The Apple TV screensaver is hot
Sure, everyone is looking inside the Apple TV and at it, but check out what it does on screen when it's twiddling its thumbs and waiting for you to command your library! Now I don't have mine just yet; it's still hanging out in a local FedEx distribution center, so I made a friend shoot this for me (thanks John!). I heard the Apple TV just powered down after a couple minutes of inactivity, but apparently it has a screensaver mode that you're seeing here. Pretty slick for a little box, eh?
For those who aren't into the Netscape player above, here's a link for the original.
Now: who's up to the challenge of getting a 3rd party screensaver on one of these?
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Everyday Weekender said 11:29AM on 3-23-2007
WoW.. I absolutely love that!.. where do i get one?
;-)
EW
http://www.everydayweekender.com
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Mitch said 11:31AM on 3-23-2007
Wait until you see it in person. It is awesome. The pictures are so crisp - it is so very cool.
Seeing the screensaver at Macworld is what sealed the deal for me.
I like having parties - passing around a digital camera and periodically uploading the photos to the computer and having s slideshow. This is a great addition.
The rest of the Apple TV looks pretty cool, too.
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mdc said 11:41AM on 3-23-2007
I like the fact that you can choose whether you want it to display photos or album covers in the screensaver.
My question is who is going to be the first to put that screensaver on their Mac? (It's not on the Mac already is it?)
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JaXX said 11:56AM on 3-23-2007
Steve would have said:
"It's only 200 lines of code with CoreAnimation" :-)
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Bill said 11:57AM on 3-23-2007
Mmmmm....Core Animation.
Forget getting 3rd party savers on the [apple]TV, I want this screensaver on my PowerBook!!
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neven said 11:59AM on 3-23-2007
I got my AppleTV yesterday and I absolutely love it. Goodbye, DVI>HDMI.
The screensaver is very nice, and it's one of those hypnotizing things that makes everyone in the room go, "oh yeah and that's the last grill-out... oh and that's Yosemite... Oh and look at Bob!..." We spent a good 20 minutes just staring at it, with people walking in the room and joining the staring.
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Luigi said 12:05PM on 3-23-2007
That looks like the core animation screen saver shown at WWDC. I wonder if the Apple TV runs Leopard?
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Ahmad said 12:30PM on 3-23-2007
to quote myself from the other AppleTV article, "that's hot."
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Zack Kitzmiller said 12:42PM on 3-23-2007
If that's core animation (and it is), then my Leopard anxiousness just tripled.
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Neven said 12:53PM on 3-23-2007
It almost certainly runs the parts of Leopard it needs (i.e. Core Animation). My favorite visual thingy is actually the "forward zoom" when you skip songs.
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artifex said 1:25PM on 3-23-2007
I'm glad photos are an option, as otherwise I'd see album covers as just more advertising :)
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drew said 1:27PM on 3-23-2007
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/coreanimation.html
Based on the Core Animation video for 10.5, I would not be suprized to see a similar screensaver included in 10.5. (Now we just have to *wait* for 10.5)
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Doug said 1:41PM on 3-23-2007
Take out the drive and mount it on your Mac and copy over the .saver file.
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plexxer said 1:53PM on 3-23-2007
It's not bad, but if you liked that and have never seen the PS3 slide show, prepare to have your socks knocked off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCpf139wS-c
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Aras said 3:36PM on 3-23-2007
This is pretty easy to do with Quartz Composer already, it does not require Core Animation.
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F said 5:23PM on 3-23-2007
I love Apple. I enjoy using my iPod, my (aging) iBook, and even my old Mac running OS 9.
However, I wouldn't pay a dime for the Apple TV. There's nothing on my computer that I really need to stream over to my television.
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Old Powermac said 7:55PM on 3-23-2007
Rage rules!
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south said 8:01PM on 3-23-2007
that's just what i need -- my entire porn collection popping up as a screensaver in front of my friends while i'm in the bathroom. might have to do a little folder reorganizing.
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niclet said 8:16PM on 3-23-2007
Hahaha! Thanks south, this is the funniest thing I heard today - Hahaha !!!!
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Sam said 9:33PM on 3-23-2007
It looks pretty typical of what Quartz Composer can do to me... no Core Animation (whatever that API looks like, I don't have a pre-release) needed. A couple hours of hacking and I turned the RSS screensaver into an iPhone commercial in Quartz Composer: http://www.samkass.com/blog/C512514691/E20070305221903/index.html
The screensaver doesn't look all that different.
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