With the introduction of iPad 2 and Apple A5 processor in March 2011 Apple TV fans got an amazing new feature called AirPlay Mirroring. A5 was powerful enough not only to send a separate picture or video to an HDTV via Apple TV (AirPlay), but also to wirelessly display everything what’s on the iPad 2 screen right on the HDTV, allowing to stream apps and play games on the big screen TV (AirPlay Mirroring). Since then, all the iDevices that got A5 chip or one of its more powerful brothers (A5X, A6) supported AirPlay Mirroring. Yesterday, A5-powered iPad mini and A6X-powered 4^th gen. iPad joined the family of devices that support one of the iOS coolest features.

Here is a complete list of iOS devices that support AirPlay Mirroring:

• iPhone 4S
• iPhone 5
• iPad 2
• iPad 3
• iPad 4
• iPad mini
• iPod touch 5^th gen.

AirPlay Mirroring is also supported on OS X Mountain Lion.

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During today’s conference at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, along with a brand new iPhone 5, Apple introduced a fifth generation iPod touch that now supports AirPlay Mirroring that lets you wirelessly stream what’s on your iPod touch to your HDTV and speakers via Apple TV. This makes a new generation iPod touch a fifth Apple’s device that supports AirPlay Mirrorng: up until now the feature has been available on iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and iPad 3. It will also be supported on the iPhone 5.

The new iPod touch is the thinnest iPod touch ever and features a 4-inch Retina display; a 5 megapixel iSight camera with 1080p HD video recording; Apple’s A5 chip; Siri and iOS 6. The fifth generation iPod touch will be available in October for a suggested price of $299 (US) for the 32GB model and $399 for the 64GB model.

To use AirPlay Mirroring, tap the AirPlay icon from the app you’re in — such as Photos, Music, Videos, or Safari — and everything on your small screen plays on your big screen. You can also stream music to any AirPlay-enabled speakers or AirPort Express-connected speakers.

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Great news for all Remote HD fans – the plugin is back on the Apple TV 2. Remote HD has been updated for 5.0.x compatibility and it’s now available in the Manage Extras menu via aTV Flash (black). For those who don’t have aTV Flash (black) installed, the plugin should be soon available to download from Remote HD website. Before the installation, you may want to check FireCore forums, as users report that there are some issues with the updated Remote HD plugin.

Remote HD is an Apple TV plugin and iOS app that lets you control your Apple TV from your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch and even brings your Apple TV′s display to your iDevice allowing you to control your little black box from far away, even with the TV turned off.

Other features include:

• Full keyboard support in 3rd party plugins (including in XBMC)
• Global playback controls: skip songs without needing to first navigate to Now Playing.
• Dedicated Now Playing button designed to take you straight to the Now Playing view (pressing the menu button brings you back where you were)
• Touch integration with AppleTV’s interface
• Quick Launch
• Trackpad support in CouchSurfer

Check out Remote HD website for more details.

Remote HD iOS app is available on the App Store for $7.99.

Note: Remote HD only works on jailbroken Apple TVs.

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Movie trailers have always been sort of a side hobby for Apple. Now this hobby seems to be getting some attention, as Apple has released an app specifically for movie trailers.

When you first open iTunes Movie Trailers on either your iPhone or iPad, you’ll find the trailer layout very similar to the Apple TV’s graphic-based layout. Here you can scroll and search based on movie art, or simply search for whatever trailer you are looking to watch and then watch it on your device or on your TV, through AirPlay.

A nice calendar feature is included with this app. From here, you can see all upcoming theater releases, along with past releases. I can easily see movies that were released many months ago, and check movies that are expected in the somewhat-distant future (The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises are slated to hit theaters July of next year, for example).

Read the full review on Whatsoniphone.com

You may also want to read:
Real Racing 2 HD First to Support Wireless Gaming over AirPlay on Apple TV 2
AirPlay-Enabled Apps: Air Video (review)
AirPlay-Enabled Apps: Web Browser, Camera and Videos for Apple TV, TVOut Genie! (review)

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Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

Among the tons of the new features that will come to our iDevices this fall along with iCloud and iOS 5, there are two Apple TV2-related features. The first one is Photo Stream – a special Photo Stream album on your Apple TV 2 will let you access your photos stored in iCloud. iCloud’s Photo Stream service automatically uploads the photos you take or import on any of your devices and wirelessly pushes them to all your devices and computers.

The other feature is AirPlay mirroring that lets wirelessly display everything you do on your iPad 2 right on your HDTV through Apple TV 2. According to Apple’s iOS 5 promo video, this will let you airplay not only photos, videos and websites (it’s already available on Apple TV 2) but also video games. To allow atv2 to make use of the AirPlay mirroring, the new Apple TV 4.4 software will be released. The beta version of this new firmware has been released to the developers yesterday.

You may also want to read:
aTV Flash 4.3 for 1st Generation Apple TV Now Available
AirPlay-Enabled Apps: Web Browser, Camera and Videos for Apple TV, TVOut Genie! (review)
aTV Flash (black) Beta5 for Apple TV 2 Now Available
Apple Updates Apple TV 2 Firmware to 4.2.2, Untethered Jailbreak is Already Out

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Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

Up for review we have four AirPlay enabled apps, designed with your Apple TV 2 in mind.

First we have Camera for Apple TV. Obviously, it’s an app that displays the live view of your iPhone’s camera on the big screen, though there is a bit of delay. I have trouble seeing what this $2 app can do for the average user, besides providing young children with entertainment. Sure you could display something for others to look at, but couldn’t you also show them the item? They are, after all, probably in the same room as you.

Next we have Web Browser for Apple TV. This basic web browser will show up on your Apple TV2, but you will have to look past some small quirks. The app, like the previous one, has some delay. Your atv will not display smooth scrolling or fullscreen web browsing. Your phone’s screen, when in portrait mode, appears only in the center of your TV screen, with each side being a huge, black bar. You can flip your phone into landscape mode, but then the edges of the browser become slightly cutoff and the text then becomes pixelated. The app ends up feeling more like a screenshot of a browser beamed to your TV than a full Apple TV web browser. Also, if you go to the mobile YouTube site and watch a video, the video will not show up on your TV! It will play on your phone and give you the option to stream audio, not video, to your Apple TV 2, but the actual video won’t show up on your television.

Third is an app called Videos for Apple TV. Here I thought you would load your personal videos to your iPhone and then stream them, but I realized that this is achievable with the iPod app. So what does this app do? It comes with four videos (fireplace, fish tank, lava lamp, and waterfall) that you can stream to create an ambiance in your house. The videos, which are each several hours long and contain sound, are high quality and definitely worth 50¢ apiece if you are one who enjoys the ambiance offered by tranquil videos.

These three apps, all made by TapMedia Publishing and sold for $2 each, are nice. However, due to AirPlay, the apps may not work as well as the developer wishes they did. The creator should include universal app support as all of these apps could be supported by the iPad, with the exception of Camera for Apple TV on the original iPad. Also, it would be nice if the developer offered a deluxe app for perhaps $5 and combined many of their AirPlay capable apps into one suite.

This deluxe suite I imagine is a little like the app TVOut Genie!, by JwalSoft Inc. This $3 app includes several “widgets,” each of which can be viewed through AirPlay or through Apple’s $40 adapter. Widgets available include documents, web browser, maps, text editor, photo browser, Facebook, and camera. Documents are importable through iTunes, Mail, Mobile Safari, and some other third-party apps. You can then put your documents on display. There is also a Maps widget, which recently received satellite and hybrid view options. The text editor is a bit plain, but it gets the job done. Facebook photos can also be streamed to your Apple TV. All of these widgets, plus ones like the previously-mentioned ones, are available. For only $3, this app is a bargain and it offers a lot to love.

Some of these are niche apps, but they’re pretty inexpensive and worth a try. Again, these don’t all work flawlessly, but if you’re bored with your Apple TV and don’t want to jailbreak or don’t know how to (well, you obviously know where to find out how to), try these apps out.

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TapMedia Publishing, the creators of Fire for Apple TV and Videos for Apple TV, an AirPlay-enabled apps you probably wouldn’t spend a whole 4 bucks on ($1.99 for each), has released two new, far more useful apps that bring great new functionality to the Apple TV 2.

Camera for Apple TV ($1.99) turns your iOS device into a real-time video camera for your atv2. The app streams your iPhone/iPad or iPod touch camera to your tiny black box via AirPlay. The frame rate is pretty low (it’s actually a series of static images), but it’s still pretty impressive and we hope to seeing the update coming soon with the improved frame rate.

Then comes Web Browser for Apple TV ($1.99) that brings a web browser to your Apple TV 2. It’s also AirPlay-based and it streams the web pages from the browser running on your iOS device to big screen via atv2. This basic browser has built-in search bar and lets you mail links, bookmark your favorite web pages, and view multiple online documents including .pdf, .doc.

Update: We have some promo codes for Camera for Apple TV, Web Browser for Apple TV and Videos for Apple TV to give away. Retweet the contest message and comment on this Facebook post for your chance to win. The winners will be announced on Friday, May 27^th.

You may also want to read:
SHOUTcast Radio App Updated to Support AirPlay
AirPlay Implementation on the Old Apple TV is Now Complete
AirPlay-Enabled Apps: Air Video (review)

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Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

[image: fastcompany.com]

It wasn’t too long ago when we heard from Steve that he had NO IDEA on how to succeed in the television market. Any chance it has just changed? Apple’s special event is set for September 1^st and what the world expects to be unveiled in San Francisco that day is an updated, upgraded, renamed, rebuilt, rethought, revamped, refreshed or completely new, long-romored, long-awaited, magic, revolutionary, shiny — Ladies and Gentleman — the new Apple TV. Well, maybe not the whole world, there are those skeptics who ask if Apple is really going to announce a TV gadget at an event with a guitar on the invitation. Pessimists aside, now, when everyone on this planet seems to have its own opinion on what is going to happen on Wednesday and when every little website in the cyberspace has its own rumor on the next Apple’s TV device, let’s sum up the most important ones. Here is a comprehensive list of what has been lately said about the new Apple TV.

General

• Engadget: new Apple TV called iTV: $99, A4 CPU, iOS, 16GB of flash storage, cloud-based storage, new iTunes streaming services, AppStore, no 1080p, quite small device with a scarce amount of ports (only the power socket and video out), “an iPhone without a screen”
• DigiTimes: “Apple is set to launch a new Apple TV using AMD’s Fusion solution and will not include a hard drive. The new device will adopt a user interface similar to the iPhone with support for social networking websites, network multimedia and the App Store.
• Kevin Rose: “From what I hear we should expect to see the iTV launch in September”
• Jason D. O’Grady on ZDNet: “iTV would no longer be a hard drive based setop box, but rather a live streaming device. Think of it as a combo iPad docking station and Airport Express with an HDMI port out the back.”
• AppleInsider via Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros.: “The biggest potential change to the forthcoming Apple TV refresh is the move to an ARM architecture processor running the same iOS software that powers the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. (…) The new Apple TV will have access to the App Store.”
• Gene Munster: Apple could offer an $1,800 to $2,000 “all-in-one Apple television solution that would replace the current amalgam of set-top boxes, Blu-ray players, PVRs, cables, game consoles and TVs in a typical home.
• Bloomberg: “Steve Jobs will rather focus on the ability for customers to watch TV shows and movies on their iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches, says a person familiar with the plan. The company will announce that customers can rent many TV shows for 99 cents.”

Name

• Engadget: Apple will be officially changing the name of the device to iTV (that was the name of the Apple TV when it was originally announced by the company)
• AllNewsMac: Lawyers looking into Apple TV name change as ‘iTV’ is already taken

Hardware

• Engadget: A4 CPU, no hard drive, 16GB of flash storage, only 720p support, only the power socket and video out ports
• DigiTimes: AMD’s Fusion CPU, no hard drive

Storage

• Engadget: cloud-based storage, Time Capsule as an external storage component
• Rose: picture and video sharing feature powered by MobileMe

OS

• Engadget: iOS
• Business Insider: How will Apple’s touch based operating system work on a TV screen that will not be touch based?

Content

• Engadget: new iTunes streaming services
• Engadget: iTunes streaming video service coming soon? (“A new Apple iTunes customer survey lists “Titles are available to watch instantly” as a reason you might totally love watching video on the iPad. This could be a big hint that instant streaming is coming quite soon.”)
• Bloomberg: Apple Said to Prepare 99-Cent TV Shows (“Apple is in advanced talks with News Corp. to let iTunes users rent TV shows for 99 cents. Viewers would be able to rent programs from Fox for 48 hours. CBS, NBC and Walt Disney also are in talks about joining the effort.”)
• Rose: Expect to see an iPhone/Pad like marketplace for television applications. Video sharing/streaming/recording apps, interactive news apps, and of course games.
• Rose: a la carte (app) stations “With Apple’s iAds, content producers (eg. ABC/NBC/etc.) can directly monetize and distribute their content. This will eventually destroy the television side of the cable and satellite industry.”
• David Gewirtz on ZDNet: FaceTime could be Apple’s iTV killer app (“You no longer just have little tiny screens talking to little tiny screens — you can have grandma on the couch, talking to Baby Biff in his crib.”)
• Hardmac: Apple working on a new video format (“The ultimate goal for Apple would be to promote this new format to support 4 K video – up to 4096×2160.”)
• Macworld: Apple could let third-parties deliver the video content to the ATV (“So the next Apple TV becomes another iOS device that uses third-party apps. If Netflix or Hulu or ABC or NPR or whoever wants to get its content on the device, it simply makes a compatible app for it.”)
• new media age: Cloud-based iTunes “Apple purchased cloud-based music service Lala last year only to close it, prompting speculation that it will incorporate the online music streaming service into iTunes.”
• Apple Insider: Apple’s potential Web-based iTunes will be ‘social, not streaming’ (“Apple may reveal a “big overhaul” of its iTunes Music Store next week, likely to be a lightweight Web version, but the service will not be updated to allow users to stream their content from the cloud.”)

