I am looking at getting an Apple TV. When I first looked at it, I wasn't entirely sure whether to get one, as at £200 for the 40GB version, it isn't cheap for something which just streams your video and audio to the TV.

Then I saw some of the hacks people have come up with, which look fantastic and seem to turn it into a little mini mac.

My question is, will I be able to get features such as internet browsing on it without installing Mac OS X on it, or having a Mac already? And what other great hacks are there for it which I could do with just an external HDD?

Thanks to all who help

Just look at that wiki: http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Main_Page

There you'll find all the infos about appletv hacking: Plugin, Tools, Tutorials.

ash

I noticed the patchstick hacking method, but it says there it needs Mac OS X, which I don't have. I use Windows. Is there any patchstick method which will work without a Mac?

Originally Posted by Nook29

I noticed the patchstick hacking method, but it says there it needs Mac OS X, which I don't have. I use Windows. Is there any patchstick method which will work without a Mac?

Yes: http://atv4windows.com/viewpage.php?page_id=2

Shame it costs, unlike the Mac version. I guess if that's the only option, I'll have to go with that.

well it was for free as far as i know. Well perhaps you could try the linux way: http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/

Or download an osx86 install dvd, copy it to an external hdd and boot the atv off that usb hdd. Via terminal you could then copy ssh to your atv hdd.
Restart your atv from the internal hdd and you should habe ssh enabled.

I didn't try this myself, but i guest it should work.

Says at the bottom it costs $19.99.

I could try that method.

Yeah ATV4windows costs. Not much though. And it gets you a subscription to their future updates that the guys develop all the time.

As a non mac user there wasn't really any alternative. I tried OSX86 in a virtual machine but that got me nowhere.

Well, you don't need to install osx86. You only need to boot the install dvd. This will allow you to run a terminal. From there on you can follow the mac os instructions to install ssh.

Though for a non-terminal-windows user i can imagine that this is quite hard to do. But perhaps you know a linux-savvy geek who can help you.

Or you could ask someone from forum.awkwardtv.org, appletvhacks.net/forums or here in the hackintosh forum to create a patchstick for you, compress it and upload it to, say, rapidshare ...