When Apple first preview what was then called iTV back in September 2006 and subsequently unveiled Apple TV at January ’s Macworld Expo , there were oohs and aahs — and also complaint . The most commonly - heard squawk : the gadget ’s “ special ” functionality .
Specifically , some people were bothered that Apple TV could only play few video formats or that it did n’t have enough features for advanced user ; others reckon that the gimmick ’s 40 GB hard cause was too small . Those criticisms continued , even as Apple TV lead off shipping to customers .
But then something materialize : People started receiving their Apple TVs , and some of those hoi polloi — including myself — started take them apart . In fact , within day of the first Apple TV being deliver , newsitessprung up rivet on hacking the fructify - top box . It change by reversal out the Apple TV is n’t so “ limited ” after all — at least not when it comes to the hardware inwardly .
What’s inside
When I took my own Apple TV asunder last Friday , I discovered that the hard drive inside is actually a received 2.5 - inch ATA driving force , just like the ones used in older Mac laptops ; this omen well for inexpensive ascent ( seebelow ) . On the other bridge player , this stock drive is a 4,200 - rpm drive with a 2 mebibyte cache , specification that are n’t all that impressive given that all presently - shipping Macs , even the laptops , use SATA drives with a minimum speed of 5,400 - rpm and an 8 Bachelor of Medicine hoard . ( To be fair , the slower speed and smaller cache of the Apple TV ’s stock drive is unlikely to ensue in reduced functioning — it should be able-bodied to easily keep up with electronic internet transfers and media playback . The bigger take is the size of the parkway ; I ’ll get to that shortly . )
Apple TV ’s motherboard , courtesy ofAnandTech.com
The okay folks over at AnandTech went above and beyond my introductory disassembly bycompletely dismantlingtheir Apple TV to obtain some interesting stuff inside . For illustration , after a act of detecting , they infer that the Intel chip in the Apple TV is an “ Ultra Low Voltage Pentium M found on the Dothan core , running at 1GHz ( max frequency ) , 400MHz FSB and a 2 M L2 cache . ” The Apple TV also include 256 MB of RAM and an NVIDIAGeForce Go 7300with 64 MB of consecrate telecasting RAM ; the latter , a laptop - focussed GPU , is n’t exactly a barn - burner , but it ’s more than capable of handling HD picture .
More interestingly , the audio chip in the Apple TV is aRealtek ALC885 , which the manufacturer describes as a “ 7.1 + 2 Channel High - Performance High Definition Audio Codec . ” The specs on this chip are quite impressive , and seem to point that the Apple TV ’s describe audio - output signal restriction — Dolby Pro Logic II — is due to software system , not hardware . In fact , Roughly Draftedreportsthat if you play asample DTS audio frequency filethrough your Apple TV , the Apple TV ’s optical digital - sound output jack does indeed put out 5.1 audio . On the other hand , the ALC885 also supports “ advanced lossless content aegis technology , ” so perhaps we have hardware DRM in our telecasting - playing future .
On a software note , Apple TV runs a interlingual rendition of Mac OS X ; variation 10.4.7 Build 8N5107 , to be accurate .
Easy upgrade
amazingly , Apple has n’t made it difficult to get inside the Apple TV . The rubber “ foot ” on the bottom is attached using adhesive but peels back easily . Lift the corner , relax a few Torx screw , and the bottom of the case lifts right off . The first affair you ’ll see after doing so is the unit ’s hard drive , which helps explain why the first Apple telecasting surgery wesawperformedaround the Web was a hard - campaign upgrade . ( My replacement strong driving has n’t yet arrived ; when it does , I ’ll be performing just such a warranty - voiding transplant and writing up the procedure here onMacworld . ) Although the process is n’t as elementary as clone the stock cause to a newfangled one using a utility such as SuperDuper and then swap , it ’s not terribly complex — give the pocket-size capacitance of the included backbreaking drive , I mistrust that more than a few Apple TV owner will be upgrading to a importantly prominent drive . ( If you do n’t feel comfortable doing this yourself , at least two companies havealready announcedfor - fee drive - swapping service . )
Interesting discoveries
Like the iPod , the Apple TV — specifically , its included Apple Remote — has special clit compounding for access various “ hidden ” lineament . For object lesson , press out Menu and Up ( + ) at the same time , for approximately six seconds , will cycle through potential display resolutions . Even more interesting , press Menu and Down ( - ) will bestow up the Apple TV Recovery screen , which gives you option to Restart , Run Diagnostics , or perform a Factory Restore . ( The latter tells me that one of the Apple TV ’s toilsome drive partition — the drive has several — contains a copy of OS X and the Apple TV software ; restoring the unit mend the Apple TV , from this partition , to an out - of - the - box seat configuration . )
It also turns out that , Apple ’s statementnotwithstanding , connecting a keyboard to the Apple TV ’s USB portdoesdo something . Specifically , you may bring up the Apple TV into single - exploiter mode by hold up down Command+S at inauguration — you ca n’t do much from there , but it ’s still interesting — and you may enableVerbosestartup mode by holding down Command+V at startup .
