Back in January XBMC released the long awaited Frodo 12.0 for all of your Apple products. Now you can install XBMC on your iPads, iPhones, iPods, and your, glorious, little Apple TV 2. The installation is almost the exact same as installing previous builds of XBMC with 4 subtle differences. Here we have put together a guide that incorporates these changes. So, sit back, relax and grab a cup of coffee.

Note: XBMC is not yet compatible with the 5.1+ Apple TV software. XBMC Developer Memphiz said on XBMC forum that the team is “trying their best” to make XBMC running on Apple TV 5.2. XBMC now available on iOS 6.1 for Apple TV

Upgrading An Existing Installatin Of XBMC EDEN 11.0

So you may be asking the question, “what do I do if I already have XBMC Eden installed on my Apple TV?” If this is the case, we have a few tips for you specifically. After extensive testing throughout the BETA phase, the team at XBMCHUB.COM has discovered that you will find the best results by simply doing a fresh install of XBMC Frodo. Yes, it is possible to back up your settings and reinstall your preferences but this often leads to many of the same issues.

It is not the happy news you may have wanted, but it ends up that XBMC Frodo plays nicest with your Apple TV when you uninstall XBMC, and all of your presets, from your device. Though I am unsure where the problem is located when upgrading directly… The problem is there all the same.

Installing A Fresh Version Of XBMC FRODO 12.0

Requirements

• Jailbroken ATV2 running firmware 5.0.2 or older
• Mac computer (use Terminal App)  or Windows PC (use PuTTY App)

Step 1: Launch the “Terminal” or “PuTTY” application.

Step 2: Ensure that your computer and your Apple TV are on the same network.

Step 3: Connect to your Apple TV via SSH using the following commands.

• ssh root@[Your Apple TV’s I.P. Address]

Example: ssh root@192.168.2.18
This can be found under General/Network on your ATV’s main menu

Note: Should you receive an “Authentication Error,” copy and paste the following command into the Terminal window and press Enter, then continue.

• rm ~/.ssh/known_hosts

Step 4: Agree to any Security Prompts by typing “yes” (without quotations), then press Enter.

Step 5: When prompted for a Password, type the word “alpine” (without quotations) then press Enter.

Step 6: Copy and Paste the Following Commands into your Terminal App, pressing the Enter key after each. It’s important that you wait for each one to finish before moving onto the next. Don’t worry… you will know when each line is finished.

1)      apt-get install wget
2)      wget -O- http://apt.awkwardtv.org/awkwardtv.pub | apt-key add -
3)      echo “deb http://apt.awkwardtv.org/ stable main” > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/awkwardtv.list
4)      echo “deb http://mirrors.xbmc.org/apt/atv2 ./” > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xbmc.list
5)      apt-get update
6)      mkdir -p /Applications/AppleTV.app/Appliances
7)      apt-get install org.xbmc.xbmc-atv2
8)      mkdir -p /Applications/XBMC.frappliance
9)      reboot

Step 7: Once the Apple TV menu reloads, Launch XBMC into XBMC Frodo.

Step 8: To ensure the new build fits your screen, let’s enter the “Settings” sub menu under the “SYSTEM” heading.

Step 9: Select the “Appearance” tab from the left menu bar.

Step 10: Under the “Skin” menu, you’ll now want to choose “-4%” for the “Zoom” field so that your XBMC configuration will properly fit your television display. Depending on the television, you might have to play around with this, but it should work flawlessly at the “-4%” setting. Press “MENU” on your Remote Control to return back one level once this is done.

Step 11. Also worth noting: in XBMC 12.0 you will need to set up your sound. For this simply navigate to Settings/System/Audio Output go to the second option from the bottom and sleet the audio option that is right for you. Afterwards, go to the very first option and select between HDMI and Analog. If you are unsure… you are on HDMI.

Congratulations! Your Apple TV now has XBMC Frodo installed on it, and fitting on your screen. Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?

Visit What's on iPhone for the best iPad and iPhone app reviews!
Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

FireCorehas just announced on its forum that they are “hard at work” on a new version of Seas0nPassthat takes advantage of the evasi0n jailbreak. They expect to have it available “soon”.

aTV Flash (black) seems to be almost ready for 5.2 but there is still a lot of work ahead for the developers of other Apple TV software/plugins:

Please keep in mind that while the FireCore plugins will work on Apple TV 5.1, a few minor adjustments (which are currently in progress) are needed to ensure things continue to run smoothly on Apple TV 5.2. Things like Plex and XBMC do not yet work on Apple TV 5.1 and later, and will likely require A LOT of work by their respective developers in order to be compatible.

