Tablet and Mobile

Archive for the ‘Apple TV’ Category

Some time ago, I took my (then) Apple iPhone 3GS and jailbroke it. Why? Because I could and because I was sick of Orange trying to charge £10 a month for letting me share the 3G connection with my laptop.

That’s all history now, Orange have been kicked into touch in favour of the vastly superior THREE company and I now share unlimited 3G with my various devices.. When I moved up to the iPhone 4 I really could not see the point of jailbreaking the phone – but the Apple TV2 is different.  One of the biggest uses for Apple TV is to watch movies and guess what – you’re stuck with iTunes on your PC and Apple format movies.

Neither of the above is a problem for me – but converting movies to Apple format is not something your average person has much time for (couple of hours per video)… and so I took the plunge and had the thing jailbroken using the latest Sn0wbreeze (yup, that is spelled correctly).

The process is easy enough and takes a matter of half an hour including setup but the results are spectacular. Now I can watch movies and listen to music in a variety of formats. Not only that but I also have access to a NetGear ReadyNas Duo, an inexpensive and rather neat network backup device which just happens to be able to stream to the Apple TV – which means no more need to leave a computer on to access movies, pictures and music on the Apple TV. Between the low cost of Apple TV2 (sub-£100) and the Duo ~(sub-£100 excluding disks) – and the nature of the Duo which means with 2 disks you have redundancy (both store identical content – so if one disk goes down you continue on as normal) I now have a reliable solution for handling media at home without using a PC and without lengthy media conversion to suit Apple. It just so happens that software is available for both iPad and iPhone to handle this scenario also.

So is it worth jailbreaking the Apple TV2?  Most definitely – but if it turns your box into a stone – you are of course on your own – follow the Sn0wbreeze instructions carefully.

Update – at the time of writing – Apple TV 2 on the latest software (IOS5) cannot be successfully and usefully jailbroken – which is a shame. Of you want to use jailbreaking – don’t upgrade!

Ok, so you have your iPad, you have your movie on your PC… and it’s not in compatible format.. what do you do?

I use Handbrake, an excellent free program to convert videos for use on the iPad and importantly on the new Apple TV2.  My preferred method of watching movies is to store them all in iTunes on a PC in Apple TV format.. then stream to my iPad as needed using ServeToMe and StreamToMe (the former is a free download, the latter an App for the iPad and iPhone). You may want to merely download movies to the iPad itself for quality/travel purposes… but remember they take up lots of room.

AT LAST and without even as much as an announcement that reached my enthusiastic ears (I regularly check, Skype have made a FREE upgrade to allow VIDEO calls on the iPhone and iPad.

In an amazingly understated development which was not appearing in any of the usual chatter blogs, an update for Skype appeared today for the iPhone and the iPad, to version 3 – which supports video.  Obviously video OUT isn’t going to happen on the iPad but incoming video works a treat – and on the iPhone it’s down to which model. The 3GS has only the one camera (unfortunately on the wrong side of the phone) – I’ve no doubt now some enterprising Chinese company will come up with a clip-on mirror arrangement to turn the camera around because this development finally turns both iPhone and iPad into serious communication tools. Forget about Facetime, Skype has countless millions of users and apart from last week where they screwed something up, has proven to be an excellent alternative to the telephone and at least for one-to-one video it has for some time worked across a variety of platforms excluding of course the mobile phone and iPad.

All of that is now history, it worked at least for me straight out of the box and I’m now scouring the web for a mirror arrangement so I can do full video calls while I’m out and about.

While I’ve no doubt Skype will eventually get around to supporting the many and varied Android phones, don’t count on instant success there due to the hardware variations – iPhone users on the other hand – not a problem! Needless to say, their website doesn’t even MENTION Windows Phone!

What a nice Christmas present – Thank you, Skype! All you need to do now is add a “Send to Apple TV” button just to round things off nicely.

 

After all the media hype about “iPad killers” – has anyone noticed how quiet things have gotten recently? Novatech’s Windows 7 tablet got a severe bashing because Windows 7 remains badly-equipped for use by large fingers and the screen on that machine apparently isn’t that clever at an angle. Currys withdrew one of their two available Android models and so basically if you go shopping you’ll find the iPad and the Galaxy Tab, the latter of course being only 7” and having a lower-resolution screen than the iPad – the Tab did however in it’s first month manage to sell a respectable 1 million units so one would be daft to ignore it.

Other than that, what? The Dell Streak is basically a phone so really the Tab and the iPad are the only real players actually out there if you ignore the many units available on the web using older versions of Android and therefore hardly in the game. It amazes me that other manufacturers look to be going to miss the Christmas opportunity – I’d hoped that the Archos 101 would be the next contender because of it’s amazing price but according to PC PRO, it too has issues with poor screen readability. The reason this is important is because, unlike software, you can’t really upgrade the unit later to overcome such difficulties.

So why do we even need competition for the iPad? The unit is solid, reasonably priced, works a treat… yes indeed but the Apple unit still has some way to go before you’d throw the laptop out…

I’ve written a lot about the benefits of the iPad…. here’s a list of things that are NOT so good about the current iPad:

• No memory expansion
• No USB
• No camera
• No FLASH
• Airplay is still far from perfect
• Airprint is currently a joke, working only with a very limited number of printers
• The WIFI on the iPad still does not handle multiple access points properly

When the iPad came out, mobile connectivity packages were pants in the UK, with Orange and Vodafone competing to see who could offer the least monthly download for your money – and so 3G connectivity seemed like a joke which is why I bought the WIFI-only model – well that and the price, the top-of-the-range iPad is IMHO just too expensive for what you get – but then along came THREE who offer up to 15GB a month – now THAT’S more like it.  I’m using their branded MIFI unit and believe me, going through that amount of data is QUITE DO-ABLE so running a tablet on 3G really does need this kind of monthly allocation if you’re going to make heavy use of the unit.

Internet beginners might well ask “how on earth can you use up 15GB in a month” – well, let’s see, in a one-hour trip up the M6 listening to “The Big Cheese” radio station (as against various crap BBC stations which fade in and out and tend to bore one to death) I managed to consume 250Mb. I’ve never checked but I’m prepared to bet that watching an episode of “Have I got News for You” on the iPlayer would use up even more! Hopefully you get the point… if all you do is browse the web then the likes of the 3GM/monthly packages will probably do the job for you but once you see the possibilities that modern mobile systems such as the iPad, Galaxy and the new, larger mobile phones can give you, data use tends to rocket. I could see daily use of 1GB quite easily which takes you up to around the 15GB monthly allowance.

Once Apple get their act together with Skype and give us an iPad 2 with Skype video (or more likely, short term, Skype adds video to it’s Android line-up?) I could see video calls finally taking off en-masse – and that could change everything.

The good news is that various mobile operators are now starting to subsidise these tablets with contracts so the price barrier is starting to go away.

Meanwhile I’ve been struggling with the limits of Apple’s iTunes, probably the most miserable program in my PC armada of programs, iTunes excels in one thing and one thing only – organising your music collection.  If you’ve never looked at this, here’s my music line-up….

I’ve one PC at home that looks after our pictures, music and videos and stays turned on (monitor off) 24/7. It runs iTunes and talks to the Apple TV2 unit attached to our TV. Simply inserting a CD into the computer results in the entire contents of the CD including cover artwork, ending up copied to the hard drive and hence available within iTunes along with our pics and movies.

That in itself isn’t a great deal of use, but thanks to the addition of Apple TV and REMOTE (an App for both iPhone and iPad which lets you remotely control iTunes, select tracks and even build playlists) it is now possible to access all our media on the TV via a choice of remote control, iPhone or iPad – and it all works very well indeed. We tend to keep our latest pictures on Google Web Albums and access to that is missing like a sore thumb from Apple TV which prefers FLICKR (I don’t, mainly because of their association with Getty and Corbis) and I’m looking forward to the advent of APPS for Apple TV in the hope that one of them will add Google Web Album capability.

iTunes of course is far from perfect, the Airplay output to Apple TV straight from the PC will not work on either our main media PC or my laptop however thankfully via REMOTE, the PC will indeed stream to the TV without issue.

iTunes however is woefully inadequate at sorting tunes from a variety of sources or even in some cases at getting the right artwork so I’ve pressed two other programs into service – TUNEUP which is not free but does a great jog of getting artworks – and MediaMonkey which can be free and has some great facilities for organising your media. At long last I now have a working, practical media setup. All I need now is something to convert the optical output from the Apple unit – to work with my slightly-out-of-date HI-FI amplifier – it’s either that or scrap the TV and get one which has audio OUTPUT as well as input!

The new iPhone/iPad operating system upgrade known as IOS 4.2 is out NOW and available in UK iTunes.

The new upgrade allows multi-tasking and folders on the iPad just (same as iPhone) and at least in theory including new integration with Apple TV – and remote printing!

As you might imagine along with everyone else I was straight onto the updates… as the iPad was well overdue for this unifying upgrade….. and I was straight into iTunes full of anticipation at the new download – which I have to say took only a few moments… and then – the dreaded backup.

I left the backup running and went off for dinner with some colleagues only to return hours later to find I was no further forward, the little barber-shop indicator was STILL flashing away indicating that the backup had not even STARTED.

This is not unusual but normally you can just scratch the backup – but when doing an IOS update, iTunes won’t let you. I started again and went off to bed for the night.

3.30am I awoke for some reason and went over to the computer, STILL the backup was in operation, STILL no upgrades… so off I went on the web to look for a solution – and there is one… though you can spend ages looking for it among all the entries in forums full of doom and gloom about waiting hours for backups.

To save a lot of hassle – and be this on your own head… go here and grab BACKOFF. Close down iTunes, run this program and turn backups OFF.  VOILA. Load up iTunes… it just works. I managed to upgrade both my iPhone and iPad to the latest 4.2.1 operating system without as much as a hitch.

Having now put all my games in one place (thanks to folders) I’m looking forward to trying out the Apple TV upgrades later this week. In the meantime in the morning I’ll be reporting on my latest tool – the MIFI…. which will finally free my simple 32Gig Wifi-only iPad to roam the streets of Britain.

Rather disappointingly, it looks like AIRPRINT only currently works with a limited range of HP printers – which will be a blow for the millions who DON’T use HP printers.. and AIRPLAY doesn’t yet support SOME applications – no doubt in the coming weeks that will change. As long as it ends up working with StreamToMe, I’m happy.  More on the upgrades and the MIFI unit later.

And for UK users… SKYFIRE app is now available for the iPhone (not the iPad yet)… this browser ferrets out FLASH video web pages in a web page and offers to convert on the fly and let you access the video in an iPhone-compatible format. This browser was released some time ago but they had to back off because the conversions were too much for their servers. They’ve now re-released the browser, I went to the BBC website – the first video didn’t work – I gave feedback, the second video I tried on the site worked a treat!

So… the argument about Android versus Apple can start all over again – I suspect some manufacturers have some serious catching up to do…

 

Here’s a thing… anyone who’s looked at the Apple movie trailers will know that the quality is OUTSTANDING…  so it would be no surprise if the movie trailers on Apple TV were also outstanding – and indeed some are.

What is a bit concerning is the fact that some of them are NOT. Indeed some of the trailers are in old-fashioned 4:3 box format. The preview of 2010 is so bad it’s worse than an Internet rip-off.

This has nothing to do with the box, which can stream good quality video from the web and equally good quality from local files stored on your computer, though the first hack that lets me use DIVX movies without having to convert them over gets my vote.

Why on EARTH would Apple, trying to promote a new product (which by the way is excellent and would be even better if we Brits were not getting RIPPED at £99 as against $99 in the USA) allow such poor quality previews. As they want you to pay from £2,99 upwards to rent movies I’d expect a LOT more quality and a LOT more variety. This has the makings of something they’re not entirely sure about and so not putting TOO much effort into?

As I sit here in the early hours there is still no sign of the much-anticipated 4.2 IOS updates. The plan is they will be with us this week and will provide unity among all of the iTouch/iPhone/iPad gadgets. The important recipient of this upgrade of course will be the iPad as it is currently miles behind the iPhone in terms of multi-tasking and folders etc so that will be my first upgrade and I’m quite excited about the prospect!

