fireCore struggling to make its aTV Flash compatible with the 3rd-gen Apple TV

Nov 28, 2012 13:20 GMT  ·  By

The Apple TV is a treasure trove of video content, especially when jailbroken and equipped with fireCore’s aTV Flash – an inexpensive tool that supercharges your puck-sized Apple set-top box.

Unfortunately for those who purchased the 3rd generation model with high hopes of jailbreaking, the hardware is uncrackable as of yet.

Developer Kevin Bradley (also known as “nitoTV” on Twitter) has been putting a lot of effort into hacking the third-generation Apple TV. However, he tells Cultofmac that “There is no Apple TV 3 jailbreak. Nothing even close.”

fireCore elaborates, stating that “the powers that be have not (yet) shared our enthusiasm for running 3rd party apps on the Apple TV, and the burden of jailbreaking these devices (in order to get apps onto them) has remained unchanged since the release of the ATV2 in 2010.”

The company, which sells the powerful aTV Flash that leverages Apple TV jailbreaks, is seemingly calling upon the iOS hacker community for help.

Indeed, help from the likes of @pod2g, @MuscleNerd, @p0sixninja, @chpwn, @planetbeing, and @i0nic would make a world of difference.

“The biggest hurdle that has yet to be overcome is also the most essential - the jailbreak,” reads a new blog entry over at fireCore.

“While we tend to think of ourselves as pretty resourceful, the security related expertise that is required in order to release a jailbreak for iOS based devices like the ATV is just not in our wheelhouse, and we're simply left to encourage the capable few as best we can,” writes James.

“No one is more anxious than us to get the ATV3 opened up to 3rd party apps, but due to the reasons mentioned above we're not able to provide any kind of release timeline right now.”

In other words, don’t expect an Apple TV 3 jailbreak under the Christmas tree this year.

Also worth noting is that Apple might release yet another version of its set-top box early next year. If jailbreaking the current one is so difficult, we can only imagine the hurdles posed by the 4th-gen model.