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10 tips for getting the most out of your Apple TV
Did you get a new Apple TV for Christmas? Or, are you looking at your old, faithful friend and wondering if there are any new tricks you can teach it? The folks over at Reddit compiled a number of great tips for the Apple TV, some that are familiar to us, and others we've never seen. A couple tips have come through our dealings with the ATV. Here are 10 ways to make your Apple TV work better for you. You can use your iOS device to set up your Apple TV. This will transfer your WiFi information, iTunes account and any region/language preferences you have. Are you playing a video or deep in a nest of submenus and want to quickly get back to the home screen? Just hold down the menu button, and it'll take you back to the top instantly. Put the Apple TV to sleep by holding the play/pause button on the remote. Press up on the remote during playback, and you'll get information about the video you're watching. Press select, and audio options will come up. Go into Settings > General > Restrictions, create a passcode and then you can select what apps appear on the Apple TV's home screen. Map any remote to the Apple TV by using Settings > General > Remotes. Tired of slowly keying in data or afraid you'll lose the included remote? Download Apple's free Remote app for your iOS device. Want to rearrange the icons on the home screen? Take a cue from your iPhone. Press and hold the center button on the remote until the icon begins jiggling, then move the icon where you want. A frequent complaint is audio not syncing when using the Apple TV. Rebooting the Apple TV will fix this. Take a look at third-party apps to boost your Apple TV experience. iFlicks will convert and boost the metadata on your files to have them looking as good as possible. Go for version 1 ($9.99), not the more expensive and buggy version 2 that's US$24.99. Beamer ($15) allows you to play any video format on your Apple TV by streaming it from your Mac via AirPlay. No need to convert a file. A free trial is available. There is also a way to get PlexConnect to work with the Apple TV via the Trailers app. Play around with your screen saver settings. You can use the default photos, but you can also select movie posters fed via the Trailers app, a specific Photo Stream or a Flickr album. Do you have any recommendations? Let us know in the comments.
Yesterday's Apple TV update blocks PlexConnect client
Apple pushed out a pretty nice Apple TV update yesterday that added five new channels to the set-top box. However, the update also prevents the PlexConnect streaming-media client from running on the Apple TV. Released in June, PlexConnect allowed Apple TV users to view stored movies on remote servers right through Apple's device without a hack. However, with yesterday's update, PlexConnect has been blocked. As MacRumors explains: The client, called PlexConnect, used a hack to get video from the Plex Media Server onto the Apple TV. A small Python program on the Mac intercepted DNS requests from the Movie Trailers app on the Apple TV and instead returned a custom XML feed that delivered a list of media and movie streams to the device. Now, however, Apple has closed the loophole. Previously, the Trailers app used regular HTTP requests and the PlexConnect app intercepted those requests. Now, the Trailers app uses HTTPS and it is likely impossible for the Plex programmers to overcome it. Plex's developers told MacRumors that they're sorry to hear Apple has blocked PlexConnect and can only hope that Apple will eventually release an official Apple TV SDK so developers can make apps with Apple's blessing.
Daily Update for June 5, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Plex media server on Apple TV ... without jailbreaking
So, you want access to Plex on your Apple TV, but don't want to jailbreak the little black box to do so? Never fear -- a hack created by Plex users Baa, roidy and f00b4r called PlexConnect makes the popular media server software available to Apple TV owners without the need to jailbreak. Like most workarounds, PlexConnect does involve a little deviousness. Users hoping to use PlexConnect must run a program on a computer connected to the Apple TV that pretends to be Apple's own Trailers app. Next, a network setting is changed on the Apple TV, after which the Apple TV begins to accept Plex content. Of course, a future Apple TV update could easily disable PlexConnect, but the Plex community is full of bright little stars who would probably be able to get the hack working again quickly. A video of PlexConnect at work, complete with loud nose-breathing soundtrack, is embedded below.
