UPDATE: Although it has been confirmed by @MuscleNerd that evasi0n would support Apple TV 2, it seems that it doesn’t. Based on earlier news from evad3rs team, we believed their jailbreak was compatible with Apple TV 2 when publishing the below post just a few minutes after evasi0n went live. We are very sorry for causing confusion. We now have to wait for Seas0nPass to be updated with iOS 6.x support for Apple TV 2. We believe it won’t take long.

UPDATE 2: How to jailbreak Apple TV 2 5.2 (iOS 6.1) using Seas0nPass (untethered; Mac & Windows)

Evad3rs, a group of four top iOS hackers (@pod2g, @musclenerd, @pimskeks and @planetbeing) has just released a long-awaited evasi0n jailbreak for all iDevices running iOS 6.0 through 6.1, that include Apple TV 2 running software version 5.1, 5.1.1 or the latest 5.2. This is an untethered jailbreak, meaning you will be able to reboot your Apple TV without attaching it to a computer. Evasi0n jailbreak doesn’t support Apple TV 3 (however, there is some hope that it will in the future).

Here are the direct download links:

• evasi0n jailbreak for Mac OS X
• evasi0n jailbreak for Windows
• evasi0n jailbreak for Linux

Official mirrors.

Requirements:

• 5 minutes of your time
• A computer running Windows (XP minimum), Mac OS X (10.5 minimum) or Linux (x86 / x86_64)
• An Apple TV 2 running iOS 6.0 through 6.1 (Apple TV firmware 5.1 through 5.2)
• A micro USB cable to connect ATV to the computer

Apple TV 2 running iOS 5.x (atv software version 5.0.2 and earlier) can be jailbroken using Seas0npass.

The post Evasi0n iOS 6.x untethered jailbreak for Apple TV 2 released (updated) appeared first on Apple TV Hacks.

OpenELEC is not, necessarily, new to the Apple TV scene. What is new is that they have recently released OpenELEC 2.0, a stable version of their software based on XBMC Eden. This gives the Apple TV a strong and stable, standalone, XBMC experience. With it being an Eden build, it even offers your little silver box AirPlay! The team has added a few functionality increases to XBMC and even has a custom group of add ons and services that are made available to OpenELEC users only. These tools alone, make this a project worth looking at! If you are interested, you can find more specific information for this project at openelec.tv. To save you the visit, here are some of the key points made by their team:

What is OpenELEC?

Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center, or OpenELEC for short, is a small Linux distribution built from scratch as a platform to turn your computer into a complete XBMC media center. OpenELEC is designed to make your system boot as fast as possible and the install is so easy that anyone can turn a blank PC into a media machine in less than 15 minutes.

Key Features:

• It’s completely free
• Full install only 80-125MB
• Minimal hardware requirements
• Trivial install onto HDD, SSD, Compact Flash, SD card, pen drive etc
• Optimized builds for Atom, ION, Intel, Fusion etc
• Simple configuration via XBMC
• Plug and Play external storage
• File sharing out of the box

Required?

1. Mac, or Linux, computer
2. USB Stick,with at least 1 Gig of memory (to be on the safe side)
3. Apple TV 1
4. Remote Control
5. 10-20 minutes

STEP 1:
Connect the USB key to your machine, then open your Terminal app (For Mac it is located in /Applications/Utilities) and cut/paste the following commands to download the AppleTV SwissArmyKnife USB creator script for Mac OS X:

• curl -O https://chewitt.openelec.tv/atv_swissarmyknife_osx.sh
• chmod +x atv_swissarmyknife_osx.sh
• sudo ./atv_swissarmyknife_osx.sh

STEP 2:

The script will ask you confirm the /dev/disk# for the USB Drive. It runs with root privileges so please be careful with your selection! You will see a list of all current drives available on your machine… so simply look for the name and size of your thumb drive. Once the target device has been confirmed the script will repartition the USB Stick, download files needed to boot the AppleTV (11MB) and then install them to the thumb drive. It should take no more than a couple of minutes to complete, at best.


PLEASE NOTE: If you choose the wrong drive, you could accidentally delete important content. Make sure you read the list of available devices carefully. Mine, for example was a 2 GIG drive that I named UMOUCH-ATVH. Once I knew the drive, I entered “/dev/disk2” and hit Enter. You are then prompted to confirm the election… type in “Y” for yes. When complete, your output will match the image below:.STEP 3:
Power the AppleTV OFF and then connect the USB Stick to the single USB port, between the Ethernet port and the Power Cable on the back of your device.

STEP 4:
Power the AppleTV ON (Plug it in). After 10-15 seconds you should see the Grey/Blue OpenELEC logo on the screen, then the “SwissArmyKnife script” will start and confirm the current keyword function. The default keyword is “install”. This is where the device will download the OpenELEC software from the OpenELEC website.

STEP 5:
Before anything destructive is done, the installer will pause for roughly 30 seconds, and display a warning message; this ensures you enough time for you to power the AppleTV off (remove the power cable) before anything is changed. After the 30 second wait the installer continues. 

What is Happening  (advanced):

Once it completes, a message will be displayed telling you it is safe to remove the USB key and reboot.

That’s It! If you followed the steps correctly, you should have XBMC running as your standalone operating system! If you had any troubles with the process, openELEC has a great source for troubleshooting any, and all, issues: Troubleshooting USB Key Creation & Opperating System!

The post Give Your Apple TV 1 New Life With OpenElec 2.0 (installing XBMC) appeared first on Apple TV Hacks.