Folks already hacking their Apple TVs
Posted by Dr. Macenstein
The Apple TV only began shipping a few days ago, yet already there are reports of people cracking open the cases to see what trouble they can get into. Faithful Macenstein reader rico has returned from the abyss with a pair of links detailing a couple of warranty-voiding Apple TV hacks.
First up is a posting on Gizmodo. A reader there claims to have upgraded his Apple TV’s hard drive to a healthy 120GB from the unfathomably small 40GB drive that comes standard. No word yet on how he accomplished this, but he claims details will follow.
A more ambitious Apple TV hack comes from the pages of electronista, where 2 forum members say they have managed to get XviD videos to play on the Apple TV. This hack is not for the faint of heart, as it involves removing the hard drive, installing the SSH server Dropbear, the Perian video container, and a “custom” script in order to work. Still, it does look like there could be a very inventive and active hacking community springing up around the Apple TV, much like the Tivo’s of old.
The forum members mentioned are on the SomethingAwful forums, a lot of sites seem to be metioning “forum members” without acknowledging where the forum is.
Thread available at http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2391956
Here is the tutorial for HD upgrade
http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/23/how-to-upgrade-the-drive-in-your-apple-tv/
Where is your forum men ? Need help ?
I am hoping someone will make an Install type of patch that will mode the Apple TV so the average person will be able to mod it and play DivX files. Taking it apart is a bit scary for most!
http://www.switchingtomac.com/