Monthly Archives: September 2010
Apple TV 2010 Gets Unboxed, Reviewed [Video]
First of Apple TV reviews are now all over the web.
The iOS-based media streaming device, which will be jailbroken in the future, uses iTunes, YouTube, Netflix (as well as Flickr / MobileMe) to bring you video content right in your living room.
It costs a magical $99 and releases this week.
Final Fantasy I and II on sale, ESPN app free, Real Racing on sale this weekend
Here’s some good news about a few popular apps on the App Store:
- Square Enix has dropped the price on retro titles Final Fantasy I and II. The games were originally released at $8.99, but to celebrate more widespread localization, the apps have dropped down to $3.99. Great games, nice price.
- ESPN’s Scorecenter XL app for the iPad has gone completely free. The app provides news and scores from around the sporting world — it was $4.99, but the network has apparently decided to go free for good.
- And Firemint is putting its Real Racing title on sale for the iPhone next week — as of September 30, the app will be available for just $2.99. That’s a rare occurrence for them — it’s the first time this game has ever gone on sale, probably because the title has been so popular. It offers a quality racing experience, with full Game Center integration.
New Apple TV Teardown Reveals 8GB Storage, 256MB RAM, A4 Processor & More
Folks at iFixit have got their hands on the new Apple TV and have performed a thorough teardown of the device.
Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, sent us an email to provide us details about the internals of the second generation Apple TV such as the RAM, storage and the processor powering it.
Processor:
iFixit has discovered that the new Apple TV is powered by Apple’s A4 processor. The marking on the processor K4X2G643GE is identical to the one found on the iPad and iPod Touch 4G but it is not the same as iPhone 4.
Storage:
iFixit has also discovered that it comes with an 8GB NAND Flash storage, which is pretty good for a $99 device. Apple is using the same Samsung K9LCG08U1M 8GB NAND Flash chip that it used in the iPad.
The size of the onboard storage is interesting as it means that Apple could open up the Apple TV platform, which currently runs a version of iOS 4.1 to developers sometime in the future. Steve Jobs has already commented that Apple will launch the App Store for Apple TV when the time is right.
Until then, we’re sure many new Apple TV users will be eagerly waiting for the iPhone hacking community who have already jailbroken iOS 4.1 for Apple TV to develop jailbreak apps and make use of the 8GB storage space.
Interestingly, iFixit has found an empty spot right next to the Samsung NAND flash storage that could accommodate another Samsung NAND flash chip, so Apple could introduce another Apple TV model with more storage in the future.
RAM:
Apple TV comes with 256MB RAM just like the iPad and iPod Touch.
Here are some photos of the Apple TV internals:
New Apple TV Software Ported To iPod Touch
Erica Sadun of TUAW who downloaded and unpacked the iOS 4.1 Apple TV firmware has discovered the Lowtide application, which appears to be Apple TV’s interface application.
She has also discovered settings which indicates that the application is compatible with iPad, which has led to speculations that users will be able to stream video content to the iPad just like to the new Apple TV from an iPhone or iPod Touch using the AirPlay feature.
She also reports that developer, Dustin Howett has managed to successfully port Apple TV’s Lowtide application to an iPod Touch on iOS 4.1.
You can checkout the video of the lowtide application running on an iPod Touch below:
GreenPois0n iOS 4.1 Jailbreak Release Seems Closer than Ever Before!
With the low-level SHAtter exploit scheduled to pwn all iOS devices for life soon, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the iOS 4.1 jailbreak will go down in history as one of the most anticipated jailbreak tool releases ever.
And it is now “seems” only a matter of days, not weeks, till GreenPois0n tool is released.
Days? How can we say that?
Well, today when @asendari asked SHAtter discoverer pod2g about how soon we should expect GreenPois0n, pod2g replied with a tweet that left us very excited: