Posts tagged with "apple tv"

Apple Releases iTunes Festival 2011 App with Live Shows and AirPlay

Kicking off on July 1 at the Roundhouse in London for 31 nights of consecutive live performances from 62 bands, the iTunes Festival 2011 has seen Coldplay, Beady Eye, Arctic Monkeys, Foo Fighters and Mogwai signing up for Apple’s annual initiative, among others. Today Apple released an official app for the iTunes Festival 2011 which, besides letting you check on the schedule for the venue and check out more information about the performing bands, will enable you to follow shows live or on demand “for a limited period from wherever you are in the world”, as well as beam video contents from your iPhone or iPad to an Apple TV or unofficial third-party receiver like MacStories staff favorite AirServer. This is the first time Apple is supporting both the iPhone and iPad with options for live streaming, AirPlay and Apple TV. Apple’s recent experiments with live streaming events include special media events and WWDC keynotes, though they have seemed to refrain from streaming announcements as of lately. It’ll be interesting to see how the app will allow users to watch live concerts come July 1.

You can download the iTunes Festival London 2011 app for free here.

Video Of iOS 5 AirPlay Mirroring

One of the big features coming with iOS 5 on the iPad 2 is AirPlay mirroring, a new functionality that, using the AirPlay technology for streaming content introduced in iOS 4.2, will allow users to beam their iPad’s screens directly to an Apple TV without the need for a cable. In spite of the iPad being capable of mirroring its screen through HDMI to a TV, Apple has decided to step its game up and allow Apple TV owners with a decent local network to stream apps, games, and whatever it is people do on an iPad without anything but a WiFi connection and a control button in the multitasking tray.

TUAW points today to a video posted by Apple’n’Apps that details how AirPlay mirroring will work with the iPad 2. The setup is very easy: once you’ve made sure both the iPad and Apple TV are running iOS 5, all you have to do is enable AirPlay Mirroring from the switcher’s controls and check out the iPad’s screen on the TV right away. In the video, you can see the Springboard, as well as regular apps and games being beamed from the tablet to the Apple TV. Scrolling doesn’t look as smooth as it is on the device when you’re directly interacting with it, but we assume it depends on the kind of wireless connection you have.

In a similar post, Engadget shows AirPlay Mirroring with Angry Birds Rio HD for iPad and Real Racing 2 HD.

For this game (and we imagine many more to come), you use the iPad as the controller – both while navigating through menus and in race mode – while the game appears only on your TV (though the tablet does display some vitals, and a map of the track). There’s noticeable lag between the iPad and Apple TV when using AirPlay, which may be an issue for games where timing is important, such as Rock Band, but didn’t seem to set us back while playing Firemint’s racing game.

Firemint has announced that Real Racing 2 HD will support AirPlay Mirroring once iOS 5 comes out this Fall, and it appears that the feature is already enabled in the first beta of iOS 5 available now to developers. Check out the videos after the break. Read more

Netflix CEO: Apple TV Is More Important For Us

At All Things Digital’s D9 conference that’s being live streamed now, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings confirmed that the service is not seeing huge traction on the iPad, with the Apple TV – and Internet-connected TVs in general – being more important for Netflix going forward. From the live-updating full transcript:

Kara: What about mobile, other platforms?

Hastings: TV most important for video, as opposed to music, which works well on mobile. In coming years we’ll be on lots of Web TV app stores.

Kara: What’s up with tablets? It’s a big deal, right?

Hastings: Meh. Apple TV more important for us. Tablets not a revolution. The big deal for us is Internet connected TVs.

Netflix keeps updating its official app for iPhone and iPad every few weeks with new features, but the company had already reported more viewing hours on the Apple TV than the iPad. The second-generation Apple TV released in September 2010 comes with direct Netflix integration on the big screen, whereas iOS devices have to run a dedicated app to download from the App Store.

Apple “iTV” Prototype Shows Up on eBay

As noted by MacRumors, a prototype “iTV” of the device that eventually shipped as the first-generation Apple TV is now available on eBay for a “Buy Now” price of $350. The device, resembling the original Apple TV with only an Apple logo on top but lacking the “TV” branding, is still functional and also managed to receive Apple TV software updates throughout the years, in spite of its internal and not-for-release nature that would suggest the device is not capable of running the latest software. However, the iTV is apparently working correctly and showing the 3.0 software update from 2007. The seller on eBay claims the pictures are the best description he can provide, and admittedly the device seems in good conditions.

The photos also show the device booted up and displaying the stock photo screensaver, although it is not connected to the Internet and the item’s description indicates that it has not been fully tested for functionality.

The iTV also has a couple of labels on its back, depicting the DVT (device verification test) status and the “Apple Development Team” that originally owned it and somehow gave it to someone else. Overall, the device looks like a genuine hardware verification unit that eventually shipped with a different logo, but still retains all the functionalities of the original Apple TV. Check it out here before it’s too late.

Mac Mini Vault Tries To Host A Webpage On Apple TV 2G

Mac Mini Vault, a colocation service that allows you to host a website (or multiple ones) on a Mac Mini or Mac Mini Server located in their Chicago data center, is running an interesting experiment to see how a single webpage hosted on an Apple TV 2nd-gen would handle traffic and CPU load. The Apple TV isn’t of course meant for hosting webpages and running on high CPU usage, and in fact the device (with iOS 4.2.2) had to be jailbroken using Seas0npass to enable the installation of lighttpd and a web server.

One of the fun projects going on at Mac Mini Vault is our Apple TV webserver. As much as we ‘d love to see how many Apple TV’s we could mount into a data center cabinet, it will never be a sustainable service to offer. This project was a fun way to see how far we could take the A4 powered Apple TV. The Apple TV is running iOS 4.2.2 (obviously jailbroken) with lighttpd for a web server. You can see the webpage we set up by visiting atv.macminivault.com. We’ll keep an eye on the CPU load and watch the analytics to record how much traffic the Apple TV receives.

The Apple TV-powered webpage is available at atv.macminivault.com, and it’ll be interesting to see how the experiment will play out once curious readers hit the direct link.

Apple Releases iOS 4.2.2 for Apple TV 2G

A few minutes ago Apple pushed a minor software update for the Apple TV 2nd generation. The firmware file, available for download here, is labelled 4.2.2 (build 8F305), but we’re pretty sure it’ll follow another nomenclature in the internal Apple TV settings or Apple’s website, as with previous releases. iOS 4.2.1 for the second generation Apple TV was released on March 22 with various fixes including TV compatibility and audio improvements.

Apple’s official Downloads webpage hasn’t been updated with a changelog yet, so we’ll update this post as more information about the update becomes available. [via]

Update: Here’s the full changelog for 4.2.2. As expected it contains various bug fixes and stability improvements.

Use AppleTV video caching for faster AirPlay viewing→

Use AppleTV video caching for faster AirPlay viewing

Dan Frakes from Macworld writes on how the Apple TV caches content streamed via AirPlay:

The latest Apple TV doesn’t have a hard drive, but it does have 8GB of internal memory. Some of that memory is used to store the Apple TV’s operating system and other software, but a big chunk of it is used to cache media—video, audio, or photos—for better performance. If you’ve ever streamed a movie from your Mac or from Netflix, you’ve seen the blue progress bar “fill up” as the Apple TV stores a chunk of that content (a technique often called buffering). When you’re watching the video, the Apple TV actually reads the stored data, rather than the data streaming over the network; as stored data is used, it’s discarded and replaced by new data. This is why you (usually) don’t see stutters and freezes in streamed video, even with a choppy network connection.

But this caching doesn’t just happen with media streamed over the Internet or from your Mac—it also happens when streaming, say, video from an iPhone. And, in fact, that video stays in the Apple TV’s cache until the memory is needed for something else.

The idea is that your wireless network might not be up to snuff to instantly stream video from your iPhone or iPad. By using the aforementioned knowledge of how caching works, you can “prepare” the Apple TV for company by streaming media at least once to avoid a thirty or forty second delay when your revisit that content. Instead of re-buffering the streamed content, the Apple TV will recognize you’ve already played that content, and simply read that data locally. It’s an interesting tidbit of knowledge (the fact that the Apple TV doesn’t flush its cache every so often), for those lacking the bandwidth. But where you have the capacity, video on the local network should start streaming in three to four seconds.

Permalink

2 Million Apple TVs Sold So Far?

According to a “survey of Apple suppliers” by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Securities relayed by AppleInsider, shipments of the second-generation Apple TV have reached 2 million estimated units, with 820,000 units sold last quarter. The device originally went on sale in October 2010, and whilst Apple has always been touting the Apple TV as a “hobby” for a very few percentage of Mac and iPhone users, the second-gen Apple TV is based on an entirely new streaming system from the iTunes cloud, and AirPlay. The Apple TV is priced at $99, and can be paired with an iPhone or iPad for remote controlling functionalities.

Shipments of the second-generation Apple TV continue to be strong, reaching more than 2 million estimated units since the device launched late last year, according to a new report. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Securities revealed the results of his survey of Apple suppliers on Tuesday. The numbers show that sales of the Apple TV have held relatively steady since the device first went on sale last October.

In December, Apple announced 1 million Apple TVs had been sold in three months. Although the report by Ming-Chi Kuo claims 820k units have been sold in Q2 with shipments topping 2 million, an Apple TV sales estimate from October of last year suggested that Apple could sell 1 million Apple TVs per quarter. Apple is set to announced its Q2 2011 financial results later today, but just like the iPod touch Apple TV sales numbers shouldn’t be disclosed by the company.

In the past months, Apple has focused on fixing compatibility issues with the Apple TV and various HDTVs, as well as adding new features to the box like NBA League Pass and MLB.tv integration. Apple is also rumored to be considering licensing the AirPlay streaming technology to third-party TV makers – a move that would allow the company to receive royalties, and expand the AirPlay userbase with millions of non-Apple TVs connected to iOS devices.

Sydney Hotel Deploys iPad 2s In Every Room

After the deployment of iPads in The Plaza hotel and others, The Establishment Hotel in Sydney Australia has become the world’s first to provide iPad 2s in every guest room of their hotel. The hotel, located in the financial district of Sydney, acted quickly to purchase enough iPads for their more than thirty rooms as they went on sale in Australia on March 25th and has since implemented them earlier this month.

The iPads, which are provided free of charge to all guest rooms, include a selection of music, movies and apps. In particular the hotel includes a welcome video to the hotel, a broad selection of international newspapers on the iPad, travel applications such as Trip Advisor, a Merivale bar and restaurant guide and of course Angry Birds. The hotel also features unlimited free WiFi for all guests and an Apple TV with surround sound system in each of their rooms, letting guests AirPlay content from the new iPads to the TV or sound system in their rooms.

Merivale CEO Justin Hemmes has said that they are looking at what they can do next and how they can bring “innovation to our guests”;

Now that we have the hardware, we are only limited by our own imagination. Well, maybe also by the software developers’ abilities but seriously, we will be looking at ways in which we can integrate this technology further into the whole guest experience