@thomashw, the developer of Plex client for Apple TV, has already confirmed on Plex forum that he will work on getting Plex working on the latest Apple TV software.

You can jailbreak your Apple TV 2 running software version 5.2 using recently updated Sn0wbreeze 2.9.8 but jailbreaking is a bit pointless at this moment as most of the plugins are still not combatible with the latest Apple TV firmware.

We will let you know once any of ATV tweaks/plugins is updated for iOS 6 and available.

Visit What's on iPhone for the best iPad and iPhone app reviews!
Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

This time we didn’t write a word on a new jailbreak until we had everything double checked. And so, as we have just jailbroken our Apple TV 2 running 5.2 firmware, we can now confirm that the recently updated Sn0wbreeze 2.9.8 does bring the untethered jailbreak for Apple TV 2 on iOS 6.x.

Most of the software like XBMC, aTV Flash (black), Plex, etc. is not yet compatible with Apple TV 5.1 – 5.2 and the device constantly crashes when attempting to install additional software from nitoTV, so we definitely don’t recommend updating to iOS 6.x.

Other known bug/issues:

• First boot on an AppleTV 2 for 5.1/5.2 firmwares has funky glitches. Should be fixed by updates pushed via repos.

If for some reason you still wan’t to update to iOS 6 and then jailbreak using Sn0wbreeze, you can download it from here (Windows only).

We will let you know once any of ATV tweaks/plugins is updated for iOS 6 and available.

Sn0wbreeze doesn’t support Apple TV 3.

Visit What's on iPhone for the best iPad and iPhone app reviews!
Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

UPDATE: Although it has been confirmed by @MuscleNerd that evasi0n would support Apple TV 2, it seems that it doesn’t. Based on earlier news from evad3rs team, we believed their jailbreak was compatible with Apple TV 2 when publishing the below post just a few minutes after evasi0n went live. We are very sorry for causing confusion. We now have to wait for Seas0nPass to be updated with iOS 6.x support for Apple TV 2. We believe it won’t take long.

UPDATE 2: How to jailbreak Apple TV 2 5.2 (iOS 6.1) using Seas0nPass (untethered; Mac & Windows)

Evad3rs, a group of four top iOS hackers (@pod2g, @musclenerd, @pimskeks and @planetbeing) has just released a long-awaited evasi0n jailbreak for all iDevices running iOS 6.0 through 6.1, that include Apple TV 2 running software version 5.1, 5.1.1 or the latest 5.2. This is an untethered jailbreak, meaning you will be able to reboot your Apple TV without attaching it to a computer. Evasi0n jailbreak doesn’t support Apple TV 3 (however, there is some hope that it will in the future).

Here are the direct download links:

• evasi0n jailbreak for Mac OS X
• evasi0n jailbreak for Windows
• evasi0n jailbreak for Linux

Official mirrors.

Requirements:

• 5 minutes of your time
• A computer running Windows (XP minimum), Mac OS X (10.5 minimum) or Linux (x86 / x86_64)
• An Apple TV 2 running iOS 6.0 through 6.1 (Apple TV firmware 5.1 through 5.2)
• A micro USB cable to connect ATV to the computer

Apple TV 2 running iOS 5.x (atv software version 5.0.2 and earlier) can be jailbroken using Seas0npass.

Visit What's on iPhone for the best iPad and iPhone app reviews!
Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

If you are one of our faithful fans who have XBMC Eden (11.0) installed on your jailbroken Apple TV 1, Apple TV 2, or any other device for that matter, we have some exciting news for you: the development team over at xbmc.org has been hard at work, this past month, preparing to release the latest iteration of their multimedia center software known only as Frodo (12.0). This update comes complete with a great deal of improvements, bug fixes, and extended hardware support. The real question is what will this mean for us Apple TV junkies. Well, this new build offers:

• HD audio support, including DTS-MA and Dolby True-HD, via the new XBMC AudioEngine (OSX/iOS not yet available)
• Live TV and PVR support
• h.264 10bit (aka Hi10P) video software decoding for anime
• 64bit support in OSX to match the 64bit support in Linux
• Improved image support, allowing the database to accomodate numerous additional image types and more interesting and complex skins
• Support for the Raspberry PI
• Initial support for the Android platform
• Improved AirPlay support across all platforms, including AirPlay audio in XBMC for Windows to match the other platforms
• Improved controller support in Windows and Linux
• Advanced Filtering in the library
• Video library tags to complement movie sets
• Advanced UPnP sharing
• Default video languages now match the language being used by XBMC
• Translations now powered by Transifex

For you Apple TV fans, one of the biggest adjustments is the extended support for H.D. audio. This latest builds helps enable you to make the most of the audio capabilities that the Apple TV has to offer. Aside from these listed improvements, you will see many changes under the hood. Some of these are great to see, others are a bit frustrating. One of the more exciting features, to me, is the inclusion of something known as skin.widgets. This tool makes skinning a much better experience. If you want to get a real idea of what this means for skins in Frodo, look no further than SiO2 by a developer named fastcolors. This skin is designed with you in mind.

