AppleTV. How’d I Do THAT!?

I’ve had the AppleTV disconnected now for… a couple months. Reconfigured the home entertainment system at the time and it just never made it back into rotation.

Enter the iPhone. As you know, I’ve been Handbraking our kids’ videos so they can watch them in the car. So, now we have quite a library of ‘on-demand’ entertainment and it is helping tip me back in the direction to hook up the AppleTV.

Enter much head scratching. Last night I brought all the AppleTV components (or so I thought) back to the entertainment cabinet for a quick redeploy. Wrong: Our TV is like so many others out there… RCA jacks for video, L and R and a cable input. That’s it. Same on our DVD Player and VCR. No HDMI inputs. No optical audio. No component video.

Now, how the hell did I get this working before? It was working some moons ago and I want it back without having to shell out any dough for a new TV.

Someone jog my memory. (I should have blogged the config or written a diagram… But, Oh No. I’m too smart for THAT!)

Technorati Tags: AppleTV

Installing Leopard 9A559

Wouldn’t it be fun for Apple to snooker us all and launch Leopard this Monday, October 1?

Hell, might as well fan the flames of desire here a bit. C’mon, dontcha think?!

They’re calculating like that. Take for instance, the iPhone. They deliberately launched it late 2Q2007. All just to get a pop for the quarter on ye olde stock ticker (AAPL) and punch up the Q2 results.

I can see them trying to milk Q4 for everything it’s got in it with an October 1 release. Yeah, I know, it’s all blue sky speculation and tin-foil-hat tom-foolery. But, still, they’re sly like a fox that way and I could totally see them kitting up the DVDs for the past two weeks while they feed us three or four week old images throwing us off and onto a cold trail. Why would dear old Apple do that pray tell? ‘Cause they can Timmy. Cause they can.

This release has been given the back seat while iPhone an AppleTV took center stage for the first half of 2007. As of 9A559 Leopard’s tight. REAL tight (especially Server). I’ve been using the latest greatest as my production machine for two solid weeks. So, it wouldn’t shock me in the least if Apple came out swinging for a full Fourth Quarter performance. Get this right and get it tight as a drum before the holiday season, gin up word of mouth and I see AAPL posting some mighty fine numbers on unit sales all the way around. Leopard has the teeth in it to drive some killer innovation across their product lineup (iPod, iTunes, iPhone and of course Macs).

AppleTV and iTunes Store (pics)

OK, it’s happening. Don’t know when. But, it’s happening.

In the new settings there is now an iTunes Store listing
But, all it does (for now) is ask… For which country?
And, just in case you’re geeky enough to want to know…

Technorati Tags: AppleTV, iTunes Store

YouTube, Stage6 and AppleTV

OK, so Apple’s flashing some new direction with AppleTV… YouTube’s coming. Makes sense, kind of. Schmidt’s on the Apple Board. OK.

Sure hope DivX could somehow swing a similar place at the table ’cause as Mr. Scoble’s saying if Apple took the HD road… Apple would dominate the industry. Better yet, plug Cuban’s HD delivery network into AppleTV… HOLY TOLEDO!

On page 18 of the press release is news the AppleTV’s upgrading to 160Gb. As Borat would say, “A Niiiiice.”

Apple TV Has Potential!? “Lots” Even!

Wow! The apocalypse is coming: Apple Inc. is getting praise from old enemies. Lions laying down with the sheep and all that… Next John Dvorak will start waxing prophetic about Leopard. Just you wait and see!

InformationWeek has just published an article on AppleTV and they’re saying once HD content is broadly available AND Apple starts shoring up some of the software shortcomings of AppleTV… They’ve got a monster on their hands. And, they’re meaning that in a good way.

Apple, NAB, This Weekend…

So, what’s in store for us this weekend?

The AppleTV’s announced/shipping.
The 8 core bad boy is announced/shipping.
MGM’s in the iTunes store.

What does that leave?

HD content at iTunes Store
Rental of movies at iTunes Store
Final Cut upgrades
Leopard reveals of the “secret” stuff
Possibly some iPhone goodies (like 3G video, etc)

All but the last are really naturals for the show. The only real shock and awe would be if Apple unleashed BitTorrent inside of Leopard. ie. Part and parcel of the operating system. See, we still haven’t figured out why Apple bought that massive hosting facility last year. In fact, all eyes and ears have been deflected from that one. So, it’s classic Apple to misdirect attention away from key activity and then pull a rabbit out of the hat at an opportune moment.

I’m thinking THAT is going to be the mothership for all the iTunes hosting (that coupled with Akamai’s edge hosting).

NAB2007 could wind up being a watershed event for content creation and content delivery. Well, we won’t have to wait long to find out…

AppleTV Runs Leopard

It’s pretty obvious folks. AppleTV runs a mod of Leopard.

The screen saver for one: Core Animation.

I’m going to enjoy watching how this first OS update behaves. Does the device auto update? (probably). Can it be updated by an Apple Update Server on the network? (Ah! Now THAT’s kind of interesting talk!) After all the build in the unit I have is 8N5107. Which is conspicuously enumerated betwixt Tiger and Leopard’s seeds naming conventions. Hmm?

OK, for the conclusive bit I’d like to offer one last bit of puffery (which, alas, I cannot prove out myself at present). Has anyone connected the unit directly to their Mac and tried to BOOT off of it? Haven’t seen or heard of that trick being attempted yet… NOTE: I cannot be held liable for whatever (good or bad) comes of this musing. Beware, foul things could happen as a result should you try this.

I’m particularly interested to see how it behaves in conjunction with the latest Leopard seed. Shouldn’t be any different. But, you never know… All the doors and windows are less than locked down on the seeds…

Film at 11 (AppleTV)

Well, better late than never… The unboxing is now unceremoniously boring and “over”. However, the poking and prodding and port sniffing and console watching and peripheral connecting is about to commence. Before I get to all that though… You deserve to see the goodies…

Nicely arranged desktop. Normally not so neat and tidy.

Digging in now.

Ooooh. THAT was easy! Connected it to a projector… Worked like a champ. Sync’d with no probs.

Yeah, so, OK… I’m liking this a lot.

AppleTV Manual

It’s now online and available at Apple’s manual’s site… Enjoy!

Gizmodo’s Got Your AppleTV…

Right here…

For that matter so does c|net.