In case you didn’t have enough fun hacking your boxes for 3.0 update, here it comes…another “revolutionary” update. Apple says it prevents content from temporarily disappearing. According to them, when you have to update to 3.0.1? “When you are using Apple TV software version 3.0 and all of your movies, TV shows, and songs appear to be missing” or “When you are using Apple TV software version 3.0 and all of your movies, TV shows, and songs appear to be present, but you have not yet updated to Apple TV software version 3.0.1.” Interesting… Wasn’t it easier with “Don’t think too much, update your box immediately!”…?

Official Apple instructions here.

- XBMC launched beta 3 of Launcher 3.2.
We can confirm now – it’s compatible with 3.0.1

- Boxee says it is already working in 3.0.1 (with Launcher 3.2 beta 3)
Also confirmed.

- nitoTV released 0.8.2 version with 3.0.1 support
(RSS, USB and watchdog patches updated for 3.0.1 as well)

- aTV Flash released 4.0.1 version with 3.0.1 compatibility.

- Patchstick 3.0.1 is also available (with Sapphire and RSS)
You need to use LaunchMore version 0.4 or 0.4.1 to apply this update.

nitoTV

Released yesterday, 0.8.1 version (direct download) now supports 3.0 update.

nito says some features may have no chance of making it back in. Couchsurfer and RSS are not working, but they have restored the functionality for DVD, MPlayer, QuickTime, Weather, Network, download, installer and Application Launching sections.

Audio volume and sub toggling and resume returns in QuickTime playback! It is possible to turn off the volume control in General settings if this is not a desirable feature.

Guys warn things may be a little buggy from the OS transition.

Follow nitoTV thread at Hackint0sh.org

XBMC

Launcher 3.2 beta 1 (beta 2 is already on the way!) works with 3.0. However the new version is not ready for public use, and only people who are comfortable with the command line should install it.

Installing:
1) “patchstick” the 3.0 ATV
2) ssh into it and download Launcher-3.2.beta2-debug.run
3) install Launcher chmod +x Launcher.. ; ./Launcher-3.2…
4) install XBMC with Launcher or just re-symlink your old install (ln -s /Users/frontrow/Applications/XBMC.app /Applications/XBMC.app)
5) run XBCM

XBMC forum thread

Boxee

Today XBMC guys made it possible to run Boxee on ATV 3.0.

That’s how to do it:
1) “patchstick” the 3.0 ATV (You should just use your old patchstick you used previously on the ATV )
2) ssh into it the ATV and download 3.2 Launcher
Type:
wget http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/858897/XBMC/Launcher-3.2.beta2-debug.run

3) Install the Launcher
Type:
chmod +x Launcher-3.2.beta2-debug.run

Type :
./Launcher-3.2.beta2-debug.run

Enter the appropriate password “frontrow“  and answer “Y” when it asks to restart the finder.

4) From your ATV Menu> Launcher > Downloads, install Boxee alpha 0.9.14.6992.

Note: Please do not select the Launcher 3.1

5) Launch Boxee  from ATV Menu >Launcher >Boxee .

[via Boxee Support forum]

Others working in 3.0

• Patchstick created with OS 2.1 (SSH enabled; accessing AppleTV with Cyberduck (sftp) works great)
• Patchstick created with OS 3.0
• QuickTime components
• Composite Colour
• AppleFileShare Server (AFP) (working using afpinstall.sh and ATV-Recover image)
• LaunchMore! 0.4 (with ATV firmware 3.0)
• atvPWN (Not all of the plugins that can be installed through the latest atvPwn are actually compatible with 3.0)

Not working:

• ATVFiles
• aTV Flash (they say an update should be available by the end of the week)
• Sapphire
• Software Menu

In case you needed to downgrade back to firmware version 2.4.

UPDATE:

aTV Flash 4.0 Released!
Highlights: 3.0 AppleTV compatibility, improved update process, VNC server + bug fixes.

UPDATE 2

Patchstick 3.0 Update 3.0 released.
ATV 3.0 support, MobileAir Mouse, Bit torrent incl. Web UI, Boxee, XBMC and more.

UPDATE 3

Sapphire Browser beta 7.6 now supports AppleTV 3.0

Well…, as we all already know, new Apple TV software release didn’t bring anything really interesting to our shiny boxes, so let me not focus on the new features and start with a short article our friend wrote for HDTV Biz-News.com. More details about this poor update to come later.

***

After months of speculations whether Apple will release completely new Apple TV device making it a high-end media center for our living rooms or rather leave it, more or less, as it is (means without all the latest true HD capibilities, IP streaming, Blu-ray, live TV ability, HD recorder, 1080p support, etc.)… we still don’t know the answer.

The company introduced new Apple TV 3.0 software that gives us not more than a redesigned main menu – which is said to give a faster access to the content, possibility to watch iTunes Extras and enjoy iTunes LP in fullscreen and listen to the internet radio (including stations in high-quality HE-ACC formats).

Adding only cosmetic changes to a device with such a huge potential doesn’t mean Apple gave up developing Apple TV and converting it to a set-top box with all the capabilities offered by the HD market, but it gives a next signal that the company will do nothing that would pull people away from iTunes.

On-demand HD movie rentals and purchases, HD TV shows, music and podcasts from the iTunes Store give Apple a millions. According to the company, Apple TV gives direct access to a catalog of over 8,000 films on iTunes including over 2,000 in HD video available for rent or purchase. Users can also choose from a selection of 11 million songs, 10,000 music videos and over 50,000 TV episodes. Renting a movie in iTuens runs from $3 to $5, buying will costs us $14,99. And there are 65 million users of iTunes out there.

“HD movies and HD TV shows from iTunes have been a huge hit with Apple TV,” confirmed Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services.

Adding anything that would take Apple from iTunes revenue (like additional drive –  Blu-ray or, at least DVD, IP streaming or live TV) wouldn’t have any sense from the economical point of view. The only thing can happen is that Apple will add to the Apple TV an access to App Store to maximize revenues from the application market.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicts that Apple will sell 6.6 million AppleTV units this year.

***

The new Apple TV software is available immediately free of charge to existing Apple TV owners. Apple TV with 160GB capacity is available for $229.

Apple TV requires an 802.11b/g/n wireless network or 10/100 Base-T Ethernet networking, a broadband Internet connection and a high definition widescreen TV.

Apple has also released iTunes 9.0.2, adding support for Apple TV 3.0.

Originally appeared on HDTV.biz-news.com

Thanks to PARA9 it’s now possible to browse DVDpedia movie catalog on Apple TV. This small Montréal based team, specializing in web and Mac OS X development, released DVDpedia plugin for Front Row that now also supports Apple TV 2.4 (and only this version).

The plugin is offered as a free download.

To install it on Apple TV you need to enable at least SSH and AFP (if your device isn’t hacked yet) – find the instructions here. Then just copy the plugin from the Front Row library to Apple TV, make your DVDpedia database accessible from Apple TV, reboot the device and then make DVDpedia desktop application open the database at the new location.

The plugin enables to browse movies by Title, Director, Actor, Genre, Year, Country or Recently Added. You will also get a little info for each entry selected. And if you have a movie linked to the entry, you can start playing it right there in Front Row.

For more details and download links go to PARA9 website.

Another great work from Danny! He has published a tutorial explaining how to install transmission (bittorent client) on the Applet TV and run Clutch web-interface to control bittorrent from browsers.

To get through this new tutorial you first need to enable SSH on your Apple TV (check out Danny’s previous tutorial). The new hack is generally based on installing transmission, MAMP web server and Clutch.

It’s then possible to control the Clutch even via the iPhone.

Users had reported some errors but the problem seems to be solved now, after Danny made some corrections. Go to the comments to learn more.

Check it out!

Patchstick.ca has released the first Twitter client for the Apple TV – aTVitter.

For the present, the application lets you access and display the three timelines: friends’ timeline,  your own timeline and the public timeline.

It’s also possible to display the detail view of a selected tweet.

In order to read your and your friends’ timeline, you need to login to your twitter account using the “Settings” menu. To logout, simply delete the current user name in the Setting menu.

aTVitter also provides full iPhone integration for the Twitter account maintenance.

aTVitter it’s free and can be installed via the free base version of PatchStick 3.0 as well as via the newest Update 2.4a

Patchstick’s team ensure they are working hard to release more features soon. Full Twitter account management would be nice and the layout improvement – more than welcome.

Contact patchstick.ca to post suggestions, opinions and ideas of any kind.

On his blog dannyruchtie.nl, Danny has published short but exhaustive tutorial on how to hack the Apple TV to run boxee, XBMC and enable an external hard drive.

In just four steps he explains how to create and install a patchstick, access Apple TV and enable external USB drives. He ensures the whole process is completely free.

Read the article here.

The latest NitoTV Take 2 version improves Gesture Support in MPlayer and DVD Playback, fixes various bugs and adds subtitle size toggle for MPlayer.

What’s exactly new in 0.7.9?

· Fixed gesture issues in DVDPlayback and MPlayer playback. The “options” button in the remote app is mapped to “hold menu” for changing between keymaps in DVD and MPlayer playback.

