Apple TV Running Full Mac OS X

[localoid]

It's an interesting prospect of having a $300 Mac with a single core. If you got 1 GB in it, it would be a great starter machine. I'd get one just to have a spare machine around.

Mac thin client?

Who knows? Perhaps the hackability of tv will create enough interest in "open Darwin" types projects to actually generate applications (for open Darwin vs. Mac OS X)...

Is the port of LTP to OS X ready yet?

 

[nagromme]

In time, a Mini WILL cost $299 And have more power than today's Mini (certainly much more than an AppleTV).

In the meantime, I'd be happy to see the current Mini fall back below $500.

 

[dornoforpyros]

This may have been mentioned before, but who's up for running a little Bit Torrent in their living room?

 

[localoid]

...
Very intriguing, just too bad that currently there's no retail version of Mac OS X that runs on the AppleTV. Getting any version onto it is clearly illegal at this point. That's really too bad. I wonder if a Leopard family pack license could be legally used? Apple would surely argue that the AppleTV does not qualify as an "Apple-labeled computer" (however they word the license) and therefore it's illegal, but would that hold up if it went to court?...

Yes. Currently, you need to make use of a Intel Mac's OS to pull this "experiment" off. But since it's just an experiment by a few non-technophobic individuals at this point in time, will such experiments cause Apple great concern?

The "most legal" method at this point in time would be to run a system based on totally on Apple's open source core; legal, albeit extremely limited in comparison to the commercial Mac OS X. But as I said early, perhaps tv might actually foster the development of "real" open source applications (for the open OS X core)... which would seem to be a "good thing" for all parties.

 

[localoid]

Odd... my parents use my old 4.5-year-old iMac with lessor specs (except for RAM) and have no problems....

Keyword: RAM

Will someone running the "full" OS X on "teh atv" run "vm_stat" in a terminal window and report what "pageouts" says?

 

[PPC970FX]

I never thougt I would ever say this but, thank god for Vista. Apple did mac os x kill the box with the fact that it only have 256mb RAM. BUT if we could impliment the USB sticks as RAM. boom you got up to 8 GB of ram, some of the usb sticks are well not fast but will make a BIG speed difference. If we could impliment that on the Apple TV in mac os x, there you have the perfect cheap smal and livingroomish computer.

Not a powerhouse but kicks ass in what I think of its uses are.
some browsing
video
music
looking at pics
+
as good as everyting a normal mac can do just slower

 

[timmillwood]

I think apple should release a system like this $299 for Mac mini nano.

They would sell Millions, because some home users don't wanna pay a lot for a machine just to check e-mails and look-up recipes etc online.

Package it, Mac Nano, Apple Keyboard and mouse, 17" cheap screen all for $499 BARGIN!

 

[localoid]

... BUT if we could impliment the USB sticks as RAM. boom you got up to 8 GB of ram...

You meant this as an April Fools joke, I assume?

 

[Clive At Five]

Wow... I would deactivate all OS X non-essentials, get a USB hub, an eyeTV and see what can be done here...

-Clive

 

[Multimedia]

Well That Blows My Mind

So if this is possible, why the hell hasn't Apple started selling a Mac like this for $299? Greed?

So is the RAM soldered to motherboard so you can't increase it?

Where's the web surfing video so we can see how snappy Safari is?

Congratulations to the creators of this amazing hack. Thank you kids.

Wow... I would deactivate all OS X non-essentials, get a USB hub, an eyeTV and see what can be done here...

Oh yeah baby. Make the TV an EyeTV DVR with an internal 750GB HD and an external series of large USB2 Drives. Any word on what 1GHz processor that is? I may buy one yet now that I've see this much. Can the TV drive the full 1080i from EyeTV 1080i recordings? It'll still look very good as 720P I'm sure.

Did you guys notice they even have the Apple URL icon in front of their URL? Man the Apple lawyers are going to have a field day with these kids. If Apple had half a brain, they'd track these kids down and give them a $1 Million award for creativity and launch the $299 NanoMac tomorrow as part of their 31st anniversary celebration. Would be amazing publicity stunt and sell millions overnight.

 

[matticus008]

So if this is possible, why the hell hasn't Apple started selling a Mac like this for $299?