Controller

• Rose: The iPad will turn into one big badass remote control (“Imagine watching monday night football on the TV while viewing/exploring other camera angles on the iPad.”)
• Jason D. O’Grady on ZDNet: 7-inch iPad like touch device (iTV Pad)
• Venomous Porridge: An iPhone without the screen (“It’s the love child of an iPod touch and a Magic Trackpad. It has the same inertial and gyroscopic motion sensors as the iPhone 4, and the same multitouch surface we’re familiar with. A home button. Bluetooth. No screen.”)
• The Russians Used a Pencil: “Apple would never require a user to have an iPhone / iPad in order to use their Apple TV.” Other options: 1) Apple Remote, 2) Bluetooth Keyboard and Trackpad, 3) Game Controller

Games

• Bloomberg via Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros.: “Apple TV could be a popular, low-cost game console for people who don’t care about running the most cutting-edge, graphics intensive games.
• Macworld: an iOS Apple TV could take a chunk out of the huge game-console market (“I know more than a few people who’d be happy to spend $200 or so on a system that doesn’t require you to spend $30 to $50 a pop for “family” games that are matched, both in visuals and gameplay, by $1 to $5 games for iOS.”)
• Macworld: “Provide an Apple TV that can play high-resolution games—with surround sound, an HDMI connection, and hardware controllers, yet—and you’ve got a fairly formidable hunk of hardware sitting next to your TV.”

Price

• Engadget: $99
• Jason D. O’Grady on ZDNet: By integrating the existing engineering from the Airport Express and scaling down the iPad technology (no need for Retina display, nor do you need 10 hours of battery life, or even 64 GB of storage) Apple could easily deliver a TV solution for $249.
• Mark Sigal on his blog: The $99 price tag implies one of three paths for Apple TV: 1) Limited Storage, cloud dependency path, 2) getting to $99 via Subsidy, as is the case with iPhone, 3) running on top of the Mac Mini as a $99 software add-on, with the user being able to choose between a $69 Magic Trackpad, a $200 iPod touch, a $99 iPhone or $500 iPad as the controller

Release date

• Rose: September
• Bloomberg: September 1st
• MacDailyNews: “Multiple” sources say that Apple’s busy prepping telesales employees for a new product that will be “huge” or “very big” and coming in “October”
• DigiTimes: Mass production of the device will start in December.”

Other interesting thoughts on Apple TV and IPTV

NYT: In the Living Room, Hooked on Pay TV
CNET: Content kings control the future of IPTV
Associated Press: Apple’s 99-cent TV show idea is no game changer
ZDNet: Apple, Google TV: Does Pay as You Go Make Dollars and Sense?
LA Times: Murdoch may be key to Apple’s plan to offer 99-cent digital rentals of TV shows
Game Theory: How App TV Disrupts the Console Industry

Apple TV Hacks will be providing all the latest news on the new Apple TV/iTV. If it’s coming… Stay tuned!

[images: ZDNet.com, venomousporridge.com, blog.monty.de]

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Do you want to feel like a wizard? Check the Kymera wand in Amazon: You can control your Apple TV waving a wand!

Recently released Remote HD is an iPad/iPhone/iPod touch universal and powerful application that gives you complete access to your AppleTV, Mac or PC. It works like an Apple Remote, but it can do a lot more – one of the greatest features is Remote View that brings your AppleTV’s display to the iPhone/iPad or iPod touch.

Remote View now also works with XBMC and Boxee.

The app allows you to reconnect to last connection – - if you use Remote HD mostly to connect to the same Apple TV, you can save the time of searching for available connections and tapping to connect.

Using Remote HD you can also put the Apple TV to sleep, restart it or even shut it down altogether. In addition, selecting “Log off” will perform a “soft” restart on the Apple TV.

Other great feature is that when you connect to your computer or Apple TV using the mobile network (3G, EDGE, GPRS), Remote HD kicks into a mode designed to save data transfer and optimize its performance based on the available bandwidth at any given time. Check out the rest of the features here.

The app is XBMC and Boxee compatible. aTV Flash has already added support for Remote HD (can be installed through the Maintenance –> Install Extras menu).

We have 5 free copies of the app to give away! To enter the contest follow us on Twitter and retweet the contest message (Win RemoteHD and access your AppleTV from your iPhone/iPad! Follow @appletvhacks and RT for your chance to win #giveaway). The winners will be announced on Tuesday (June 29).

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!