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kovacm

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 3, 2009
38
7
Hi,

is it possible to use Apple TV as wireless router / access point ?

My Apple TV 2 is connected to LAN and I would like to use it as wireless router INSTEAD of AirPort.

Is it possible ?

Thanx in advance
 

kovacm

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 3, 2009
38
7
No, the Apple TV is neither a wireless router nor access point and you cannot use it as such.

apparently it was possible with Apple TV 1.

http://www.hackint0sh.org/appletv-1-291/apple-tv-accesspoint-bridge-simple-router-howto-1122.htm

I do not see reason why it is not possible: hardware is there, only software is limiting. I found lot of amazing stuff for Jailbroken Apple TV but I did not see option to Apple TV act as Access point.


anybody know about such application or hack?
 

maturola

macrumors 68040
Oct 29, 2007
3,863
3
Atlanta, GA
apparently it was possible with Apple TV 1.

http://www.hackint0sh.org/appletv-1-291/apple-tv-accesspoint-bridge-simple-router-howto-1122.htm

I do not see reason why it is not possible: hardware is there, only software is limiting. I found lot of amazing stuff for Jailbroken Apple TV but I did not see option to Apple TV act as Access point.


anybody know about such application or hack?

you do realized that the ATV1 was pretty much a computer, running full flag OS X, right? ATV2/3 are small boxes that cost $99 and run iOS.

That being said, you are partially right, while the hardware is powerful enough to handle such a operation and the present of Ethernet and wireless are there, you won't be able to code the necessary software to do so.

The hacks and apps you see on the jailbroken area all run in top of the iOS kernel, the TCP/IP stack, NIC drivers all of that are iOS calls, if you want a "router" you would have to practically rewritte the whole OS (or port another existing embedded OS, and that is almost close to impossible since the A4, A5 chips are close source and there is not available toolchain or tools to develop for it (or documentation for that matter)
 
Last edited:

hafr

macrumors 68030
Sep 21, 2011
2,743
9
you do realized that the ATV1 was pretty much a computer, running full flag OS X, right? ATV2/3 are small boxes that cost $99 and run iOS.

That being said, you are partially right, while the hardware is power enough to handle such a operation and the present of Ethernet and wireless are there, you won;t be able to code the necessary software to do so.

The hacks and apps you see on the jailbroken area all run in top of the iOS kernel, the TCP/IP stack, NIC drivers all of that are iOS calls, if you want a "router" you would have to practically rewritte the whole OS (or port another existing embedded OS, and that is almost close to impossible since the A4, A5 chips are close source and there is not available toolchain or tools to develop for it (or documentation for that matter)

Isn't it possible to make an iPhone into a "router", sharing its internet connection?
 

maturola

macrumors 68040
Oct 29, 2007
3,863
3
Atlanta, GA
Isn't it possible to make an iPhone into a "router", sharing its internet connection?

I guess it will depend on your (and the OP) definition of a router, but even then, yes it is possible to make the iPhone a "hotspot" (not really a router...) using the iOS SDK APIs to invoke funtions on the TCP/IP stack and such, those API are not avaliable for the ATV2/3 (at least not ye) since apple intentioanlly limited those to NOT run on the ATV (since they don't want Apps in there).

You still will need an intensive amount of coding to accomplished it
 

jamessnell

macrumors member
Sep 16, 2006
32
0
Calgary, Canada
What a retarded thread. It's a solid question. Any generation of ATV could totally function as a router. The programming involved would be fairly trivial. That said, it's a nailed-shut product and so if Apple doesn't want us to use it as a router, then we'd have to jailbreak and find a method.

iPhone's 'hotspot' function entirely makes it a router, it'll route wifi, bluetooth and usb connected devices through to its Edge/3G/4G connection.

I find it so irritating when people post their opinions as fact on forms. It's a dick move, particularly when they don't provide any disclaimers.

Suffice to say, you don't know if I'm talking out of my ass either. Thing is, I'm not.
 

macleod199

macrumors 6502
Mar 10, 2007
290
6
What a retarded thread. It's a solid question. Any generation of ATV could totally function as a router. The programming involved would be fairly trivial. That said, it's a nailed-shut product and so if Apple doesn't want us to use it as a router, then we'd have to jailbreak and find a method.

iPhone's 'hotspot' function entirely makes it a router, it'll route wifi, bluetooth and usb connected devices through to its Edge/3G/4G connection.

I find it so irritating when people post their opinions as fact on forms. It's a dick move, particularly when they don't provide any disclaimers.

Suffice to say, you don't know if I'm talking out of my ass either. Thing is, I'm not.

While you're not wrong, I'd say the even better question is whether it could make an efficient router. Especially as it's job is mailing to stream high quality video, whether it has the sort of backplane to efficiently pass through other high bandwidth data streams is a whole other question that processing power. I suspect people are probably not using their iPhone hotspot networks to share iTunes library across and the like, and if they are they are probably pretty disappointed with the performance.
 

saj777

macrumors newbie
Sep 20, 2009
18
1
Economies of scale

Apple might save on costs if they used a single box to act as either an ATV or an Airport Express router. And I can think of at least one application where it would be useful to act as both simultaneously: the main function would be as an ATV, but the routing function would allow connections of non-wifi equipment, such as an older Xbox or VOIP adapter.
 

donutbagel

macrumors 6502a
Jun 9, 2013
932
1
I'm wondering the same thing. All the hardware is there, so why is there nothing like MiWi for Apple TV? Or is there?

If there is, it's impossible to Google because of all these stupid bloggers who think they're cool posting Apple's instructions on how to use AirPlay and using really similar keywords to what I want to find. Does anyone here know if there's such a hack to do this?
 
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maturola

macrumors 68040
Oct 29, 2007
3,863
3
Atlanta, GA
I'm wondering the same thing. All the hardware is there, so why is there nothing like MiFi for Apple TV? Or is there?

If there is, it's impossible to Google because of all these stupid bloggers who think they're cool posting Apple's instructions on how to use AirPlay and using really similar keywords to what I want to find. Does anyone here know if there's such a hack to do this?

IT had been answered already on this same thread, hardware is there...not software available for it.
 

donutbagel

macrumors 6502a
Jun 9, 2013
932
1
IT had been answered already on this same thread, hardware is there...not software available for it.
That is, not that anyone here knows of :(
Come on, I heard about the Apple TV jailbreak and thought we'd be able to do all kinds of cool stuff. All they did was make XMBC, that piece of junk I wasted my time trying on my ATV1.

Also, shouldn't the ATV at least have the WiFi Direct P2P AirPlay support that the newer Macs have? You'd be able to use AirPlay without being on a network, which is what I want.
 
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