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Apple on Apple TV Hacks

It would probably cost them more money to prevent the mods then to ignore the mods.

Mods are going to increase sales anyway.

Who knows, this is cheap R&D for them. Someone finds something way cool and posts online, it may end up in the damn device in the next revision.
 
mrjamin said:
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.
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If they can get it to be the back end without too much hassle (as in plug in a certain tuner, mount a drive and run the installer), then I'll give it another shot. I got 95% done with one install but my tuner cards weren't quite right for the job and at the time, I couldn't afford a new tuner at the time. Now, I've given up because I lost my spot in the instructions and don't want to retrace all the steps to make it work with a new tuner + remote. EyeTV does the job well enough for now.
 
Howmanoid said:
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!!!
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Microsoft did it so people didn't pirate games or cheat on XBL. That's not really comparable to Apple TV hacks because those hacks aren't comprising the store, the downloadable movies etc.

You can hack the hell out of the Xbox if you want as long as you don't bring the hacks online. Microsoft even has good spirits about numerous sites detailing such hacks and even widely published books about hacking the Xbox.

It's not like Apple was acting the same way when people started hacking OS X to run on normal PC's.
 
While Apple's seeming apathy to the hacks is commendable, it isn't comparable to MS with the Xbox as others have pointed out since that is targeted towards piracy and cheating on XBL. However, it is a better move than Sony's constant squashing of the PSP homebrew community, which nearly provided a redeeming value to that disaster.

This can only help build a community around the :apple: tv and thus its subsequent family of products, which I'm sure is Apple's first priority at this time. Not to mention the good free PR.
 
Lest we forget...

One of Apple's co-founders was a hardware hacker himself. I'd like to think the spirit lives on, despite all the $SUITS. (I remember when the Apple ][ came with schematics. :D

It's so very tempting to pick one of these boxes up to play with, I just don't know if our TV can handle it - it has component input, but it's a SDTV. (We have no desire for HDTV at this point.) Is it workable?

Too bad you can't hook a regular monitor to that puppy. Or can you?
 
I can't imagine Apple wanting to stop it. They're getting all sorts of R & D done for free by all of these hackers. Now all they need to do is compile the notes and use them for future upgrades. Makes sense actually.
 
mickhyperion said:
I can't imagine Apple wanting to stop it. They're getting all sorts of R & D done for free by all of these hackers. Now all they need to do is compile the notes and use them for future upgrades. Makes sense actually.
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It's probably a good proving ground for ideas, but unless the community produces a really polished project, I don't think Apple would be able to use the work directly. They might implement the idea in their own way.
 
SeaFox said:
... 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. ....
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Err... that's the way it works in the real world. If you modify virtually any code, when an update comes there's absolutely no guarantee your modifications are going to work following installation of the update. The wise prepare for the that possibility... ;)

Take vBulletin for example, the software this forum is using. If you deviate greatly from the stock code, any update has the potential to hose those neat bells and whistles you've added. If I had a dollar for every update that's screwed up something on code/software I've modified, I'd be rich. :p
 
mickhyperion said:
I can't imagine Apple wanting to stop it. They're getting all sorts of R & D done for free by all of these hackers. Now all they need to do is compile the notes and use them for future upgrades. Makes sense actually.
Click to expand...

Apple seems to be have been cool with this sort of thing for a while... If you look at Apple's Mac mini page, note that on the left side, near bottom the following notation by Apple:

Big Ideas
The compact design of Mac mini makes it the perfect addition to your den or dorm room. But some adventurous Mac mini customers have taken it places Apple never imagined (or warrants). These links are purely for inspiration, not instruction.
Click to expand...

Following that statement, there's several links to various "mini mod sites", on which people show and explain mini hacking techniques.

However, Apple does seems very willing to unleash their lawyers on those who put Apple's software up for downloading.
 
The sociological take on this is that Apple is attracting the "barely legal" crowd in Apple TV and on iTunes with DRM-free.

This invites the obvious question. Does this increase or decrease absolute or marginal piracy?

Hmmm?

Piracy does have components:

Convient cost reduction (consumer)
Resale to end user bypassing copyright (international)
Use more licenses than granted
Manufacturing facility making multiple pirated titles
Managers of piracy
Managers of micro-retail piracy
Buyers of piracy (consumer)
Buyers of piracy (resale)
Buyers of piracy (commercial)

DRM-free eliminates some of those.

Rocketman
 
I really don't think that Apple cares that people are hacking the :apple:tv. Personally, I think that Apple released this product just to keep the content providers happy about there being a "controlled gate" when it comes down to playing their content.
 
SeaFox said:
Cingular would just send out the patch as one of those updates you can't refuse.
Click to expand...
What do you mean? How can there be an update you can't refuse on a phone?
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?
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They could stop carrying the iPhone, but they couldn't drop people under contract without canceling those contracts (in which case those customers could simply switch to another carrier, losing only the visual voicemail feature). Apple would just start selling the iPhone in its stores in that case and let people fend for themselves with activation and service plans.
BGil said:
It's not like Apple was acting the same way when people started hacking OS X to run on normal PC's.
Click to expand...
That's not the same. OS X isn't real property you can own; it is exclusively Apple's property at all times and in all situations. You can't mod someone else's AppleTV or XBox without their permission, either. Both Microsoft and Apple have full rights to protect their software however they see fit, so long as they don't mandate what users do with their physical copies of that software.
 
I don't get why they would say anything else. As far as they're concerned they'll be the winners when a load come back and the customer has to pay for fixing their broken box.

This is so obvoius to me, or am I naïve? (I wonder if the forum supports umlauts?)

[Edit] Score for proper spelling!
 
mickhyperion said:
They're getting all sorts of R & D done for free by all of these hackers.
Click to expand...

I'd imagine Apple was already well aware of what can run on :apple: TV before it was released - at the very least I'd think they had them running full OSX in-house. Look at Boot Camp. They had this working secretly and released it only after some hackers made their Mactels dual boot. They'll let the tinkerers have their fun, while learning what the market wants, then maybe release some "supported" upgrades to further drive up sales.
 
SteveG4Cube said:
... Look at Boot Camp. They had this working secretly and released it only after some hackers made their Mactels dual boot. They'll let the tinkerers have their fun, while learning what the market wants, then maybe release some "supported" upgrades to further drive up sales.
Click to expand...

Apple was supporting the concept of dual boot a decade ago. In the '90s, Apple was funding the MKLinux project, which featured a boot manager that allowed PPC Macs to boot (typically): either Linux, or the Mac OS. Boot Camp isn't a radically new concept for Macs -- its just a different method for dealing with something unique (EFI) to Intel Macs. :)
 
Hopefully Apple will see the potential of releasing a super cheap, super under-powered Apple computer. Just stick a Combodrive in there. A Mac for word processing, email, internet, iPod organising. Keep the range of outputs. Add Bluetooth.

I'd buy that right here, right now... on the Apple Store.
 
Rocketman said:
The sociological take on this is that Apple is attracting the "barely legal" crowd in Apple TV and on iTunes with DRM-free.
Click to expand...
I really don't think that's the case - I'm all for the total and utter abolition of DRM, I don't see how it would attract pirates (or would-be pirates). I share Leo Laporte's viewpoint that the only people who are hindered by anti-piracy measures are honest people.
 
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