Apple on Apple TV Hacks

[MacRumors]

With the flurry of hacks surrounding the Apple TV, including the ability to run a full version of Mac OS X, there's been some concern and unfounded speculation that Apple may be specifically disabling these hacks.

The most official word available comes from Engadget with a report that Apple has let them know that they are not actively involved in shutting down hacked Apple TVs.

Apple's stance, it claims, is more along the lines of: it's your box, do with it what you please -- but be mindful of voiding that warranty.

[johnee]

wondering what they would say.... I guess other than voiding the warranty, there's not much they can do, am i wrong? (probably )

[eenu]

good, but i have noticed a lot of these go without notice....

[sunfast]

A very refreshing stance. Go apple!

[bigbossbmb]

awesome... this is very good news.

i imagine someone will vote this negative for some odd reason.

[mikeinternet]

and why would they care that people are finding so many more reasons to buy one of these things.

[7031]

I'm glad that Apple is taking so well to this. I was wondering if they would be like Sony and try and release updates to stop them from doing stuff like that.

[Howmanoid]

Apple is being adult about this, unlike MSFT who did their best to stomp all over the Xbox hacks. They bricked mine for me when I connected it to XBLive. Nice!!! Even Sony doesn't get too twisted at PS hacks (and there are plenty of them). Like the quote says, we paid for the box, right?? Should Ford or GM be able to disable your car coz you change the engine mgmt software?? I don't think so! Just goes to show that it's better to do business with a company that respects it's customers not one that tries to control them. Go Apple!

[bigandy]

i think the whole "aarg they're restoring my box because i hacked it" thing was a bit bogus anyway...

like apple would be tunneling in to the hacked boxes and putting everything right


however, i would wait until there's some official word from Apple on the whole thing...

[lamina]

let's be pirates

[Cult Follower]

Well if the warrnty is broken by one of the hacks and th machine is damaged, apple will gian another sale. Also there are not going to be tons of people performing these hacks anyway.

[guzhogi]

but be mindful of voiding that warranty.

Glad to see Apple's covering it's a$$. [/sarcasm] But I could really see a lot of people who hacked their boxes and crying to the Apple tech "Wahh! Why doesn't my TV work?" Maybe Apple can make an TV Restore feature like on iPods should this happen. Anybody w/ 1 know if Apple's already doing that?

Only things I wish the TV had were 1080p resolution & DVR capability. 1080p for those who have the best TVs, DVR so people can ditch their VCRs finally.

Off topic, but can any1 say how the quality is on Blu-Ray & HD-DVDs? Can't afford one at the moment, but I'm saving up some money. Also, how much room does a movie on each take up compared to the whole capacity? Just wondering how many & how the quality is on extras. On Wikipedia, they have an entry for a "Protein-coated disc" which is said to be able to hold 50 terabytes of data when they come commercially available (not for a few years). But just imagine the resolution you can get on that! Wonder how high a resolution can go before the human eye can't tell the difference between it and a higher 1?

[Wild-Bill]

You know if this was Micro$oft, they would have released patches to kill the hacks, and probably screw up the product in the process.

[johnee]

Originally Posted by Howmanoid

Apple is being adult about this, unlike MSFT who did their best to stomp all over the Xbox hacks...

yeah, they required the xbox 360 processor to have encrypted data throughout to prevent hacking.

[flopticalcube]

What a mature response from Apple! So refreshing in this age of legal nightmares. They might even find a use for it they hadn't thought of! Way to go !

[G5Unit]

That quote from Apple is going in my sig.

[SeaFox]

Originally Posted by G5Unit

That quote from Apple is going in my sig.

No, no, no. You have to properly attribute the quote to them, like this:

Originally Posted by Apple (on the subject of AppleTV hacking)

It's your box, do with it what you please -- but be mindful of voiding that warranty.

They only half-answered the question. They said they wouldn't do anything to disable the boxes that had been hacked, as in the ones that are already out there. But they didn't say they wouldn't make future changes to the hardware/software that would prevent the hacks from working in new AppleTVs.

It's like Apple and Hymn all over again. Apple says they wont do anything to existing iPods to stop Hymn from working, but then when they update iTunes it mysteriously is no longer compatible. So the Hymn people are stuck in a game of cat and mouse and their "movement" never gains a foothold because the hacks don't work reliably over long periods of time unless you never update your machine.

[Marx55]

Hopefully Apple will allow also hacks with the iPhone, because that way it could make real wonders like wireless computerless presentations.

[SeaFox]

Originally Posted by Marx55

Hopefully Apple will allow also hacks with the iPhone, because that way it could make real wonders like wireless computerless presentations.

I think Cingular would throw a fit if that happened and cite "network integrity/security" and make Apple patch it, Cingular would just send out the patch as one of those updates you can't refuse.

I wonder if Cingular could pull support for the iPhone from their network if they didn't get action from Apple they felt was appropriate? If so, does that invalidate the exclusivity agreement between Apple and Cingular? Or will we be stuck in one of those DMCA-style situations where you have to get a Cingular contract to get an iPhone, but you can't use the iPhone on Cingular's network.

[bigandtasty]

Dang this is awesome!

Apple once again keeps it BIG AND TASTY!

[DasRaven]

Originally Posted by guzhogi

Off topic, but can any1 say how the quality is on Blu-Ray & HD-DVDs? Can't afford one at the moment, but I'm saving up some money. Also, how much room does a movie on each take up compared to the whole capacity? Just wondering how many & how the quality is on extras. On Wikipedia, they have an entry for a "Protein-coated disc" which is said to be able to hold 50 terabytes of data when they come commercially available (not for a few years). But just imagine the resolution you can get on that! Wonder how high a resolution can go before the human eye can't tell the difference between it and a higher 1?

Lengthy IM sent. Should answer all your questions.

[failsafe1]

I think Apple was well aware of what was possible and is winking at the hacks.

[G5Unit]

Originally Posted by SeaFox

No, no, no. You have to properly attribute the quote to them, like this:


They only half-answered the question. They said they wouldn't do anything to disable the boxes that had been hacked, as in the ones that are already out there. But they didn't say they wouldn't make future changes to the hardware/software that would prevent the hacks from working in new AppleTVs.

It's like Apple and Hymn all over again. Apple says they wont do anything to existing iPods to stop Hymn from working, but then when they update iTunes it mysteriously is no longer compatible. So the Hymn people are stuck in a game of cat and mouse and their "movement" never gains a foothold because the hacks don't work reliably over long periods of time unless you never update your machine.

Got ya.

[mrjamin]

Well, looks like the Mactel-linux guys managed to get Linux on it:

http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Linux_on_Apple_TV
http://www.mactel-linux.org/wiki/AppleTV

...so it won't be long before you can use your AppleTV as a front-end for MythTV, thus bringing PVR capabilities (provided you have a dedicated MythTV backend).

Personally, I love MythTV, and as soon as they get it working reliably on the AppleTV, I'll go straight out and buy one. At the moment I have no need as my Mythbox does all the AppleTV does but without the nice interface.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Howmanoid

Apple is being adult about this, unlike MSFT who did their best to stomp all over the Xbox hacks. They bricked mine for me when I connected it to XBLive. Nice!!! Even Sony doesn't get too twisted at PS hacks (and there are plenty of them). Like the quote says, we paid for the box, right?? Should Ford or GM be able to disable your car coz you change the engine mgmt software?? I don't think so! Just goes to show that it's better to do business with a company that respects it's customers not one that tries to control them. Go Apple!

With GM and Ford, and with Apple, you pay for the product outright and they usually make a net profit on the product on the sale. XBox is a subsidized unit to entice you to buy the games, which they lose money until you've bought several games and licensed accessories. That doesn't excuse it, but it's not in Microsoft's interest to support hacked machines either.