Apple TV: Jailbreak and Run Apps?

Apple TV is already a pretty hot device, especially among those who want to have more control on the content that shows up on their TV. Can you imagine how popular it can get if Apple allows apps on it. As Forbes reported earlier this week, a teardown of Apple TV has revealed that it is more than capable of running the apps we have come to love:

It’s going to happen — everything is there technologically to make it possible… We’re still in the early phaes of apple evangelizing the iPad, perhaps it makes sense for Apple to delay for focus purposes,

says Small Society’s president Raven Zachary. Apple TV has enough space (8 GB flash memory) for apps to be installed. If we have learned anything from Apple, Apple TV models with more generous levels of memory will make their way to the market next year. It has 256 MB of RAM too. That’s more than enough to run apps. Apple does have some challenges if it intends to bring apps to its TV box. It is a big jump going from iPhone to Apple TV when it comes to apps. This will most likely take a bit of time for Apple to pull off.

The good news is you can jailbreak your Apple TV. The device has already been jailbroken, which means its owners can get around Apple’s restrictions and get more out of their investment. We are at an early stage in this game. You won’t be able to run too many apps on Apple TV just yet. That does not mean there won’t be an underground app store for the device.

Here is what Dev-Team had to say about Apple TV jailbreak:

It’s confirmed…SHAtter can trick Apple’s new AppleTV 2G into restoring to a pre-jailbroken IPSW from PwnageTool too!   Literally the only UI application on the ATV is Lowtide.app, but now the window is open for jailbroken apps of all varieties.  (Just like the early iPhone days, the only apps you’ll see on the AppleTV will be jailbroken ones).  In the meantime, here’s a video showing root access (via ssh) into Apple’s new product.

Roku box and other Apple TV competitors are decent but they are in no way as fun as this tiny device. Add jailbreak and apps to the equation, and we have got another killer Apple toy to play around with.