Apple TV hacks coming fast and furious: VLC, SSH, VNC, Apache and more

The Apple TV hacks are coming fast and furious as recorded on both the Something Awful thread we already told you about, and at the Apple TV Hacks blog. Over at Something Awful, user macado shows the Apple TV successfully decoding a 720p XviD clip using the open source VLC player (though only for 6 minutes). Other users have demonstrated Firefox and iTunes running on an Apple TV as well. Meanwhile at Apple TV Hacks, there are already tutorials up on getting SSH and AFP access and even setting up Remote Desktop (VNC) and Apache.

In short, the Apple TV has been busted wide open and is well on its way to being hacked into a general purpose (if rather underpowered) mini Mac mini (Mac nano, perhaps?), running OS X 10.4.7 as you can see above. For those of you with a hankering to break your warranties, it looks like the Apple TV is eminently hackable and has a lot of potential.

[Via Apple TV Hacks]

Update: the 6 minute thing has to do with the fact that the Apple TV automatically resets after 6 minutes (see the comments below).

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Source: http://www.appletvhacks.net/

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The Apple TV hacks are coming fast and furious as recorded on both the Something Awful thread we already told you about, and at the Apple...

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atvman

Check out this site for more direction: http://applehacks.blogspot.com

April 07 2007 at 9:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Bagster

Do the watchdog is a software watchdog?
Maybe just sending a SIGSTOP to the watchdog process can do the trick?

March 27 2007 at 11:27 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Matt Schinckel

@Nick

XBMC has nothing at all to do with Windows. I think you are mistaking it for MCE, which is a Windows product.

I use XBMC to play media from Linux, (or PC or Mac) every day.

As mentioned later in the comments, it does struggle a bit with 720p and greater files, but in my experience, only if they use H.264.

March 27 2007 at 6:22 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Matt Harlum

@ Chris,

USB support is at firmware level and is independent of the operating system of the device.

March 27 2007 at 2:24 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

nownot

actually im on c2d macbook, have osx86 on pc and ubuntu. so not actually linked to windows just know and see the potential in xbmc

March 26 2007 at 8:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chris

@ Chris,

How can achieve USB booting without first removing the HDD to enable the port?

March 26 2007 at 8:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chris

Its all going on at www.awkwardtv.org (Mainly in the IRC chan - see site)

USB booting seems to be working - soon there will be no need to open the case

March 26 2007 at 5:56 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

ollyt

Sorry fellas. I just wanted to give something back to the community.

March 26 2007 at 5:35 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chris

Linux is now running but without a gui

March 26 2007 at 2:52 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mat Lu

@14: the other issue is the size and slickness of the Apple TV. I had an original Xbox (and I have a 360 now) and if nothing else the fan noise sucks. Further, I don't think the XBMC is capable of smoothly rendering 720p content.

March 26 2007 at 2:46 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply