First Generation Apple TVs Unable to Connect to iTunes

[the8thark]

The iTunes Store is a goldmine for Apple. $$$$$$

Why would anyone think Apple would purposely shut down an older device which encouraged users to purchase content from the iTunes Store?

Actually no. iTunes is just the vehicle that generates more hardware sales. And in this respect Apple want to limit what iTunes content the older devices can use as to keep pushing more hardware sales.

Why will Apple not allow iOS apps on OS X (even virtualised) except for testing apps you make with Xcode? Because they want more iPad sales.

 

[bdkennedy1]

The original Apple TV is over 7 years old. That's 2 years past how long Apple supports their hardware, however we still don't know why this happened. It's a holiday and no one there is working.

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This has been a disconnect for people for centuries. If you buy cheap, then expect to fork out money in a year or two. Most people don't understand why the cheap thing they are buying doesn't work after 2 years. It's always been the same, a chair, a car, etc. If you buy a cheap car, it's only going to take you 30k miles before it breaks down.

Companies love people like you.

I'll go slowly for you.......

Why would I replace high quality, working products with poorly made, poorly speced products?

The cheapest preamp I have been able to find with acceptable specifications is the Model 975 7.1 HDMI AV Surround Processor by Outlaw Audio. That will put me back $550 + shipping (direct from the factory). The prices for a quality preamp increase rapidly from this point.

I already bought a replacement for my 1st HDTV (55 inch RCA rear projection) - it died after 38 months. That was $1600 ($1200 for the TV, $300 for the extended warranty) that I might as well have simply put in a pile and lit on fire - the RCA OTOH is still working. The same summer, I had to replace 2 28" LCD monitors that didn't last 60 days beyond the warranty - another $600 wasted.

If you haven't noticed - Today, HDTVs only come with a 12 month warranty - There is a reason for that - they are crap products. TV isn't important enough for me to be replacing a $700 TV every 36 months.

If you want to waste your money like that, feel free. I have better things to spend my money on.

 

[diazj3]

I have a better question when is Apple or Netflix going to fix the Dolby Surround issue? Really annoying when 2 months has passed by and no fix for it yet.

+1

It seems to be mostly Apple's fault in the 6.1 update, since no app or content can reproduce surround sound since.

I had to reconnect my home theatre setup, and while testing it I realized the was no surround sound anymore. It drove me crazy for a couple of hours! wrestled with it, changed cables, reconnected everything, reset and restored the ATV, tested all my AVR and TV settings... until I realized it wasn't me. Should've started by checking the ATV forums.

I mostly use Beamer.app to play content through my ATV - it broke the Dolby Digital and DTS capability as well.

So yes... when will that be, Apple?

 

[mrsir2009]

Maybe, maybe not. It's possible that Apple could cause occasional interruptions to services to older iOS devices just to nudge people in the "right direction" if you know what I mean. Of course, the more likely possibility is Apple didn't take some older devices into account (tested those devices) when they tested new upgrades and software.

It doesn't make any sense though for Apple to inconvenience the users of old Apple TV's so they'll upgrade to newer ones. The Apple TV costs $99, which means little if any profit is made on it -- the big revenue stream when it comes to the Apple TV is the purchasing of content, and if people's devices don't work they can't spend any money.

 

[TsMkLg068426]

+1

It seems to be mostly Apple's fault in the 6.1 update, since no app or content can reproduce surround sound since.

I had to reconnect my home theatre setup, and while testing it I realized the was no surround sound anymore. It drove me crazy for a couple of hours! wrestled with it, changed cables, reconnected everything, reset and restored the ATV, tested all my AVR and TV settings... until I realized it wasn't me. Should've started by checking the ATV forums.

I mostly use Beamer.app to play content through my ATV - it broke the Dolby Digital and DTS capability as well.

So yes... when will that be, Apple?

God only knows when at the rate Apple send another update for this issue will be months probably not even after the new iOS just so dumb of them.

 

[shoorty0690]

A little farfetched

I doubt this is Apple's way of saying "Hey, you're outdated, you should update." But you have to think about it logically, this device came out when people were still happy with their iBook G4... How much longer can or should they support it?

 

[MH01]

It's Easter Sunday. Do you think anyone is working on it?

In supporting live production systems, there is no holidays.

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The original Apple TV is over 7 years old. That's 2 years past how long Apple supports their hardware, however we still don't know why this happened. It's a holiday and no one there is working.

----------

This has been a disconnect for people for centuries. If you buy cheap, then expect to fork out money in a year or two. Most people don't understand why the cheap thing they are buying doesn't work after 2 years. It's always been the same, a chair, a car, etc. If you buy a cheap car, it's only going to take you 30k miles before it breaks down.

That does not apply to computers though . Outer hardware design out of the equation, macs and pcs are the same components inside. Your buying a different os in a nicer hardware package.

Also new cars , even cheap ones do not break down in 30k, or stop working within 2 years. Fact is , you will find a Toyota is way more reliable than a car costing 10x it's value. Worst reliability comes from the top end sports cars. Dont ever buy a Ferrari, you will be shocked how much you will fork out in 2 years.

 

[HyperZboy]

I'm not floating this as a conspiracy per se, but Apple is well known to scheme in "Planned Obsolescence" tactics, so nothing would surprise me. After all it's 2007 technology, let's throw that under the bus even though it still should work.

Reminds me of the PowerPC complaints. There was no valid reason why PowerMac G5s, faster and more expensive than some new Intel Macs couldn't run Snow Leopard or Lion. Apple just threw those consumers under the bus for new Mac sales, mainly because Pro consumers generally upgrade pro systems more frequently anyway. But still, it affected a lot of home consumers too, iMac G5 owners. My G5 still hasn't crashed in a year btw, well except when the power went out from a storm. Wish I could say that on a Mac Pro running Mavericks.

It's ironic though that Microsoft still continued to support Windows XP in various ways over so many years. My theory is that Apple has just decided it's time to ditch these so called Apple TV "hobbyists" for something new they're planning.

PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE. IT'S TODAY'S REALITY and STEVE JOBS VISION.

Sometimes I think that Bill Gates used to sit around and scratching his head just mumbling, "How the hell does Jobs pull this **** off and get away with it?"

 

[Tech198]

There are people still using 1st Gens.? What's wrong with that picture..

Apple needs to kill of things sometime....... You can't expect something to last forever can you ?

Maybe its about time to update ? And this is a sure warning if Apple's not going to fix this, then there sending a strong message/forced as a only option to upgrade their ATV's.

It's the only ATV that still came with internal hard drive..... I dunno what people are thinking, but there are external options today... Don't think they you won't be able to still do that.

 

[peterdevries]

My theory is that Apple has just decided it's time to ditch these so called Apple TV "hobbyists" for something new they're planning.

PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE. IT'S TODAY'S REALITY and STEVE JOBS VISION.

Like so many here, you are missing some understanding of how planned obsolescence works and mistake this situation for something that it most likely isn't.

Think clearly about what is happening here. The users of 1st gen Apple TV's are clearly not fast upgrades, and therefore most likely consumers that are not swayed directly by Apple's brand and new products. If Apple would be interested in keeping these consumers as clients (and they are) than they would be wise not to piss them off by partly bricking there devices. These consumers would be very likely to go for another device (Amazon, Roku, you know which ones there are). Moreover, there isn't a suitable Apple replacement just yet. If the 2nd or 3rd generations would have been appealing to these consumers than they would have already purchased them. Where would these specific consumers go realistically without a viable replacement? Exactly, to the competition.

In terms of planned obsolescence for the 1st gen, the following would make much more sense than just shutting down access:
Announce or introduce a new Apple TV, which will likely have overhauled content and navigation. At that moment Apple could communicate that "unfortunately" they will be discontinuing support of the 1st gen due to the incompatibility of new functionality with the hardware of the old one. Existing 1st gen consumers will then have a compelling reason to upgrade, because they likely also have previously purchased content that they could use with a new Apple TV. And they will have been supplied with some forewarning. Whatever people say about Apple nowadays, they are usually transparent in the communication of their online-service discontinuations (Ping, MobileMe etc.).

What is happening here is very very very likely an outage which can be due to a host of reasons (software failure, server failure, network outage, etc.).

 

[scrmtrey]

Apple have dbest support for older devices than any other companies.

You cant argue with that, can you?

I bet that they dont work for holidays. If u would be in that position, u would not care about the issue. It will likely be fixed after holidays these week.

But as you can see (iphone4 and ios7) , the time to upgrade eventually come. And u will be happy with newer device.

I know that i am much happier with iphone5. You will be too with new appletv.

 

[Tech198]

True, but lets not forget here... Apple's doesn't really care if a customer says "ok,, i'm switching because you bricked my device."

If the nly option from Apple's view point is upgrade, then customers move to non-Apple hardware.

Apple doesn't care about those customers who want to switch away, they only care about people who want to come to Apple and are curious about them in the first place.

Plus, nothing lasts forever,, you can't expect a car manufacture to keep making an 80's car just to keep their customers happy... They don't care..

Move on. With external storage, what possibly reason could be be to keep a 1st gen other than to have an all-in-one ?

