Mac OS X Lion - Front Row

[intempo808]

Front Row's gone, the icon that was in my dock turned to a question mark and now it's no where to be seen... Have they ditched it?

[Pinksteady]

Let's hope so, in comparison to something like Plex, FrontRow was pants.

Apple will never provide a decent HTPC app because of their reliance on DRM video and iTunes content - only people who shop directly through Apple will appreciate an Apple HTPC app - everyone else (e.g. illegal downloaders) will still seek a 3rd party replacement.

[Kilamite]

It would be nice if Front Row could replicate the Apple TV.

By that, I mean, actually list TV shows in seasons, rather than all the episodes at once. And have YouTube embedded too..

[Zcott]

Here's hoping. The 15 seconds it takes to load Front Row when I accidentally press cmd-esc are the longest 15 seconds of my day.

[ajvizzgamer101]

Not like anyone used it. Most people will either use a Set top box or iTunes.

[appleguy123]

I used it sometimes. I do at least hope that it's compatible with Lion and that I can just image it off the snow leopard disk or download it from a torrent site.

[Michaelgtrusa]

Did you migrate everything?

[Blakeasd]

FrontRow has been discontinued in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.

[kuwisdelu]

Interesting to hear.

Meh, on the one hand, I was kind of hoping they'd actually fix it in Lion. On the other hand, since it was useless in it's current form to me anyway, I don't really care to see it go.

(My only problem was it's lack of support for subtitles made it utterly useless to me... other than that it was fine for me. Plex and XMBC are overkill for my needs. I just want a nice TV-friendly front-end to my non-iTMS iTunes content that doesn't go blank whenever subtitles appear.)

[brettryan]

Originally Posted by Blakeasd

FrontRow has been discontinued in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.

Sad to hear that I always use it, I have ABC Australia vodcasts that appear in there, I don't download movies illegally so dont have that problem, but you know you can create a link to a folder for downloaded content to appear.

I think using iTunes directly for me won't help much, it's smaller font makes it hard to see, and you can't navigate with the remote.

[irishv]

Originally Posted by Blakeasd

FrontRow has been discontinued in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.

Well that is unfortunate. I've been hoping for a true update to Front Row for some time now. I still think one feature for Lion will be the ability to run iOS apps, including some version of the AppleTV interface. I currently use Plex and EyeTV on my Mac Mini HTPC, but would love a unified interface that syncs everything (playcounts, metadata, etc) with iTunes and my iPhone.

[Tilpots]

Originally Posted by Blakeasd

FrontRow has been discontinued in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.

Can you provide a link or more info? Thanks!

[newfoundglory]

I tried everything I could to get FrontRow 1.1 from SL working in Lion, but it just won't launch. Nothing much thats helpful in the console either. Seems to be related to application extensions.

[Saladinos]

Originally Posted by Pinksteady

Let's hope so, in comparison to something like Plex, FrontRow was pants.

Apple will never provide a decent HTPC app because of their reliance on DRM video and iTunes content - only people who shop directly through Apple will appreciate an Apple HTPC app - everyone else (e.g. illegal downloaders) will still seek a 3rd party replacement.

FR works with 3rd party codecs and reads videos from your home dir. Just create a shortcut in your movies folder to wherever you want (incl. Ext drives) and you can navigate to it.

[PBF]

Too bad as I was using Front Row for watching new movie trailers. There's no other way to watch those without Front Row, is there?

[Tango Charlie]

Very disappointing to hear!

I, for one, prefer the simplicity and performance of Front Row over the other HTPC apps I've tried.

[reubs]

Strangely, I didn't even realize Front Row was still on Snow Leopard.

[CarsonGallo]

Wait a second why doesn't somebody just make an Apple TV app for Mac, seriously I'm surprised somebody hasn't done it already, it would basically do everything the new Apple TV has, I mean all it would really have to be is an application, like another HTPC app so its possible, and AirPlay would work thanks to Erica Sadun. Hell Erica Sadun should totally do, we gotta get her to forget working on Banana TV and work on an Apple TV emulator for Mac instead, whose with me?

[kainjow]

Originally Posted by newfoundglory

I tried everything I could to get FrontRow 1.1 from SL working in Lion, but it just won't launch. Nothing much thats helpful in the console either. Seems to be related to application extensions.

Did you copy over /System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app?. You might also need to copy /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BackRow.framework/ if that doesn't exist.

Edit: /Applications/Front Row.app calls a function from /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BezelServices.framework to initiate Front Row, so if that function doesn't exist in Lion's BezelServices framework, it will be much harder, if not impossible, to get FR to work, assuming that's the actual issue preventing it from working.

[Justinf79]

FR has never worked right under SL for me anyways. It never could be able to connect to the internet for some reason.

[kuwisdelu]

Yes, porting the Apple TV interface would be nice.

Or I could just buy an Apple TV...

[PBF]

Anyone know of alternative way to watch movie trailers that were in Front Row? Ta.

[QuarterSwede]

I won't miss it. They stopped using iTunes to run it on SL so I could no longer go from listening to something in iTunes and having it continue on in FR. Stopped using it once I upgraded to SL and AirPlay came out. Having that kind of power in your pocket is amazing and very convenient.

I wouldn't mind a fullscreen iTunes AppleTV like interface though. Maybe that's what Apple is thinking for iTunes 11 in Lion (version # is a guess).

Originally Posted by PBF

Anyone know of alternative way to watch movie trailers that were in Front Row? Ta.

http://trailers.apple.com/ or iTunes.

[CarsonGallo]

I think I'll start a new thread for just that idea. I'll call it FrontRow alternative Idea or something. O and maybe you can trick fromrow into launching by going to system preferences - CDs and DVDs and making it so it'll launch its script when u insert a DVD or CD or whatever. Let me know if that works.

[Intell]

Originally Posted by CarsonGallo

Wait a second why doesn't somebody just make an Apple TV app for Mac, seriously I'm surprised somebody hasn't done it already, it would basically do everything the new Apple TV has, I mean all it would really have to be is an application, like another HTPC app so its possible, and AirPlay would work thanks to Erica Sadun. Hell Erica Sadun should totally do, we gotta get her to forget working on Banana TV and work on an Apple TV emulator for Mac instead, whose with me?

There was an Apple TV app for Mac. It was called AppleTV4Mac. It ran only on Intell based Tiger and the latest version of the Apple TV OS was the one right before Airtunes support was put on the ATV. It does not work on Leopard or above.