· Fixed Smart Installer bug for DVDPlayback framework stub not being moved if update was preformed rather than a restore.

· Fixed one crash bug in adding suffixes, blacklist volumes or MPlayer arguments (there is still another elusive bug that casuses some crashes there).

· Fixed another file browsing crash bug.

· Added subtitle size toggle for MPlayer (only works to toggle between the default fonts installed with nitoTV, Arial-14 – Arial-24). As dafranca noticed on Hackint0sh.org forum  – “This will help many foreign speakers, because the default font size was Arial-14 (kind of very small), and to to changed it has required same knowledge on shell”.

Find the 0.7.9 AppleTV version here

Follow the discussion about the latest NitoTV’s releases at Hackint0sh.org

And in case if you have never had an opportunity to read this article:

nitoTV – one plugin to rule them all

Source and more at AwkwardTV.org

There are a lot of rumors and expectations about new Apple TV last time in the Web. Although Apple has never said a word that they’re going to release new device, it seems like people are very impatiently waiting for the new ’shiny box of joy’.

A few days ago Michael Wolf from GigaOM asked on his blog: what’s next for Apple’s living room strategy? “Some have speculated they will produce their own television, others might suspect a Blu-ray player could be on its way” he writes and thinks it is time for Apple to refocus its attention on atv device: “Since the launch of Apple TV, the company has launched its app store, pushed into gaming, and started offering HD video content on iTunes (…) Add it all together on a refreshed box, and it could be a potent combination” claims Wolf.

GigaOM has asked their readers to share their perspectives. We summed it up and added some other “web’s voices”. Here you have the most frequently repeated expectations:

-    Media streaming (Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Last.fm, etc.)
-    Blu-Ray/DVD/BD drive
-    App store access with ability to run iPhone apps on the Apple TV
-    App/widget channel for news, sports, stocks, weather, etc.
-    Live TV ability
-    Expanded gaming ability
-    Full Social Networks support
-    Support for 1080p content
-    TiVo functionality
-    HD video chat
-    Possibility to play ISO files without having to hack ´n crack
-    Desktop support and flash enabled web browser
-    A built in iPhone/iPod dock and Sync
-    Dual Cable Card slot
-    Price staying around $200-300

Feel free to suggest your ideas in the comments section.

It’s been a few days since Apple released its 2.4 software update. Time to sum all the rumours up! But first, let’s take a look at new features that come to our ATV devices:

Remote app directional control: Control your Apple TV with simple finger gestures via the Remote app. This feature requires Remote 1.3 running on an iPhone or iPod touch with iPhone OS 3.0.

Flickr Search: Search Flickr photo tags to find recently updated photos of interest. Save searches to quickly find new photos or use as a screen saver for Apple TV.

New view options: View movies By Genre, By Movie, or Unwatched. View TV Shows and Podcasts By Date, By Show, or Unwatched.

Updated transport and chapter modes:During video playback, click right or left to fast forward or rewind. Additional clicks increase the speed. Click down to show chapter markers.

Updating Apple TV software is more than easy. Check it out here.

Certainly the most important feature is a support for controlling Apple TV from your iPhone or iPod. You can control audio or video playback by flicking left or right to rewind or fast forward. Flick down to show chapter markers when watching video and then flick left or right to skip. You can also tap the screen to play/pause either video or audio.

As TUAW reports, their in-house Apple TV geeks, Megan Lavey and Christina Warren, both installed the updates and gave them a try. “Megan indicated the gestures were quick and responsive, and coupled with the ability to use the iPhone/iPod keyboard to search for shows, the new versions made it much less tedious to navigate through your shows¨.

This video seems to confirm these observations.

The main question for many ATV users was if boxee will be running on the device after updating? Boxee quickly responded to that kind of doubts, tweeting: “if you upgraded your Apple TV to 2.4: run patchstick again, update launcher, download latest boxee and you’ll be back boxeeing” (http://twitter.com/boxee). They also reposted a short tutorial ‘so how do i get boxee on atv?’ on their forum.

On various forums users confirmed the full boxee functionality on ATV.

According to awkwardTV, 2.4 update works fine also with XBMC Media Center 9.04, NitoTV Take 2 0.7.6+ (but isn’t able to install Perian) and LaunchMore. But they also reports some problems:

• Divx (Perian) has no audio when installed like this or by this article “Install_Perian” (it’s maybe related to “fooled” files);
• SoftwareMenu right from atvusb-creator (mac b10) causes Finder to crash, had to ssh and remove frappliance, then downloaded latest version and it is OK now;
• ATVFiles (Version 1.2.0 (479)) crashes when browsing files.

We’ll be following all 2.4 update-connected news and will inform you immediately.