Same reason BMW doesn't sell a $15,000 car and Cuisinart doesn't make a $15 blender and that Pillsbury or Gold Medal flour still costs more than generic.

If Apple released this machine as a computer, it would be berated and victimized by outraged Internet people for years to come for how weak and incomplete it is.

No optical drive, small hard drive, sad little processor, no Firewire, one USB port, no minijack audio output, 256MB of RAM, no iLife and no way to attach a PC monitor directly, just to start. It would be a disaster. The fact that it can be modified to run as a low-end computer is a nice bonus, but it wouldn't sell the other way around (as a crappy computer that could also be a media center).

 

[iMikeT]

I think I'm going to set a count-down clock to the day that Apple releases an update to tv preventing all the hacking.

 

[SpaceMagic]

Let's get BootCamp and Windows running on it tee hee... XP with 256mb and 1ghz isn't too bad.

I hope Apple doesn't prevent hacking. It's up to people what they do with their own hardware.

 

[localoid]

In reply to multimedia's question -- "So if this is possible, why the hell hasn't Apple started selling a Mac like this for $299?" matticus008 replied:

...If Apple released this machine as a computer, it would be berated and victimized by outraged Internet people for years to come for how weak and incomplete it is.

No optical drive, small hard drive, sad little processor, no Firewire, one USB port, no minijack audio output, 256MB of RAM, no iLife and no way to attach a PC monitor directly, just to start. It would be a disaster. The fact that it can be modified to run as a low-end computer is a nice bonus, but it wouldn't sell the other way around (as a crappy computer that could also be a media center).

Reality = exactly <what matticus008 said>

How many people already complain about how "underpowered" the current Mac mini is since it's "only" using a Core Duo? Or asking: "Why does Apple even sell a combo drive anymore? That's so Twentieth Century and just yukie-poo!" Or whine "The mini comes with 512MB? It should come with 120MB HD and 2GB RAM standard for $499! What a ripoff!"

Some things never change: Joe Average Consumer will always want/desire a do-everything box that'd super cheap, and will always have totally unreasonable expectations about what they should be able to do with such a bargain box.

 

[MacFly123]

What about in a car???

This might be really cool to put an Apple TV in your car and with 802.11n it could sync to your computer while the car is parked in the garage Does anyone have any thoughts on that or know of it being done? I know Minis have been put in cars, let me know people

 

[Digitaljim]

Intrigued

If this all turns out to be true - and not a sneaky April Fool trick - I have to say I'm very tempted. I don't think many people would use it as their main workstation, but for safari/itunes/office I assume its specs would make would it run fine. My Dad has been doing all that stuff with Tiger on a 500ghz G3 with 256mb ram for ages now.

One question to those in the know: on a scale of 1 to 10, how difficult is the 14 step guide to complete? Would I need to be an übergeek to get this impressive addition running in my living room?

 

[Bonte]

In time, a Mini WILL cost $299 And have more power than today's Mini (certainly much more than an AppleTV).

In the meantime, I'd be happy to see the current Mini fall back below $500.

Maybe in a long long time from now, Apple will pump up the specs to justify the current price tag. Cheaper models will be generic PC's running 10.5, my bet is that all Intel Core duo proc's will be supported. Maybe only the 64 bit machines that are poorly supported in Windows but it will run on practically all PC hardware.

 

[k2k koos]

Original Mini versus ATV

true.

i think this is pretty cool i'm not going to go buy one of these things though....i wonder if someone can do some benchmarks on it though? i wonder if it'd be faster than a 1.42 PPC mini?

for the same reason, I wonder if it would beat my 1.25Ghz PPC Mac mini at home?
I know I would never replace it with an TV, but just curious

 

[k2k koos]

Apple is in!

Let's forget about the Apple TV for a minute, and look at the broader picture here.
There are more and more people 'hacking' and experimenting with Macs, and other things Apple. A few years ago, this wasn't so much the case, hacking etc was done on PC's , running a Linux variety, or Windows or whatever, not a lot of Macs, at least not in the public eye.

I think this is living proof that Apple, and Macs, are beginning to gain foothold with a larger public, and for once it's not a statistic.
Great stuff!

