14 DAY TRIAL // After a valiant struggle over the past week, the Apple TV has finally yielded to the hackers. Enabling USB support, proved to be a lot more challenging than anyone would have suspected.
While Apple have previously stated that they have no intention to release a very low end Mac, it looks like they pretty much did exactly that. While the Apple TV you buy is not exactly a personal computer as such, the relentless efforts of hackers everywhere have succeeded in turning it into one.
Earlier this week, modders managed to enable SSH and run all manner of programs on the little box, ranging from VLC, a very popular video playing program that will play movies that are unsupported by the default Apple TV, to World of Warcraft, the popular video game.
While the Apple TV was well and truly bent, it was not yet broken, as the USB support was not yet hacked and controlling the little box could only be done remotely over the network connection. Now, that is a thing of the past. With USB support and keyboards and mice fully working, the Apple TV can be used for just about anything and is a lot more versatile than what came out of the box.
While not as powerful as a mini, the hacked Apple TV is a very viable alternative for those who do not mind getting their hands dirty and going into the console to do a lot of tweaking. While this is currently the domain of the savvy, with USB support functional, it is only a matter of time until a very user-friendly hack becomes available.
So far Apple has made no statement regarding all these hacks, but it is possible that future updates to the Apple TV software will break them.