I have had an Apple TV sitting in a cupboard for a while now and not had a lot of use of out if so having spent some time in the Apple world with the iPad I thought I would take a 2nd look at the box
The last time I looked at my Apple TV I wasn’t using iTunes or any Apple device and I found that the device didn’t fit in with the rest of my systems, a year later and I have an iPhone and an iPad and the picture is slightly different. My main way of consuming video is via Windows Media Center and that isn’t going to change but I am trying to make my systems work together better.
The first thing I did after getting the Apple TV setup again was to upgrade the OS to V3, I am not even sure when the OS was updated but I like the new look and feel and soon had it synced up with my iTunes account with all my music and pictures on it. If you live in iTunes word then the device is great, you can pay for all the iTunes content and your fine but for me integration is the key so this is where aTVFlash comes in.
aTVFlash is a hack for Apple TV that enables lots of functionally that the device does not normally offer. You can install a web browser,flash, network streaming and apps like Boxee which really add to the devices usefulness. The nice thing about the hack is that it’s really simple to install, it cost $49 from atvflash.com and you get a download that creates a bootable USB device that you put in the back of the Apple TV reboot and it does the rest. After a reboot in addition to the standard features you get Boxee/XBMC options, nitoTV a file player that will play local content (including USB storage), networked content , a web browser and a whole host of additional addins.
One thing I didn’t try in the past was the Remote app for iPhone/iPad/iPod. This is a remote control app for apple TV that you can use to play music, videos etc or use a remote control. This is useful or me as the Apple TV is not in line of sight so the standard remote doesn’t work very well, it not a bad app and is not unlike some of the Media Center remotes I have used on the iPhone.
Boxee works just like the PC version and I found the web browser pretty useful but I couldn’t get flash to work.
Overall if I can get it to stream recorded TV (not got it sussed yet) I may get some use out of it connected up to a TV in the spare room but its certainly not a replacement for a PC. There is no way I could do without the power and flexibility of having a Media Center PC connected to your TV, yes the aTVFlash app makes the Apple TV useful and maybe in the bedroom connected to a TV it could make a good extender but it can’t beat a PC. It will be interesting to see if the rumours are correct that Apple are going to go for an iOS powered device in the future as the 3rd party apps could make the platform more appealing
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I have had an Apple TV sitting in a cupboard for a while now and not had a lot of use of out if so having spent some time in the Apple world with the iPad I thought I would take a 2nd look at the box
One thing I didn’t try in the past was the Remote app for iPhone/iPad/iPod. This is a remote control app for apple TV that you can use to play music, videos etc or use a remote control. This is useful or me as the Apple TV is not in line of sight so the standard remote doesn’t work very well, it not a bad app and is not unlike some of the Media Center remotes I have used on the iPhone.