So, you have a few hard drives hanging off USB... is that a bad thing ?

 

[yegon]

Heh, not visited the iTunes store for years on my Apple TV, wouldn't even notice if it disappeared personally. Much prefer the combo of Netflix, torrents/newsgroups* and Blu Ray's for stuff I want to keep.

*Yeah yeah, piracy blah blah, I still throw loads of money at these companies, and I'd happily pay a fairly hefty monthly subscription to access all the best content from HBO/AMC/Showtime etc. day and date, but it simply isn't an option. Especially since I'm from the UK, the only legal way to get most of the best stuff, not even day and date and barraged with ads, is by giving money to Murdoch. Err....nope. I'd rather go and live in the woods and stare at a tree than give that organisation my money.

 

[MacTech68]

Seems Apple's Verisign Class 3 G5 SSL certificate was renewed on 2014-04-17.

My iTunes 9.2.1 can't connect and throws a -9812 error.

Looking at the error code shows it can indeed be the Verisign cert:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts3222

However, deleting them, restarting, attempting to get new ones from Verisign (now Symantec) yields no change. Maybe revocation isn't keeping up? I don't know much about how it works but an article on the BBC seems to suggest this could be a problem in the aftermath of heart-bleed.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27035072

However, said Paul Mutton, a security analyst at Netcraft, sites also had to take action to change a separate security measure if they wanted to be sure that visitors' data did not go astray.

This separate measure is known as a security certificate and is a guarantee of a site's identity.

Heartbleed raised questions about the worth of the guarantee security certificates offered, said Mr Mutton. Using the Heartbleed bug attackers could seize secret keys used in conjunction with security certificates as an identity check.

"It would be safest to assume that all of the 500,000 certificates have been compromised," he told the BBC. "Most Certificate Authorities are offering to reissue and revoke for free, so there is no excuse not to take action."

However, he said, the revoking and reissuing of hundreds of thousands of certificates could have a knock-on effect on web browsing speeds.

 

[markfc]

This needs to be fixed quickly. The AppleTV 1 runs my audio in the garden for bbqs and parties and it's summer season coming up!

Or add a 3.5mm audio out to the next AppleTV...

 

[locust76]

Companies love people like you.

I'll go slowly for you.......

Why would I replace high quality, working products with poorly made, poorly speced products?

The cheapest preamp I have been able to find with acceptable specifications is the Model 975 7.1 HDMI AV Surround Processor by Outlaw Audio. That will put me back $550 + shipping (direct from the factory). The prices for a quality preamp increase rapidly from this point.

I already bought a replacement for my 1st HDTV (55 inch RCA rear projection) - it died after 38 months. That was $1600 ($1200 for the TV, $300 for the extended warranty) that I might as well have simply put in a pile and lit on fire - the RCA OTOH is still working. The same summer, I had to replace 2 28" LCD monitors that didn't last 60 days beyond the warranty - another $600 wasted.

If you haven't noticed - Today, HDTVs only come with a 12 month warranty - There is a reason for that - they are crap products. TV isn't important enough for me to be replacing a $700 TV every 36 months.

If you want to waste your money like that, feel free. I have better things to spend my money on.

Seems you have a knack for buying expensive junk.

 

[malexandria]

Just Now?

I have an original 100 GB Apple TV and haven't been able to connect for almost a year. Apple just ticks me off a lot of times. And I wish they'd bring back an HD based AppleTV because I think the streaming really sucks on the Apple TV. I don't know if it's Comcast or Apple but I can rarely stream anything without it getting stuck in buffering hell. I want to be able to download my content.

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I doubt this is Apple's way of saying "Hey, you're outdated, you should update." But you have to think about it logically, this device came out when people were still happy with their iBook G4... How much longer can or should they support it?

Considering it doesn't take much too support as all they need to do is provide a connection? For quite awhile!

 

[rols]

Oh dear that did for my trusty V1.0. It exhibited the same symptoms as others, no iTunes connect, crazy choppy video and sound but also started to run even hotter than usual and make rather bad disk noises.

I was trying to reset it when it gave up the ghost and reboots just gave me error screens. I think the HDD finally died, certainly sounded like it.

It was probably on its last gasp anyway, perhaps a few days running extra hot finished it off. Anyway - new aTV bought and installed, works fine, see if I get 7 years out of THIS one.

 

[malexandria]

Another Example

Another example of why I despise this push towards digital content. these companies can do whatever they want with the stuff you OWN, including bricking or gimping it either permanently or until you purchase some new hardware to access. They hold us hostage.

