Admit it, you’re not necessarily a fan of all Apple’s products. Some are life changers for sure – you’ll have to pry my iPhone out of my cold, dead hands. Others are maybe more, ‘meh’. iTunes falls into that latter category for a lot of people. While it was groundbreaking back in the day, these days it is more of an unkempt warehouse for Apple to cram things into. So how do you maintain your love for your Apple TV, while hating iTunes and not using it?

The big problem is that your Apple TV requires you to fully incorporate all your media (music, photos and video) into your iTunes catalog, if you want to connect that media to your Apple TV. This is easy if you’re buying all your stuff in iTunes. But if you’re like a lot of people, your media comes from a lot of different places – ripped CDs/DVDs, downloads from Amazon, friends, etc. Not all this is quickly or cleanly imported into iTunes, ignoring that many of us just don’t remember to do it all the time.

younity makes it easy to use your Apple TV for all your media, even if it is not in iTunes. When you install younity on your computer, it indexes your hard drive for all your video, music and photos. When it discovers all of it, it reads the file metadata (stuff like the artist name, album, song, movie title, etc.). If your content is in iTunes, younity will have all your library categorization, like your playlists; but for all your media not in iTunes, younity will automatically organize it into the same type of sections for Artist, Album, Songs, etc.

younity turns your computer into a personal media server, so you can stream all your video, music and photos to your iPhone or iPad without having to sync. This means you can carry all your digital content around with you, without taking up any storage on your mobile devices. When you want to access something, younity streams it from your computer to your mobile device.

Of course, younity also uses AirPlay, which means that you can stream everything on any of your computers directly to your Apple TV – with or without using iTunes. You can still browse your music library by Artist, Album, Playlist, etc., because younity will read all your media’s metadata and recreate those lists for you – no importing required.

You can also use younity to access all your computers at once , instead of one at a time, to stream any of your content to your Apple TV.

Click here to learn more about younity.

Throughout our series on hacking your Apple TV with younity we’re giving away FIVE Apple TV 4s! Enter below until 10/31 for your chance to win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

younity is a simple easy and free app that enables your computer to work like a home media server, giving you access to all your media files on your computer from your iPhone or iPad.

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Well, yesterday’s WWDC keynote turned out to be a disappointment for Apple TV fans. After years of rumours and speculations, we thought we would be finally seeing the Apple TV 4 launch, but it din’t happen (like NYT reported). The only Apple TV-related news was the Apple Music.

If you haven’t heard already, Apple announced their own music streaming service yesterday, called the Apple Music. It is tagged “All the ways you love music. All in one place.” and is exactly that.

In the present scenario, music fans have to use multiple services to follow what they love – iTunes to purchase music, Pandora-like internet radio services, Spotify to stream music, Twitter to follow artists, Instagram for their photos and more. And each of them have their own fees and ads. Apple created Apple Music as a new Music app which will bring all these features into a single app.

The My Music tab harbours all your purchased songs and For You makes recommendations based on your tastes. You can also view the top charts and latest trending music right within the app.

Beats 1 will be a 24/7 radio station that broadcasts globally and lives right within your Music app.

Connect will let artists share videos, photos, ‘behind the scenes’, statuses and more within the app while users can comment, like and share them, adding high level of interaction between them.

Apple Music will be ad-free and cost $9.99/month, or you can subscribe to the family package of $14.99/month, which can be shared by 6 users. You can also avail a free trial of 3 months before committing to the subscription.

The service will launch on iOS, WatchOS, OS X and Windows on June 30. However, a quick glance through the subsite (and through the press release) confirms that the Apple Music will launch on Apple TV this fall.

We don’t have any more details at this point, but we believe a new Music channel will pop up on Apple TV and carry the same features. This might coincide with the Apple TV 4 launch.

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

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Even with the earlier versions of the app, doubleTwist Music Player has been unique by being the only Android app in its class to support AirPlay streaming right out of the box.  However then, the app could beam only the local songs on your device and not the music from its streaming service. And you can guess, what the latest update does.

You can now choose from Magic Radio’s huge catalog and broadcast it directly to your Apple TV or any other AirPlay enabled receivers.

This update also brings support for Qualcomm’s AllPlay, despite the brow-raising fact that doubleTwist Music Player hasn’t earned the support for Google Cast feature yet.

Our latest doubleTwist Music Player Android update brings something magical: now you can blast your favorite Magic Radio stations on your AirPlay-compatible speakers or stream music through your Apple TV, directly from your Android phone.

In short, if you have an android device incapable of Wi-Fi streaming to your new set of speakers, you can “go ahead, remove your headset, relax and pump up that volume!” thanks to Magic Radio (provided you can spare 9 bucks/month as subscription charges).

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

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doubleTwist has released a new tweak that adds AirPlay support for Google Play Music. A hack named AirPlay for Android makes use of the API in Android 4.1 which adds support for streaming devices. It is available right now on Google Play as an app, MagicPlay: AirPlay for Android for $2.99. Though publicized as a way to stream Google Play Music from Android to Apple TV, they’ve clarified that this hack will work with any music app that supports Google Chrome Casting.

In order to get AirPlay feature for your Android, you can follow this official guide:

1. Install the doubleTwist AirPlay for Android package
2. Launch the Google Play Music app and tap the Cast (streaming) button
3. Grant root access when prompted (this patches the plugin whitelist)
4. Force stop the Google Play Music app and relaunch it
5. AirPlay devices on your WiFi network should now appear when tapping Cast

Android has a built-in white list feature, which regularly checks for streaming devices and disconnects anything other than Nexus Q and Sonos, for which the API was initially designed. So you might have to restart the app now and then to shake Apple TV off this list. But if you’re already rooted, this caveat is automatically patched by the tweak and things are bright as ever.

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

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