thomas fitzgerald.net

For all those idiots who keep saying that the Apple TV is dead, that it was a failure etc, or more importantly that Apple seems to have forgotten about it, bear in mind that the Apple TV has only been out for 7 months and has already seen at least one update since then. Considering the amount of time between the most recent iPod update and the last one, I think that there is a long way to go yet before you need to get worried that Apple has abandoned it.

Here is a round up of this weeks sensation grabbing ridiculous, poorly researched and inflammatory articles from around the web.

1. From Computerworld: “Apple users frustrated over lack of online backup options”

Em, no we’re not. It starts off by setting up the whole idea that Mac users are frustrated by dismissing anything but online backup based on the testimony of a student who didn’t want to carry a drive around, implying that mac users are missing something totally and completely essential. The article focuses on a couple of online backup solutions who are now releasing beta versions for the mac, which seems to be the real point of the article. It also completely fails to make any reference what so ever to Apple’s .mac backup service.
(Thanks to YML for this one)

2. “iFlop” from Forbes

Subtitled with the sentence “Steve Jobs tried to design –and dictate–the future of television. Here’s how he failed.” the article has already been ridiculed by quite a few blogs. He starts off by suggesting that Apple’s whole strategy has been a failure because Apple TV has “has sold perhaps 250,000 units–far behind the 1 million sold for the iPhone”. Really? What is the source of those figures? Apple has never released sales figures for the Apple TV so that is at best a guess, and based on nothing more than ….well guesswork. How about telling us where you came up with that figure? No, didn’t think so.

He goes on to back up his reasoning as to why Apple’s strategy is a failure by listing the number of other companies that Hollywood has no problem with doing business with. Of course this argument is spurred by NBC’s decision to leave iTunes. Never once does the author even suggest the possibility that this might have more to do with NBC being stubborn and greedy rather than a failure of Apple. It seems his idea of success is based on who the studios are willing to deal with rather than consumer demand, failing to mention that iTunes is the leading supplier of downloadable TV shows by a wide and significant margin. But I suppose consumer choice has never been a top issue for Hollywood, so why should it be for this article either?

3. 6th Gen iPods Don’t work with Linux

Who cares? The two people who use it? Why shouldn’t Apple protect it’s intellectual property, and did it occur to anyone that they might have a legitimate reason for doing this? Could this have anything to do with the record labels insisting on increased levels of security? By the way, they imply that this breaks utilities like Senuti, but apparently it doesn’t. Even funnier is one of the comments on the article…
“What a bunch of customer-hostile crap. I have an iPhone, an iPod, use iTunes, and own some Apple stock, but this really pisses me off.”
So, even though it will never affect you in any way shape or form, it still pisses you off? Move along, nothing to see here.

YouTube Live on Apple TV Today; Coming to iPhone on June 29:
From the Apple Press Release:

CUPERTINO, California—June 20, 2007—Apple® today announced that iPhone™ users will be able to enjoy YouTube’s originally-created content on their iPhones when they begin shipping on June 29. A new Apple-designed application on iPhone will wirelessly stream YouTube’s content to iPhone over Wi-Fi or EDGE networks and play it on iPhone’s stunning 3.5 inch display.

In addition, Apple announced that YouTube is now live on Apple TV™. Users can download the free software update using Apple TV’s built-in software update feature, and then easily navigate through YouTube’s familiar video browsing categories or search for specific videos. YouTube members can also log-in to their YouTube accounts on Apple TV to view and save their favorite videos.

Sweet. Now, there goes my evening! If there are any other new or modified features in the Apple TV update I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve had a chance to play around with it. It will also be interesting to see if the update “breaks” any of the existing hacks. Expect moaning and finger pointing.

AppleInsider | Apple shooting for autumn launch of film rental service - report:

The Financial Times on Sunday said that the service, due to launch sometime this fall, could be significant for the Cupertino-based electronics maker if it manages to sign up enough studios. The more studios, the more premium film content the company could offer shoppers at its ubiquitous iTunes Store.

Individual films on the iTunes service would fetch $2.99 for a 30-day rental, the financial paper said. Each film download would be governed by digital rights-management software that would allow users to transfer the movie “from a computer to at least one other device such as the video iPod or iPhone.”

If this is true this could be very significant for Apple and its users, and would certainly be another huge boon for the Apple TV. It will be interesting to see if this brings any more studios to the table too. Meanwhile those of us outside the USA are still waiting patiently for itunes movies and tv shows.

A strange thing has happened to Apple TV owners since last night’s iTunes update. What ever Apple have done on their server end has caused Apple TV’s to get stuck in a rebooting loop. I discovered the problem myself when I went to use my Apple TV tonight. It kept resetting back to the silver Apple logo again and again. After following all the support instructions in the manual, including a factory reset, the system continued to continually reboot. At first I suspected that my system was dud and needed replacement, but I went to the Apple support forums, and right at the top of the user discussions was a thread with a lot of other users also experiencing the problem, all of which started over the last day or so.

The suspect was the iTunes update of course, but the iTunes application itself does not seem to be the root of the problem. Users on the forum have suggested that the Apple tv contacting the iTunes servers is causing the issues, and sure enough if you disable internet access, the problem abruptly stops.

The bizarre nature of the timing of the problem suggests that there is a problem somewhere on Apple’s servers, but also suggests that the Apple TV is doing some kind of communication with Apple’s servers on a continual basis. For the moment, if you are experiencing this problem, the solution is to disable internet access to the Apple TV. Hopefully a fix will be forthcoming. You can check the progress of the discussions here.

Addendum: Even stranger, the problem only seems to manifest itself after the Apple TV is restarted. Can’t entirely confirm this yet.

UPDATE: One user on the Apple discussions reports that Apple Support staff have let them know that they are aware of the problem and working on a solution.

UPDATE2: All now seems to be well again. To quote someone from the Apple Discussions: “Maybe it was just a dream!” Kudos to Apple for getting it fixed so quickly, although you could argue that it never should of happened in the first place, but these things happen.

To paraphrase Homer: “Nerds, Is there anything they can’t do…”

Having had some time to fully play around with the Apple TV, I figured it was time to share my experiences. There are plenty of reviews out there that describe the setup and functionality, so I’m not going to cover that ground again, but rather focus on the experience of owning one. What makes this review different is that it was based on using the device in normal living conditions, rather than hastily putting it through its paces in a studio or office. The result of waiting, hopefully, is that you get to see the little things that only crop up after using a new device for a while, and I can present a view of what it is actually like to own one, rather than just try one.

[Read more]

UPDATE: The youtube link seems to have been removed. You can now find the official Apple version here

MacNN | Apple TV hack boots full Mac OS X:

It’s now possible to boot a full version of Mac OS X, a dedicated hobbyist group revealed Saturday evening. A collaborative effort has installed and run the software on the device by sidestepping its processor restrictions in the operating system’s kernel, which previously barred all but the custom version of the software from loading properly. The technique results in complete functionality for the USB port — as accomplished in a separate hack — and will run standard applications, including the standard version of Apple’s Front Row media software.

This is certainly an interesting project although I doubt the practical uses for this. Some people have been saying that it makes a good cheap OS X system, but considering you need another intel mac and a bunch of other stuff to do this, not to mention some pretty savvy tech skills, It’s not really practical for general purposes. But a cool hack though. Someone commented on digg or somewhere the other day that the Apple TV hacks are becoming more and more like a soap opera with the amount of things people are figuring out how to do.

The Apple TV has proved to be something of a sneaker hit, at least amongst the vocal mac community, and equally so among hacker society too. While many still decry the lack of recording or hd content available from the iTunes store, the humble device is, in my opinion, pretty damn good for a first revision product. What about the future though? Here are some thoughts on what Apple should ad to the Apple TV with a future software update and make this great little device a killer product.

(I know this might not feature some of the big things many people think this device should have, because I have tried to limit it to something they could do relatively easily with a software update)

1. XVID/DIVX Support. I can understand why they might not want to do this, as it has the appearance of supporting piracy, but a lot of people have a lot of content in this format. This has been one of the top priorities of Hackers, so Apple should just bite the bullet and add support for the format. This I suspect is the number one request Apple will get through its feedback channels.

2. iPod support. They should enable you to plug in your ipod to the USB port and have it appear in the “sources” menu. If you then select it you can browse your iPod content as if it were on the device.

3. USB Hard Drive Support. If you plug in a USB drive you should get two options. Option one would be to use it as extra storage for the Apple TV. Option 2 would be to scan the device for playable content and have it appear in its own sub menu. This would be great if you had something you quickly wanted to see on a thumb drive or the like.

