Ever since Apple unveiled Apple TV in January of this year at Macworld Expo, people around the world have been talking—complaining rather—about how the device was limited in the functionality department. Whether it was its small hard drive, its ability to only play a few video formats, or not enough features for advanced users, something was always off—until customers started prying open the Apple TV and taking matters into their own hands.
Assuming you are willing to pry open the back of your Apple TV, doing so is not difficult; its back cover is similar to the shell on the Mac Mini, and can easily be removed with a T10 and T9 sized TORX screwdriver and careful planning. Upon removing that back cover, you will find a 2.5†PATA hard drive, similar to those found in older Mac laptops, with a 4,200-rpm drive with a 2MB cache that pales in comparison to the current drive being shipped on Mac computers (5,400-rpm drive with a 8MB cache). So, to resolve the unsatisfactory hard drive predicament, why not replace it with a bigger and better drive. Well, the bad news is that by doing so you would definitely be making your warranty null and void. But, if you do replace the hard drive, you basically have a customizable $299 mini OS X computer with TV graphics and wireless networking.
Yes, you read that correctly, a mini OS X Computer. After further investigating into the inner works of Apple TV, people have discovered that it is running an older version of OS X; version 10.4.7 to be exact. Because it is running OS X, this means that solving the problem of Apple TV not being able to run other video formats is not too complicated. If you remove the original hard drive and connect it to a Mac, you can install third party plug-ins that support other video formats such as DivX, FLV, AVI, XviD, and more. The problem that you will then be faced with is creating Quicktime reference movies (those that reference unsupported video files) and then tricking iTunes into syncing those other formats to the Apple TV, copy those files to the hard drive, and making sure those movies link to the correct locations of the manually-transferred media files. Lost yet? Well the good news for those of us who are petrified to take matters into our own hands, there are people out there who are willing to do all the work of changing your hard drive for you, for a price of course.
Now remember that small stipulation that Apple TV could only be used for widescreen HDTV’s? Well, hackers have solved that problem by discovering a 480i mode on the Apple TV settings menu, which will allow standard ratio TV’s a means to use Apple TV without putting out some serious cash for a new widescreen HDTV, even if it is not completely perfect.
The bottom line is that the Apple TV isn’t as limited as originally expected and that the possibilities for your Apple TV are endless just by doing a few simple searches on Google for hacks and other modifications. The real question is, will Apple Inc. embrace or turn a blind eye to the hacking individuals out there, or will they be like how Sony was with its PSP and with every upgrade, squash each and every possible hack. As of right now, Apple is taking the approach that the device is your own and if you’re willing to nullify your warranty then so be it. Thus, to those of you who want to make your Apple TV even better, good luck, and to those who are fine with your current Apple TV, we can understand that too. Either way, Apple TV is a pretty nifty little gadget that makes playing your music, viewing your pictures, and watching your purchased iTunes movies a lot simpler, and as a bonus, Apple made it very sleek and stylish.
