Apple TV 1.1 Update
Writing by stickman on Wednesday, 20 of June , 2007 at 8:29 pm
I was just in the middle of writing my review of the Apple TV, when I noticed that there was new update available, taking it from 1.0 to 1.1 (Settings > About menu). You can find the actual update under Settings > Update Software. It takes about 5 minutes to download the update and then the Apple TV asks if you want to install it. If you select yes, it the Apple TV reboots and bingo its finished!
So what’s the biggest change? YouTube that’s what! This has been available on new Apple TVs for about a week and basically lets you watch YouTube on your TV.
Using the standard Apple remote you have the following options under the YouTube menu:
Featured
Most Viewed
Most Recent
Top Rated
History
Search
Log In
On the left hand side of this menu is cover flow like view of the first frame of the each YouTube video.
Within Most Viewed and Top Rated you have the option to view Today, ThisWeek or AllTime. Search of course means you have to enter the search term using the Apple Remote, possible but not hugely enjoyable.
I can see the History function been used to show your friends when they come over the amazing YouTube video you found the week before.
Exactly what Featured means is a bit unclear, I guess its some sort of YouTube/Apple selection? If I find out I will be sure to post.
Overall YouTube on the Apple TV is surprising well done, better at allowing you to browse for clips than searching but that’s to be expected due to the lack of keyboard. Certainly worth a play with.
If the numbers of Apple TV in the wild increases, it will be interesting to see if the network effect of people browsing TopRated and MostViewed rather than searching YouTube will create a more two tier system with the popular becoming more popular?
Apart from the YouTube function the update also includes the following security patch.
“A remote attacker may be able to cause a denial of service or arbitrary code execution A buffer overflow vulnerability exists in the UPnP IGD (Internet Gateway Device Standardised Device Control Protocol) code used to create Port Mappings on home NAT gateways in the Apple TV implementation. By sending a maliciously crafted packet, a remote attacker can trigger the overflow which may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue by performing additional validation when processing UPnP protocol packets. Credit to Michael Lynn of Juniper Networks for reporting this issue.”
Category: News, Firmware, AppleTV, Apple
- Add this post to
- Del.icio.us -
- Digg - Reddit -
Slashdot It!
