Apple TV Already Being Hacked

TunesBoy writes "Only a couple of days after being shipped, the Apple TV is already being modified in a variety of ways. A thread at Something Awful discusses installing VLC, and a dedicated site, AppleTVHacks.net, has appeared and is cataloging hacks including a hard-drive upgrade tutorial. Did Apple intend for the Apple TV to be so easy to upgrade and hack?"

Comments

Intentionally, or just not-unintentionaly?

[White Shade]

I don't think it really matters whether apple "intended" it to be easy to hack, I think it's more of the fact that every single piece of "cool" hardware with the potential for added functionality has been hacked or broken within an extremely short amount of time. Maybe rather than intending it to be easy to hack, Apple instead decided to not spend as much money on implementing all kinds of crazy protection schemes, thus allowing a higher profit margin. Which, in my mind, makes a hell of a lot of sense! :

It does seem like the norm these days is for companies to build equipment with huge amounts of power, but then they lock it down in an effort to.. protect. .. something... PSP for example; I don't know exactly what the point of locking it down was, but obviously it didn't help much. Kinda like anti-features, or un-products; you have all this potential and you lock it down. Lucky for us, apple isn't quite so far up their own butts as Sony and whatnot are, so we have a sweet new product that we can do sweet stuff on without having to go through hoops to crack it! :)

Re:Intentionally, or just not-unintentionaly?

[blakmac]

Given the origins of Apple, I'd hardly think they would be completely *against* hacking anything...

Go with the flow

[Joebert]

Did Apple intend for the Apple TV to be so easy to upgrade and hack?

I don't think it was intent to "be easy to upgrade & hack" as it was realizing how much time & resources get wasted by other companies trying to achieve somthing that's not possible.

Will it stay open?

[solevita]

I think that's the important question. If all rev2 models will only run Apple signed binaries, then we'll know Apple's intentions.

It's tempting to buy one now in case they decide to toughen it all up in the future. And that's my tip for any device you may want to hack sometime in the future.

Re:Will it stay open?

[ScrewMaster]

Kinda like Linksys did with their WRT54-series WAPs. Fortunately, they had to good sense to realize they were costing themselves money, and put out a hacker-friendly version. I understand that the PSP/X-Box business model of selling the hardware at a loss with the intent to recoup losses in software sales really motivates manufacturers to keep their products from being purchased for other purposes. I mean, if you buy an X-Box and put Linux on it and never buy a game, you just got yourself a cheap computer at Microsoft's expense (not that I have any particular problem with that ... it's your property, and they chose to sell it to you at a loss.) But there's no real reason for a vendor whose profit comes from hardware sales to attempt to predetermine what software runs on that hardware. Well, not in the $50 consumer-grade market anyway.

Unless, of course, you're an Apple Computer with the obvious intent of becoming the 21st century king of content distribution. You probably wouldn't want people hacking into your real-time swarming video distribution system getting movies and TV shows for free. This apparent friendliness to the hacker underground may just be a ploy to get as many of the things out there as possible, by eliminating complaints that were common to late-generation Tivos and Dish Network products. They can always lock it up later.

Time will tell.

Double whammy in Apple's favor

[localroger]

One thing people might be missing is that one of the reasons the Apple TV is so cheap is that they aren't paying any of the licensing fees that manufacturers have to in order to support other formats. Much of the cost of your DVD player, for example, goes not into the hardware but to the folks who license the formats it supports -- JPG, MP3, CD audio, and of course DVD (and some of those license also include stupid requirements like Macrovision on the output, which is ANOTHER license).

Here, Apple is only supporting formats THEY own, so they can spend the money on the hardware. Hacking it only drives up their market share, and to the complaint that people are watching all these unlicensed formats on it Apple can say "Hey, we didn't do it." But you still bought a box from them.

Re:Why don't I just buy a 360?

[limecat4eva]

And for all those bulletpoint features, the one thing still desperately lacking is the one Apple has down pat: Good taste.

Re:Why don't I just buy a 360?

[-noefordeg-]

360 is UGLY!
It makes more noise than a medium sized air craft at take off. -Seriously!

Re:Why don't I just buy a 360?

[tuxedokamen]

Because the 360 is a great gaming machine that happens to play multimedia, and some people simply have no need of that. I personally don't (cannot, for epilepsy reasons) play games, nor does anyone else in my house, so buying a device with a primary functionality I'd never use would not make sense. I've gotta think the no-gaming-multimedia-streaming demographic is pretty big. Also, people who already own a game console they're very happy with but that doesn't do multimedia streaming stuff should just be able to buy the Apple TV or something like it, instead of another console they don't really want to use for gaming.

Re:USB2 tv tuner / DVR please!

[Ilgaz]

Buy Mac Mini, enjoy a real computer which connects to your HDTV. I would also recommend El Gato USB stuff coming with EyeTV. I plan to get a firewire blu-ray player for it when Lacie like companies figure there are people who needs "player", not "recorder".

Apple TV or Apple is not to blame, they are not selling a computer or suggest it is a computer, it is a high tech "deck" which happens to run OS X inside to do its job.

Smaller, quieter. outputs, more dedicated to use

[SuperKendall]

So for only $100 more than the Apple TV, you get a device that is:

1) Much larger
2) Much noisier
3) Lacks HDMI output
4) has media support as an addition, not as the primary foucs of the device.

The two are almost totally seperate devices. I'll grant that if you are getting a 360 already then you have many features which are duplicated by the Apple TV. But the AppleTV is aiming at a much broader market than a game console (and this includes the PS3) can really reach I think.

Furthermore by focus, I really mean focus - as in the AppleTV is dedicated to ease in delivering internet video to your TV. Not even just any video like DVD or newer HD disc formats, but just IP video. That kind of focus usually results in a simpler system that is more appealing to people in that is does what it is meant to do very well.

Re:Obligatory linux comment

[snuf23]

"I look at this and see more than a DVR."

I look at it and see no tuner or program guide or recording capability. I'm not sure how that equals more than a DVR. It's not even comparable to a DVR.