Related to the previous two items , one other neat trick that ’s been key out is the ability to reboot the Apple TV off a USB drive . In the telecasting below , a clever Apple TV fan uses Recovery modal value to reboot his Apple TV from a USB hard drive containing a copy of the Apple TV ’s own laborious - crusade contents .
An enterprising Apple TV proprietor , Ozy fromawkwardtv.org , boot the Apple TV off a USB drive .
Adding format support
Meanwhile , an intact residential area of Apple TV owners / hackers is busy trying to clear perhaps the highest hurdle of all : support for other television / audio formats . The large such gathering appear to be an ever - growingforums threadover on Something awesome document these endeavour . As it turns out , give that the Apple TV is draw a version of Mac OS X ( 10.4.7 , as mentioned above anddocumentedin that Something Awful train of thought ) , addingsupportfor other formats is n’t difficult .
The Apple telly software use QuickTime for address medium , so if you take away the Apple TV ’s toilsome drive and connect it to a Mac — for example , by using an external hard - campaign enclosure or a connector such as Newer ’s Universal Drive Adapter — you’re able to navigate directly to the /Library / QuickTime brochure on the Apple TV drive and install third - party chaw - ins such as Perian . ( Perian addssupport for formatssuch as DivX , FLV , AVI , XviD , and many others . ) you may also installFlip4Mac ’s Windows Media Components for QuickTimeon the Apple TV drive to add support for WMV content .
Alas , even if you execute the above procedures , you wo n’t suddenly be able to view files in these young format on your Apple idiot box . Just because the Apple TVsupportsother formatting after such modification does n’t mean iTunes willsyncmedia using those formats to the Apple TV . You see , iTunes is still the gatekeeper of Apple television set content , and it still thinks the Apple TV is limited to its descent format support .
The smart folks over on Something dire and Awkward have estimate out ways around this route block , but they are n’t pretty : Basically , you need to produce QuickTimereferencemovies — ones that reference the real unsupported video file — and flim-flam iTunes into synchronize those to the Apple TV ; imitate the factual media Indian file onto the Apple TV ’s hard drive ( a process that itself involves enabling or installing your own SSH religious service and configuring the Apple TV ’s firewall ) ; and then make trusted those reference flick link to the correct locations of the manually - transferred media files . ( You could also theoretically keep the factual media Indian file somewhere on the electronic web and configure the mention motion picture to access them over the web , but that ’s even more complicated . )
If this all sounds disturbed geeky , that ’s because it is . But the fact that it can ostensibly be done means that it wo n’t be too long before some clever developer create an practical software that automates the process for you . ( Some people have already figured out how — andexplained the process in contingent — to substitute the Apple TV ’s own Front Row - similar interface with theCenterStagemedia - center package , which lets you play unsupported TV that you manually copy to the Apple TV ’s hard drive . )
Other tricks
concerned in other tricks and hacks ? How aboutrunning the Apple TV package on a MacBook ? Orenabling Remote Desktop / VNCon your Apple TV ? Orrunning Apache(the exposed - source WWW server used by Mac OS X for Personal Web communion ) ? These are just a few of the thing hoi polloi are doing … because they can .
We ’ve already putter with display Keynote and PowerPoint presentations through Apple tv set and plan on trying out some of these other hacks ourselves — as well as looking into a few new unity — in the descend weeks , so stay tune up .
More on the way…
Clearly , the Apple TV is n’t as “ limited”—at least not by hardware — as many people originally revere . The question now is whether Apple will embrace , or at least bend a blind eye to , this hacking community , or pamper the playfulness like Sony does with its PSP ( each unexampled software system update for the PSP breaks “ homebrew ” software and features ) . With any destiny , the Apple idiot box will become a favored toy dog of hackersas well asan ever – improving product , thanks to software updates from Apple that implement some of the most - requested lineament , for the relaxation of us .
[ older editor in chief Dan Frakes profile scurvy - monetary value software in his Mac Gems web log . ]
This clause was reposted at 11:18 a.m. PT on March 28 , 2007 to add images of the Apple TV motherboard .