Read also:How to change skins in XBMC on Apple TV

In contrast, one of the frustrating items is the fact that we lose the use of last.FM playback in this latest build. They explained this on their blog, at xbmc.org, as something that was unavoidable do to the changes in the coding, but it is missed none the less. It is also worth noting that there are quite a few add-ons/skins that are not currently supported in Frodo. Usually, this is not a problem as developers can easily make changes to get their add-ons/skins working in the latest XBMC build. Sadly, there are quite a few devs, of some well known add-ons/skins, that are no longer actively keeping their items up to date. This means that we may lose some of our favorite add-ons/skins in the upgrade. Time will tell.

All in all. It is worth the update. As a rule, we should always upgrade as it only improves the overall experience. If an add-on, or skin, is missed enough, someone will get it working again!

Visit What's on iPhone for the best iPad and iPhone app reviews!
Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

Apple has just released Apple TV software update 5.2 for the 2nd and 3rd generation Apple TV, adding Bluetooth keyboard support, iTunes in the Cloud and AirPlay audio for videos. The update also includes some performance and stability improvements with the iTunes Store, AirPlay, Netflix, iTunes Match, and wired Ethernet connections.

Apple TV 2 users waiting for iOS 6.1 jailbreak should not upgrade until evad3rs team says the update is safe. We will keep you updated.

Here is what’s new in 5.2:

• iTunes in the Cloud: Browse and play your purchased iTunes music directly from iCloud.
• Bluetooth keyboard: Use your Apple Wireless Keyboard to control your Apple TV. See this article for more information.
• AirPlay audio for videos: Send stereo audio from movies, TV shows, and other videos on Apple TV to AirPlay-enabled speakers and devices (including AirPort Express and other Apple TVs).
• Stability and performance: Includes performance and stability improvements with the iTunes Store, AirPlay, Netflix, iTunes Match, and wired Ethernet connections.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ to be first to know when the untethered jailbreak for Apple TV 2 5.2 comes out.

Visit What's on iPhone for the best iPad and iPhone app reviews!
Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

Update: MuscleNerd has just confirmed that Apple TV 2 will be covered by the iOS 6.1 jailbreak.

iOS hacker @MuscleNerd has confirmed on Twitter that the upcoming untethered iOS 6.1 jailbreak will support all iOS 6.1 compatible devices, except Apple TV 3. If Apple releases a software update for Apple TV 2 in time, which MuscleNerd claims is very likely, this device will also be supported. Untethered jailbreak for iOS 6.1 is expected to be released by evad3rs team just after Apple releases the latest version of its mobile OS to the public.

Asked if the upcoming iOS 6.1 jailbreak will support Apple TV 3, MuscleNerd responded:

@arovik nope, sorry. In fact unless Apple pushes a final atv2 in time, it may not apply there either (*very* likely they will though)

— MuscleNerd (@MuscleNerd) January 28, 2013

@unicornhacker yes, every other 6.1 device variation will be supported. All TWENTY-TWO of them (omg!). Plus atv2 if it’s out in time.

— MuscleNerd (@MuscleNerd) January 28, 2013

Hopefully, according to the hacker, there is still some hope for those desperately waiting for the Apple TV 3 jailbreak:

@arovik not necessarily.Although atv3 uses far fewer services that can be tampered with, it’s not isolated.But it can’t use this next JB

— MuscleNerd (@MuscleNerd) January 28, 2013

@sigboe that’s a valid area to be looking for atv3.And it certainly uses WebKit too for iTunes Store, Hulu logins etc.More esoteric tho

— MuscleNerd (@MuscleNerd) January 28, 2013

@sigboe my gut feeling though is that the code behind Photo Stream is riddled with bugs that might be useful on atv3

— MuscleNerd (@MuscleNerd) January 28, 2013

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ to be first to know when the untethered iOS 6.1 jailbreak and Apple TV 3 jailbreak come out.

Visit What's on iPhone for the best iPad and iPhone app reviews!
Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

FireCore has updated its flagship software, aTV Flash (black) for Apple TV 2, to version 2.1. New aTV Flash includes a number of “highly requested features” (like TV Show Playlists or Custom Favorites) as well as bunch of other improvements and fixes.

TV Show Playlists
Now it’s easier than ever to pick up where you left off with your favorite show. After you decide which show to watch, simply hold the center button and choose the playlist option. That’s it! You’ll be taken to the first unwatched episode, and will continue playing until your run out of shows or your eyes turn into puffy white marshmallows, whichever comes first.

Super Customizable Favorites
Favorites provide a handy way to get to what you want as quickly as possible. They’re displayed right in the main menu, and just got a whole lot better in version 2.1. Need a quick link to season 4 of The Office? Check. How about having a list of celebration videos that contain the word word birthday? Done. With these new options for Favorites there’s really no limit on what you can do.

Full List of Changes

• NEW! TV Show Playlists – easily pick up from the last unwatched episode
• NEW! Custom Favorites – create favorites from almost anything, including search terms
• Big speed improvements while browsing movies/shows
• Library and Search items can now be hidden from main menu
• Now showing ‘Writers’ instead of ‘Producers’ on pre-playback screen
• .ite folders are now hidden from view
• Hidden files are no longer included in slideshows
• Better metadata fetching
• Better trakt syncing and scrobbling
• Better handling of network settings and errors
• Many search related improvements
• Many subtitle related improvements (special characters, performance, etc…)
• Fixed rare Last.fm scrobbling issue
• Fixed rare problems when playing audio files
• Fixed a few memory related issues
• iOS 6 support
• Many other bug fixes and improvements

If you’re already running a version of aTV Flash (black) the new 2.1 version can be installed through the Maintenance –> Manage Extras menu. Links for the new version can also be found in your FireCore account under the Downloads tab.

If you’re not yet using aTV Flash (black) you can get started here.

Here is a tutorial on how to install aTV Flash (black) on your jailbroken Apple TV 2.

IMPORTANT: aTV Flash 2.1 requires an ATV2 running Apple TV version 4.4 or later. It doesn’t work on the 3rd gen Apple TV. Once the Apple TV 3 jailbreak is available, your aTV Flash (black) license will cover both Apple TV 2 and Apple TV 3.

Visit What's on iPhone for the best iPad and iPhone app reviews!
Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

Do you have more than one Apple TV in your house? Are you the techy in your community, forced to install and set up XBMC on Apple TVs for all those people you know and love? What if there were an easy way to simply clone the XBMC installation from one device to multiple others? Well, you can. This process can be used for a variety of reasons, but the most popular would absolutely be:

• Backing-up your current XBMC set up (allowing you to restore to it at any time)
• Building an XBMC template (if you will) to help setting up other Apple TV’s quicker & easier
• Creating a standard of XBMC, including add-ons, for installing on your other iDevices (iPad, iPhone, etc.)

Whatever your reasons, this is a worthwhile skill to have. For the sake of clarity, for those of you who do not know, the Apple TV 1 and the Apple TV 2 differ from each other in that they bother run on different operating systems. The Apple TV 1 was originally build on the OSX platform, same as the older MACs. The Apple TV 2 on the other hand is built on the iOS platform. Same as the iPad, iPhone, & iPods. These differences will cause the process of cloning your Apples to vary dependent on which devices you own. That said, grab your ATV, your computer and let’s go:

Requirements

If you are using a Windows Machine

• WinSCP – File Manager
• PuTTY – Terminal App

If you are using a MAC machine

• CyberDuck – File Manager
• Terminal App (preinstalled)

[Extract The Items Needed For Cloning]

Step 1: We first need to open your File Manager. You will be met with either an option to open a Connection, if so select this option, or a group of boxes requiring input. Fill out the boxes using following sample. Note yours may look different but the information will be the same.

• At the top you will likely see a drop down menu that says “File Transfer Protocol.” Here you will need to select the option that says “SFTP” or “SSH”
• Server: Here you need to enter the IP address of your Apple TV
• Apple TV 1 (SILVER BOX) = Username: frontrow & Password: frontrow
• Apple TV 2 (BLACK PUCK) = Username: root & Password: alpine

Step 2: Now we will need to navigate to the following file location, and save a copy of the folder titled “XBMC” to your desktop, or any other location that you will remember. This will take some time as this file contains EVERYTHING pertaining to your XBMC installation:

• Apple TV 1 (SILVER BOX) = /Applications/XBMC.app/Contents/Resources/XBMC/
• Apple TV 2 (or any iDevice) = /private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/XBMC/

[REMEMBER] this is your CLONED XBMC folder. It is important that you take good care of this item as this is what we will use on the next machine… or your current machine should you simply be making a backup. Once this is done, all following steps will take place on the device you want to install the CLONED FOLDER on.

