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macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 23, 2003
1,455
246
Gravesend, United Kingdom
I've long coveted an AppleTV. Well, really, I've coveted the idea of replacing my G4 Mac Mini with an Intel Mac Mini and doing that sneaky hack of running Apple TV's version of Front Row on it.

Why?

Well, some very cool people managed to delve into how the AppleTV's Front Row worked and have created some excellent plugins for it. See here. It seems that Front Row (or, BackRow as the framework's called) was designed to be modular, permitting pretty seamless extension of its features.

Now, here's a thought... Leopard's Front Row is rumoured to be the same as that on the AppleTV. I'm thinking (or hoping) that these independently-developed plugins will also work on Leopard -- or at least it'll be possible for them to be rebuilt for it.

Of course, Leopard is PPC compatible, which the Apple TV's Front Row isn't. So perhaps my G4 Mac Mini could get a new lease of life!

Just a few thoughts... I'm of course not asking anyone to break NDA and tell me whether this is possible.

Interesting, though... eh?
 
A very interesting observation, methinks. I hope that it supports QuickTime plugins in the same way the Tiger version of Front Row does. If that's true then I'll be willing to trade a new interface, like that of the Apple TV, for vastly improved extendability.:D
 
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