But there is more as I’ve recently discovered… and what does this have to do with Apple TV you might ask? Well, a lot…

Rewinding a few days, it’s Maureen’s birthday today and I’ve been struggling with what to buy her. She’s an avid fan of watching movies on the go and uses her small laptop for email, music and movies – she’s also a fan of YouTube and we often turn this on when we have parties so folks can pick their own music video selections – it goes down well.  I’d planned on getting on of the new Android tablets for her and accordingly we sold her little Atom-powered netbook. Another option on the cards was a Windows 7 powered tablet… but that option quickly disappeared when I started cleaning up the netbook for sale and was reminded how painfully slow they are. In one of those Eureka moments I twigged that no matter what, a Windows 7/Atom powered tablet is going to be AT LEAST as slow as the netbook – and that’s just not on. So now we’re back to Android or Apple iPad.

Next stop PC World to check out the Android tablets. Well, really, despite the promise, what’s out there is just, well, rubbish. The new Galaxy Tab from Samsung is now available in the shops… and it has a VERY nice bright display, smooth touch-screen – and a camera!!! But hold on it still uses Android 2.2 – the very operating system that it’s designers, Google say is NOT ready for tablet use. Their own site states merely that  “Android 2.2 is a minor platform release including user features, developer features, API changes, and bug fixes”.

It seems manufacturers are jumping on the bandwagon eager to get product out regardless of the suitability or otherwise of the software. “Gingerbread” or Android 2.3 is supposed to be going to be much better – but WHO KNOWS – as we can’t get our hands on it to try it out – it might be no better than current offerings. The lady at PC World did her damndest to convince me that because the Galaxy Tab has a camera, it runs Skype video – which is just absolute TOSH. The Android implementation of Skype doesn’t even have a video SETTING! Of course neither does the iPhone or iPad but I’d be prepared to bet that with the possibility of an iPad 2 with video camera widely touted to appear next year, negotiations will be taking place.  The first fully working tablet with Skype video gets my vote. Why? When there are other alternatives such as Apple’s own video conferencing software? Simple really, the other alternatives have such a small market share they’re not worth a light. If you have Apple’s video conferencing solution it’s only going to work with other people with the same software – and that’s a very small number. Skype on the other hand has for some time been the most widely used of it’s kind, it’s free, it works on a variety of platforms and when I say works… with a good connection it is absolutely EXCELLENT and I can say that with a LOT of professional experience of running meetings over Skype.

But I digress, the point of this is that we decided to become a 2-iPad family, but once Maureen heard of the possibility of an iPad with video she’s decided for now to save up her pennies and wait. Which took us next to the iPad store and Apple TV afte a brief conversation with a fellow enthusiast in PC-World.

You may be aware that the new IOS enhancements will include something called Airplay, a piece of software that allows you to stream video and audio from one device to another… and this is where Apple TV comes in. Far from unique, the new Apple TV device comes in at just under £100 – a small and typically beautiful piece of Apple engineering, it plugs into your HD TV (hdmi only, owners of older TVs can look away now) and the Internet and lets you then, via it’s simple remote control, do a variety of things from streaming movies (an alternative if you like to LoveFilm) for a price (maybe £3.50 typically) from the Internet… but that’s only the beginning. If you’re an Apple user, you will typically have your music and movies on iTunes on one of your PCs. Certainly I’m no lover of the iTunes program, I think it’s slow and clunky but it does make sense to have all your multi-media in one place and I guess this is where Apple TV device differs from the rest – full integration with iTunes. Of course you can download or SYNC from iTunes to your iPad/iPhone/iTouch devices… but with the new Airplay will come the possibility to STREAM the media rather than download it.  Apple TV not only lets you rent movies but will work with your iTunes selection to make the lot (movies, music, pictures) onto your regular TV, straight over your Internet connection. Not only THAT but it will also (apparently, once the devices have been upgraded) allow you to view media playing on your devices ON THE TV by streaming straight from the device. I should point out that like iTunes, Apple TV does not like for example DIVX video and so you have to convert your movies to an Apple-compatible format such as M4V which thankfully works for PCs etc just as well as DIVX – assuming you have VLC or similar.

But it gets better, you can ALSO watch video podcasts, YouTube and Flickr accounts directly on Apple TV – the device uses less power than a nightlight and runs freezing cold.. all this for under £100. So, is this a pipedream? Well, I can’t tell you about Airplay until it comes out but the rest WORKS – and more, a trained monkey could set it up. This then would appear to be a must-have and it’s certainly the best thing I’ve bought since the iPad. Thankfully there is a free solution in the form of HANDBRAKE – a  rather superb free video convertor (Google it). I’m busy converting my movies over now..