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Does anyone at Apple observe EASTER? If it was Earth Day, I could understand the company holiday. LOL

Considering most of their developers are offshore, I'd say a LOT of people at Apple don't observe Easter. Maybe just Sunday, but not Easter.

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If there is this has nothing to do with this issue. The Gen 1 hasn't had a software update in like 4-5 years, the likelihood that something adjusted for security or support of current systems is highly likely. The timing is just happenstance, more likely related to the SSL oops from last month than any upcoming device.

THAT SAID, I do rather hope there is a new box. One with some kick, a bit more storage and for heavens sake let's get support for iTunes extras/LP in there. That and h.265 would be features to really kick Apple's game up, especially if they went more quality at same size (and price) and for things more to bluray quality. First out of that gate could prove quite the win for anyone

I loved my original AppleTV and hated upgrading to AppleTV2. The streaming quality sucks and there's no way to download anything. I also agree about the iTunes Extra but also they need to make it more compatible with the computer version of iTunes. It is ***** RIDICULOUS that if I rent something on my Macbook the damn thing won't show up on my AppleTV and if I PURCHASE something on my AppleTV it should show up in my Macbook. It's just SLOPPY.

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The Apple TV is such a crappy, sloppy unfinished product. There's very little compatibility between iTunes on the computer and the AppleTV which is Stupid as hell.

1. No iTunes Extra support on AppleTV
2. Purchase something on Apple TV it WON'T show up on your iTunes Account on the Macbook, even Though, purchasing on the Macbook the content shows up on AppleTV
3. Rentals purchased on the computer DON'T show up on the Apple TV
4. Wishlist and Favorites are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! So I go through and add a bunch of wishlist items on my Macbook and they don't show up on my Apple TV.

These are obvious Use Cases that should have been addressed in the BEGINNING and certainly should have been resolved by now. Don't give me they are "completely" different platforms BS. These are very simple and easy fixes. It's a ******, half assed product and calling it a "hobby" after 5 years when people are actually spending a lot of money on digital content is completely unacceptable. The ONLY reason I have two of them is, it's the only way to access my GD Blu-ray Digital Copies and Airplay sucks.

 

[peterdevries]

True, but lets not forget here... Apple's doesn't really care if a customer says "ok,, i'm switching because you bricked my device."


Apple doesn't care about those customers who want to switch away, they only care about people who want to come to Apple and are curious about them in the first place.

How do you know this? It doesn't make sense and goes against all accepted business practices. Apple and any other company would be wise to care about any customer moving away. Each and every one of them. Why do you think they build these ecosystems anyway if they didn't care about their existing customers?

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

T.T do the authors at MacRumors actually understand anything about HeartBleed or do they just like using buzz phrases to generate clicks? I don't see how HeartBleed could possibly be the cause of this - why would Apple's servers use different code, some effected by HeartBleed and some not, based on version of AppleTV or iOS device connecting?

 

[CBlakeston]

Heh, not visited the iTunes store for years on my Apple TV, wouldn't even notice if it disappeared personally. Much prefer the combo of Netflix, torrents/newsgroups* and Blu Ray's for stuff I want to keep.

*Yeah yeah, piracy blah blah, I still throw loads of money at these companies, and I'd happily pay a fairly hefty monthly subscription to access all the best content from HBO/AMC/Showtime etc. day and date, but it simply isn't an option. Especially since I'm from the UK, the only legal way to get most of the best stuff, not even day and date and barraged with ads, is by giving money to Murdoch. Err....nope. I'd rather go and live in the woods and stare at a tree than give that organisation my money.

That's not really a justification for stealing dude. If you pirate stuff, just admit to it. Or go about it quietly. Don't try and justify it like it's a social injustice to not watch game of thrones day and date with the US. No one 'needs' digital content. Your not stealing bread to feed your family, your watching stories on the picture box. I'm pretty sure that's not a god given right. :/

 

[Deadeyeshark]

this is obviously just a glitch, and it will be fixed.

Apple would not risk pissing off it's customers in such a competitive environment when it's so easy to jump to a Roku, Chromecast or whatever than gamble on the customer buying an Apple TV 3 to replace their ATV1. Makes no sense, Apple will want to keep their customers tied into their eco system by whatever means, and that isn't killing off access to iTunes for existing customers.

 

[profets]

I really wish Apple TV and an iTunes library could communicate on a LAN without needing internet access to authenticate or whatever it does.

 

[Menel]

Another example of why I despise this push towards digital content. these companies can do whatever they want with the stuff you OWN, including bricking or gimping it either permanently or until you purchase some new hardware to access. They hold us hostage.

License. Not own. Big difference/