 

[72930]

Let's forget about the Apple TV for a minute, and look at the broader picture here.
There are more and more people 'hacking' and experimenting with Macs, and other things Apple. A few years ago, this wasn't so much the case, hacking etc was done on PC's , running a Linux variety, or Windows or whatever, not a lot of Macs, at least not in the public eye.

I think this is living proof that Apple, and Macs, are beginning to gain foothold with a larger public, and for once it's not a statistic.
Great stuff!

Mmm....macmod.com has been involved in this stuff for ages...

 

[kadajawi]

It could make for the cheapest render farm evar. I wonder if logic will distribute processing to it.

Hm... no. Not really. A 1 GHz CPU for rendering is just a waste of effort, especially with only 256 MB RAM. Better get a Mac Mini, they have way more than twice the CPU power (rather say 3 or 4 times as much) for twice the money. Makes much, much more sense to me.

While this is all nice i gues we all know what ridiculous amounts of RAM Mac OS X likes. 512 is painfully slow, even for Firefox. My Mac Mini is swapping all the time. 256 MB? No. Never. For an in car system it might be ok, or as a router, home server, ... but other than that... The CPU is probably ok though.
Hm. What about Windows? Windows XP is a bit more careful with the ressources, that might run... somehow.

I somehow doubt this all though...

 

[winmacguy]

I think apple should release a system like this $299 for Mac mini nano.

They would sell Millions, because some home users don't wanna pay a lot for a machine just to check e-mails and look-up recipes etc online.

Package it, Mac Nano, Apple Keyboard and mouse, 17" cheap screen all for $499 BARGIN!

That's about what I was thinking when I read the article. Something simple and cheap (with a profit margin) that could cater for the budget and of the market. Apple could sell as many of these setups in a quarter as they sell iPods!

 

[localoid]

Mmm....macmod.com has been involved in this stuff for ages...

Yes, but this is rather different in many different regards. At $299, the price of admission is lowered quite a bit, and when you look at the hardward this device has on it, there are several appealing items. It's onboard graphics are better than the Mac mini, the low-end iMacs and the Macbooks. For $299, you get HDMI + component video out, 802.11n wireless + 10/100 ethernet, IR remote, S/PDIF, etc. You can't build this box for $299.

The price point + these features will attract much new blood to OS X. The clever hackers will find ways of using the box for new applications, while working within the device's RAM limitations. But will these neo-hackers use OSX or simply install Linux and go in that directions with developing applications for this cool little inexpensive box?

The real potential of this box (for OS X) is its use as an extension of existing platforms, or even new platforms, both which will require new apps and software. Think "thin"... think Ajax... etc., e.g., think differently

To date, there's been no incentive for previous hackers of OSX to develop (radically) new apps or platforms. Instead, they waited for Apple to develop <insert groovy new stuff here>. Open Darwin failed because all "development" was for (real) OS X, not for Darwin. Now, new stuff will likely be developed... Apple TV has opened up the game and changed the rules -- quite a bit!

 

[msandersen]

I would love something like that.

Makes you wonder why Apple don't release a super budget Mac. Something to test the water with for reasons mentioned above. I would get one of these for word processing or web browsing alone!

That's what the original iMac was supposed to be, really, a simple computer for people who just want internet, email and occasional word processing; hence the whole i-name thing.
The TV could well be used for this, depending how responsive it will be with this much RAM, although it is not its intended purpose, and personally I think these tasks are better using a regular computer monitor at a desk. That's not the purpose of this device. That is, however, the purpose of the Mini.
Many expected the Mini would be made for what this device is. If TV is successful, maybe a version of the Mini may yet gain some of the same capabilities and ports and sold as the TV's bigger brother.

 

[motulist]

$600 for a low end mac is just too much for me to justify, if there really was a $300 or even $400 mac I could justify buying it just to act as my media and internet machine. At $500 I might even be able to convince myself that it's reasonable, but at $600 the mac mini is just way too much money for me to even imagine I'd buy it.

But $300 for the ATV with it's standard features is too anemic for me to justify buying that either, and while it's fun to watch all this hacking unfold, I don't think this really changes the buying equation for me, and here's why. I'm skeptical that the ATV hacks will ever be easy or certain enough that I'd risk purchasing an ATV while having to depend on the hacks to give me the features that I want. Plus, it seems like the hacked ATV will still have lots of limitations.

If there was a $400 mac mini I'd be salivating.