Apple Core Stops Selling TV Hacking Dongle
May 30, 2008 by Sean R.
Filed under Home Entertainment, Misc. Gadgets, Peripherals
Apple Core is a company which sells Apple TVs with upgraded hard drives and, until yesterday, a very handy little USB stick called aTV Flash.
The thumb drive was a plug and play solution to hack your Apple TV, bringing a slew of extra features for just $60.00 USD. After restoring your Apple TV to factory defaults, you slip in the aTV. It goes to work and installs all the extra software needed.
Because the process is reversible (just do another factory restore) and it doesn’t involve physically opening the Apple TV, it doesn’t void your warranty.
Here are the features, as listed by MacMerc:
- Play most video formats (DivX, Xvid, AVI, WMV, RMVB + more)
- Play DVD files WITHOUT converting them [ripped VOB files]
- Sync, organize and watch non-iTunes video files
- Browse the web with a Safari b ased web browser
- Rent & watch Hi-Def movies from Jaman.com
- Stream media from UPnP(v1) media servers
- View local weather forecasts
- View RSS Feeds
- Enable SSH access
As you can see, a pretty significant upgrade. Yesterday, however, Apple Core stopped selling the device:
Due to questions arising regarding the fair use of a particular file present on the aTV Flash, and conflicting opinions as to whether or not it falls under the fair use category, we have VOLUNTARILY discontinued offering the aTV Flash at this time.
In our interpretation of the fair use doctrine, our software does not cross any lines, but since this is a grey area issue, we have taken a proactive approach and decided to seek clarifcation directly from the rights holder before we offer the product again. We are working with them to resolve this, and will have updates posted here as they become available.
Interestingly, all of the tools included on the drive are available elsewhere. The aTV just packages them and does the heavy lifting for you.
It’s hard to tell from Apple Core’s statement whether Apple has put pressure on them, or whether the litigious environment in the US made the company jittery (the new version has received a lot of recent publicity).
I imagine the smart thing to do, though, would be to release the software package as a download and let the evil hacking criminal consumers copy it to our own thumb drive 
Source: Apple Core, LLC
I’m happy to see a company remove a product before they get a take-down notice simply because they aren’t sure. We need more like this in the world to try to keep people honest.
I’m all for bit torrent, media copying, etc as long as it’s legal and if they aren’t sure, they should be commended for taking it down now.
@Jesse: I agree that removing a product or service when you’re not sure of legal issues is always good. Better safe then sorry.
However at the same time this dongle is pretty cool and just goes to show that some corporate “fruit” (har har) companies should be a little more open to third party add-ons and modifications, or at least come up with some of this on there own to bring in new customers.
I hear it is back now. Anybody tried it to see how well it works?