4. Add an “Apple Video” section. Much like the movie trailers but displaying various Apple content. Apple has tones of videos, from quick tours of it’s various software products, to interviews in the “pro” section of the website, to all the various keynotes it has done. It would be great if this was all available for streaming from the Apple TV. A bonus to this is they could make content exclusively available to Apple TV users. Such as early streaming of any Keynote or Special Event. I know this would primarily appeal to mac users, but it would really appeal to them.

5. Add a way to “flag” content as you are watching or listening to it. This is something they should add to iPods as well. How many times have you been listening to something and said to yourself, “Oh, I must remember that for later”, and then promptly forget what it is. I know you can kind of use the rating system for this, but it’s clunky and you might be using your ratings for different purposes. It could be as simple as press and hold the play pause button while you are watching something. When the Apple TV syncs the next time the flagged items come up in a special smart playlist.

There are lots more little things they could do too, and plenty of big things. I don’t think they should add recording to the Apple TV, as I don’t think they should try and make it into a one device does all TIVO killer. As for the other much requested option to purchase content directly on the device, I’m not entirely sure this is a good idea. One of the things I don’t like about the way the much touted xbox service works is downloading content directly to the device, thereby locking it into the device. At least with iTunes acting as a central hub you can put your TV shows and movies on numerous devices (Apple ones that is !) and more importantly, back them up. If they were to integrate the store with the Apple TV they would have to find a way to either have it download to iTunes or have it upload back to your main iTunes library from the Apple Tv if it downloaded the content locally. Either way, I don’t think it is as strait foreword, from a user philosophy point of view if nothing else.

If you ever wanted proof that modern society is a little paranoid, then look no further than the mass hysteria created by the folks over at Tutorial Ninjas when they reported that their SSH fiddling on their Apple TV had been mysteriously reset over night.

“Several of us over in the Awkward TV IRC(l0rdr0ck, myself, and others) have had our Mod’d Apple TV’s played with over night(SSH/VNC disabled), our guess is apple has started to fight back the mod’d Apple TV’s. This is a warning to all of you to block your Apple TV from the internet by going into your routers settings and denying it internet access!
This does mean Apple may have the power to update your Apple TV, without you knowing it!”

Rather than the obvious thought that there are simple automatic repair scripts running on the device, they made the giant leap to come to the conclusion that Apple are mysteriously and secretively hacking into your Apple TV at night to reset your system to its default settings.

Can anyone really picture an army of Apple employees sitting in a darkened building hidden within the bowels of Cupertino, hooked up to caffeine drips, staring at their 30 inch cinema displays, waiting for a signal from a lone distant Apple TV that it has been hacked, so they can spring to life, stealthily hack back into your AppleTV and reset the system, disappearing into the night, leaving no trace of their secret mission? No, I didn’t think so. Im guessing Apple really don’t care that much.

But the worst thing about this story, is not the initial conclusion jumping exercise by the people who discovered that their devices had reset themselves, it is the fact that a whole bunch of news sites picked up on it as evidence of a dark cruel big brother side to Apple. No one seemed content with the far more likely scenario. So, based on the supposition of one hacker, with no back up evidence what so ever, you are seeing headlines like: “Apple Hacks the Hackers” , “Apple locking out modded Apple TVs?” and my personal favourite “Did Apple install a rootkit in Apple TV?”. The consensus amongst almost every sane person is that this is just a automated repair script running on the device, which will undoubtedly be overcome in a day or so. The hysterical reporters and bloggers out there need to chill a bit. Remember the device has only been available to the public for a little over a week now.

UPDATE:
Freaky Coincidence: Dan Moren over at Mac User posted similar thoughts. This whole story does invoke images of 1960’s James Bond or The Incredibles every time you read it. Seriously, it really is ridiculous to think Apple are hacking into Apple TVs to hack them back.

To mis-quote Homer: Hackers, is there anything they can’t do.

For more on how to do this visit AppleTVHacks.net

Technorati Tags: AppleTV

Macworld’s Chris Breen has a good set of questions and answers about the Apple TV.

“After being tethered to Apple’s recently released television add-on since last Thursday, all that is Apple TV is beginning to make itself clear. You have questions? I have answers.”

Read