The Apple TV (2010): Dissected
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 29, 2010 1:59 PM EST
Honestly, Roku's price drop and yesterday's announcement of Hulu Plus coming to the platform probably stole much if any remaining thunder from the imminent arrival of the new Apple TV. While we'll still give the Apple TV a thorough treatment, it's still clearly a very niche product from Apple (until it gets jailbroken, then all bets are off). It's one of the easiest devices to test simply because it doesn't work with the vast majority of downloadable video content. We can't even run our media streamer test suite on the device since it doesn't support streaming anything outside of iTunes.
To tide you over until our review is done however we've got a full gallery of the new Apple TV dissected. There aren't many surprises installed. The thing is tiny, there are no fans and the entire chassis is used as a heatsink. Apple makes liberal use of thermal conductive pads within the device.
The new ATV does use the A4, but the markings on the chip in my unit are very faint so I couldn't tell how much memory was integrated onto the package. There don't seem to be many other surprises inside, the new Apple TV is a $99 iPod Touch without the display and speaker/mic. The real potential for this platform (much like its predecessor) is realized if/when it's hacked. Until then it'll be a tough sell for many. Update: Looks like it has already been jailbroken (thanks crimson117), it's just a matter of time for folks to put the freedom to good use.
Check out the gallery!
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
23 Comments
View All Comments
Spivonious - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
I was wondering how they got it so small. It being an iPod Touch without a screen and battery answers that question.Can I put a USB TV tuner on it?
crimson117 - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
It's been jailbroken already: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/LoFfgtjJf...Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
You're very right! Updated :)Take care,
Anand
Gerom Carter - Saturday, June 9, 2018 - link
The latest technology of Apple product is the Apple TV and it features with latest updates. It is proving to be jailbroken and thus many users are facing some issues with this product, if the users want to know perfectly about this product they must visitmfenn - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
faint
/feɪnt/ Show Spelled [feynt] Show IPA adjective, -er, -est, verb, noun
–adjective
1. lacking brightness, vividness, clearness, loudness, strength, etc.: a faint light; a faint color; a faint sound.
feint
/feɪnt/ Show Spelled[feynt] Show IPA
–noun
1.a movement made in order to deceive an adversary; an attack aimed at one place or point merely as a distraction from the real place or point of attack: military feints; the feints of a skilled fencer.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
haha wow, long day already - thanks for the correction :)Take care,
Anand
Meaker10 - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
How about you quote your source, as ripping off sources is far worse than a spelling mistake.TheCheese - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
Man, you're a demanding little shit. Good thing Anand deals with this sort of stuff with good humor.Taft12 - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
You could learn a thing or two from Anand.cabjf - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
iFixIt posted their teardown. Many components, including the chip, are exactly the same as the iPad. The most interesting part is the 8 Gig flash chip with room to add another. It needs some storage to buffer, but 8 Gigs? My money is on an Apple TV app store. It may not make a lot of sense, until you think about apps that will work with other types of streaming or data sources. Even if Apple doesn't allow them in their app store, I bet the jailbrake crowd would be more than willing to provide just as they do for the iPhone. The last Apple TV has enjoyed a very active hacking community for such a niche device and moving to iOS will likely only make it that much easier to hack.