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The Apple TV is a great device but if you want to do anything other than play content from Apple or iTunes it’s a bit limited. This is where Firecore’s aTV Flash comes in adding extra features missing from the Apple TV. Due to the architecture of the Apple TV the device has to be Jailbroken before you can get aTV Flash on it but since the 3rd gen Apple TV was released there hasn’t been a hack.

FireCore have blogged about the state of aTV Flash on the 3rd gen device and basically they say that there isn’t a jailbreak yet and therefor no aTV Flash. So if you want to run aTV Flash you need to stick with a 1st or 2nd gen device.

Hopefully Apple will introduce a proper app store to the Apple TV in the future so Jailbreaks are not needed.

Since the release of the ATV3 in March of this year we’ve received a ton of interest from folks wanting to get aTV Flash (black) up and running on their new devices. From a development standpoint the hardware was almost perfect…1080p capable, with a faster processor and more RAM…what else could you ask for? Well unfortunately the powers that be have not (yet) shared our enthusiasm for running 3rd party apps on the Apple TV, and the burden of jailbreaking these devices (in order to get apps onto them) has remained unchanged since the release of the ATV2 in 2010.

As you may recall we were very optimistic about the ATV3 when it originally launched back in March, and while this optimism remains unchanged it’s clear things have not progressed as quickly as anyone would have liked. The biggest hurdle that has yet to be overcome is also the most essential – the jailbreak. While we tend to think of ourselves as pretty resourceful, the security related expertise that is required in order to release a jailbreak for iOS based devices like the ATV is just not in our wheelhouse, and we’re simply left to encourage the capable few as best we can. No one is more anxious than us to get the ATV3 opened up to 3rd party apps, but due to the reasons mentioned above we’re not able to provide any kind of release timeline right now.

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