Installing The CLONED XBMC Folder

Step 1: Start with a blank canvas:

• Factory restore your target device (making sure you don’t upgrade to an un-jailbroken firmware)
• Jailbreak the Apple TV again
• Do a fresh Install of XBMC on the device.

Step 2: Launch XBMC… THEN EXIT XBMC… on the same device.

Step 3: Connect to your to the Apple TV using the File Manager as we did in beginning of this guide.

Step 4: Navigate to the following file location:

• Apple TV 1 (SILVER BOX) = /Applications/XBMC.app/Contents/Resources/XBMC/
• Apple TV 2 (or any iDevice) = /private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/XBMC/

Step 5: Once you can see the XBMC folder on your current machine we need to do two things:

• Rename the XBMC folder, on the Apple TV, to “OLDXBMC”
• Upload the CLONED XBMC FOLDER, from your desktop, that we saved on your computer earlier in this guide. This may take some time to upload as this file contains EVERYTHING pertaining to your XBMC installation. So give it time

Step 6: Now we will need to connect to our device via the Terminal App, via SSH, using the following commands.

• ssh root@[Your Apple TV’s I.P. Address]
• Example: ssh root@192.168.2.18
  • This can be found under General/Network on your ATV’s main menu
  • Note:Should you receive an “Authentication Error,” copy and paste the following command into the Terminal window and press Enter, then continue.
    • rm ~/.ssh/known_hosts

Step 7: Once connected we will input one command.

• chown -R mobile:mobile /private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/XBMC/

Step 8: Reboot and Enjoy

Congratulations! Not only do you have a safe backup of your XBMC installation, but you can now set up twice as many devices in a quarter of the time.

Read also: Top 10 best XBMC addons for Apple TV 1 and Apple TV 2.

Visit What's on iPhone for the best iPad and iPhone app reviews!
Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

For many of our reads, there is no question regarding what XBMC is or how to use it. That said, we never find a shortage of folks who don’t understand XBMC’s add-ons, plugins, tools, menus, skins, libraries, third party extras, etc. It was with this in mind that we have decided to dedicate a bit of time every month to breaking down ALL THINGS XBMC. Our goal is to give information that could greatly help new comers, and veterans, alike. I, personally, aim to bring tips and tricks to shed light on many items that have seemingly alluded many users of XBMC as a home multimedia solution. So, if you find yourself always helping fiends and family with their XBMC systems, bookmark this page, and stay tuned for the months to come! We are going to get the masses ready to use, and comfortable with, Xbox Media Center (XBMC).

Though this article may seem ‘to basic’ for the tech elite that frequent this pages, please note that this article is simply a launching point for our ALL THINGS XBMC series. We will not be breaking down any walls today, but rather shedding light on XBMC in general. We want to take a broad brush and give you all an idea of what XBMC is and does. We will then use this article as a guideline for the pieces to come.

What is XBMC?

XBMC is an award-winning FREE, open source (GPL), software media player and entertainment hub for digital media. XBMC is currently available for Linux, OSX, Windows, iOS, & even Android. XBMC has been designed to be the perfect companion for your Apple TV (1, 2, and someday your 3). Supporting an almost endless range of remote controls, and combined with its beautiful interface and powerful skinning engine, XBMC feels very natural to use from the couch and is the ideal solution for your home theater – multi media center.

Essentially, XBMC offers users the ability to watch personal content, as well as content found on the web, on their Television. It makes itself a central interface for thousands, if not millions, of playable content. It is built with the ability to install add-ons, skins, scripts, and more, all with the purpose of expanding its functionality. The software is, by far, the most feature rich solution on the market. XBMC is only limited by the lack of understanding of its users. This is a situation where the more you know, quickly equates to an unparallelled television experience!

Items We Intend To Cover:

- How to install on Apple TV
- How to navigate & understand XBMC’s menu options
- XBMC’s library: how to add, remove, & customize it’s content
- XBMC scripts? Yes, they are useful!
- How to stream content from the Web within XBMC
- How to install add-ons & repositories
- How to change & customize skins on XBMC
- Using AirPlay & mobile apps with XBMC
- Watching live television on XBMC
- Watching movies on XBMC
- Supercharging your current XBMC installation with XBMC Hub Wizard

Stay tuned for the next tutorial!  In the meantime, you can check out our list of Top 10 best XBMC addons for Apple TV 1 and Apple TV 2.

Visit What's on iPhone for the best iPad and iPhone app reviews!
Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!