Although according to the official instructions, a paid developer account is required to perform the jailbreak, there is a way to do so for free.

Here’s a complete, step-by-step tutorial on how to jailbreak Apple TV 4 using the Pangu jailbreak tool on your Mac computer.

How to Jailbreak Apple TV 4

Requirements：

• An Apple TV 4 running tvOS 9.0 or 9.0.1
• A Mac
• A USB-C to USB-A cable
• Xcode
• A free Apple ID account with sideloading privileges (see below)
• Pangu tool 1.0
• iOS App Signer

Step 1: Disable Automatic Updates on your Apple TV (Settings > System > Software Updates; turn off Automatically Update).

Step 2: Dowload and extract both Pangu tool andi OS App Signer zip files.

Step 3: Login to Xcode with an Apple ID with sideloading privileges (get it for free by visiting the Apple developer center and agreeing to the terms; to login to Xcode, go to Xcode > Preferences > Accounts and click the ‘+’ sign).

Step 4: Go to File > New > Project > tvOS > Application > Single View Application > Next.

Step: Fill out the following fields

• Product Name: AppleTVJailbreak
• Organization: <Your name>
• Organization Identifier: com.jailbreak.appletv

Click Next > Create. Your new Xcode project will open.

Step 5: Connect your Apple TV to your Mac using the USB-C cable. Wait for Xcode to finish processing symbol files.

Step 6: Change the selected build device to the Apple TV by clicking the button at the top left to the right of the play button.

Step 7: Click Fix issue to create a provisioning profile for the device.

Step 8: When asked to add an Apple ID, click Add and sign in with your Apple ID.

Step 9: Click Fix Issue once again and select your account from the list of accounts. Xcode will automatically fix your code signing issues.

Step 10: Launch iOS App Signer, click Browse and select the atvipa.app file from the Payload folder in the extracted Pangu archive. Click Open.

Step 11: Choose your Apple ID from the list of Signing Certificates and make sure Provisioning Profile is set to tvOS Team Provisioning Profile: com.YourName.AppleTVJailbreak.

Step 12: Click Start and then Save to save the atvipa.ipa file to your desktop.

Step 13: Select Devices from the Window menu in Xcode.

Step 14: Click the + button under Installed apps, and select the atvipa.ipa from your desktop.

Step 15: A Pangu app will appear on your Apple TV. Launch the app to initiate and complete the jailbreak.

That’s it. Congrats! You have successfully managed to jailbreak Apple TV 4.

You can now SSH into it  using the Apple TV’s Wi-Fi IP address.

Be sure to follow Apple TV Hacks on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ for all the latest Apple TV-related news.

The post How to jailbreak Apple TV 4 with Pangu for free [Mac tutorial] appeared first on Apple TV Hacks.

Steve Troughton-Smith, a well-known iOS developer and hacker, discovered that HeadBoard, the tvOS UI, has “pretty complete” folder support inside. According to him, folders in tvOS work just like those in iOS – you drop an app on another app to create a folder. The folder takes the most likely category name from the apps inside but it’s also possible to give it a different name.

By “abusing lldb.“, Troughton-Smith was able to hack the tvOS and create his own folders. They can contain up to 9 apps. Pressing the play/pause button on the remote delates an app from a folder.

According to the hacker, this discovery could mean we’d see folder support before tvOS is 10.0. The current public version of tvOS is 9.0.

Related articles:

• MAME emulator running on Apple TV 4
• AirParrot 2: the ultimate companion app for Apple TV 4
• Official Plex app for Apple TV released
• How Apple is fixing what’s wrong with console gaming today

Be sure to follow Apple TV Hacks on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ for all the latest Apple TV-related news.

The post Apple TV 4 hacked to enable app folders appeared first on Apple TV Hacks.

We already know that the official Plex app is coming to the new Apple TV and now we’ve learned that other popular media streaming app – VLC, will be soon available on the Apple TV 4 as well.

VideoLAN lead developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf confirmed it on his blog today:

Oh, and one more thing… we started to prepare VLC for tvOS.

The only deatails he gave is that “some code to build VLCKit for the new tvOS was merged” and that the video playback is already working on tvOS 9.0 beta (image above).

VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is available on Macs and iOS devices.

The new Apple TV will be available at the end of October starting at $149 for a 32GB model and $199 for a 64GB model.

More on the 4th gen. Apple TV:

• tvOS not coming to Apple TV 2 and Apple TV 3
• How Apple is fixing what’s wrong with console gaming today
• Guitar Hero, Skylanders, and Geometry Wars coming to the new Apple TV this fall

Be sure to follow Apple TV Hacks on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ for all the latest Apple TV-related news.

The post VLC coming to the new Apple TV appeared first on Apple TV Hacks.