagle eyed commenters, we’ve gotten word that aTV Flash, which we mentioned recently, is gone. Vaporware.

Due to questions arising regarding the fair use of a particular file present on the aTV Flash, and conflicting opinions as to whether or not it falls under the fair use category, we have VOLUNTARILY discontinued offering the aTV Flash at this time.

In our interpretation of the fair use doctrine, our software does not cross any lines, but since this is a grey area issue, we have taken a proactive approach and decided to seek clarifcation directly from the rights holder before we offer the product again.

I would have loved to know what file we are in question speaking about so I could take a gander at its usage statement, but alas, it’s unspecified. All orders have been cancelled and refunded. In addition, you may now feel free to scramble and try to install all these Apple TV mods on your own.

Easy Apple TV hacking

Posted on May. 28, ’08, 5:19 AM PT by Derik DeLong

Category | Apple TV

Have you wanted to expand the types of media your Apple TV can play without opening up the box? aTV Flash is the product for you. It’s a $60 flash drive you can plug into the “maintenance” USB port on the Apple TV that immediately gives you a menu offering various software installs. Installable software includes:

• ATVFiles
• nitoTV
• MediaCloud
• Sapphire
• Couch Surfer
• Jaman Movies
• Various video codecs (Perian, A52, Flip4Mac, Mplayer etc…)

Those video codecs get all those videos of various origin to play on your TV. It really makes the Apple TV quite versatile. You can indeed install this software on your own for free, but when it comes to being non-invasive and easy, aTV Flash seems to be the right solution.

Netflix to sell an Apple TV Rival. For $99.

Posted on May. 20, ’08, 6:51 AM PT by Cyrus Farivar

Category | Rivals

Enter the new Netflix Player by Roku. This svelte, paperback-book sized box is here to throw down with the Apple TV. And priced at $99, it’s ready to rumble.

At first glance, The New York Times appears to think that this thing will be a game changer — “It is the most impressive product we’ve seen attached to a TV this decade,” said Richard Doherty, the director of the Envisioneering Group, a consumer electronics consulting firm.

Crunchgear agrees, calling it: “This is one of the most elegant and surprisingly usable dedicated devices I’ve seen in a long time.”

Still, its major flaw, in my book, comes way down at the bottom of the article:

Unlike the Apple TV or TiVo devices, the Roku box does not have a hard drive. It plays video directly from the Internet by way of an Ethernet cable or home wireless network. That means that the picture could freeze on slow Internet connections. Roku recommends that users have a connection speed of 1.5 megabits a second or faster.

That seems like it would be a dealbreaker for me. I barely trust Skype calls on my network, much less full-streaming video on a massive screen. Then again, I don’t have a TV to speak of, so I probably don’t know what I’m talking about.

Either way, Netflix needs to get its act together if it wants to move some product — there’s no mention of the Netflix Player by Roku on its homepage at all.

We ask you: How to get media off an Apple TV without opening the box?

Posted on May. 5, ’08, 6:56 AM PT by Derik DeLong

Category | Apple TV

Here’s the situation. A friend of mine recently had a hard drive meltdown on his Powermac. His drive was kept a bit too full for a bit too long. He also lacked a backup. I know, how could I let him work without a backup? I didn’t know, I swear.

Anyway, he put in a new drive and recovered some of his stuff, but not all. A lot of what’s missing is on his Apple TV that he recently got. He’d like to get that media back on his computer where it belongs and start syncing once again.

If he’s willing to open it up, the procedure is fairly straightforward. The problem is he doesn’t want to rip the thing open and void the warranty. My question is to you, my gentle, clever readers, how does my friend get that music and movies back? The inevitable follow up is why this needs to be hard at all.

Buy movies from the comfort of your couch with the Apple TV

Posted on May. 2, ’08, 11:29 AM PT by Aayush Arya

Category | Apple TV

When Steve Jobs was demonstrating the Apple TV software v2.0 at Macworld Expo 2008, the one item conspicuous by its absence was a button to buy the movies alongside the rental options. If you were browsing the catalogue on an Apple TV and had the urge to buy any movie, you’d have to find in on the iTunes Store on your computer, buy it from there and transfer it to the Apple TV.

That wasn’t exactly the most convenient solution and we could think of no reason why Apple didn’t want customers buying movies directly off their Apple TVs. I’m pretty sure it was just another ludicrous artificial limitation put in place by the movie studios, maybe to give users the idea that you couldn’t buy the movie from the iTunes Store, so that you’d go out and buy a DVD.

Whatever it was, when Jobs was trying to convince them for simultaneous DVD releases, he threw this little nugget in too and you’ll now find a shiny new button when browsing the movies section of the iTunes Store which will allow you to buy the movies right there on the couch with your Apple Remote.

Another little addition is the listing for Top Sellers under the Top Movies section, so you can now buy what everyone else is buying. These features have been added to the store itself and are not software-based additions to the device and therefore, no update is required to have access to them. Just visit the store and voila, they’re there, in all their shiny, clicktastic glory.