The Apple TV iOS app hack has been improved in the last hours of 2011 after updates by Steve Troughton-Smith and Canadian developer TheMudkip. Along with help of a launcher from Grant Paul, the team has managed to get full-sized iPad apps running on the TV. Apps can run windowed or at full screen, and proofs of concept have been used with Angry Birds, Cydia, Facebook, Safari, and YouTube.
The combination of a jailbreak-based launcher and the new platform still leaves significant bugs. Apart from the lack of touch, it also doesn’t support auto-rotation and might not work properly at this early stage. It does, however, have VNC to allow remote screenshots and similar control.
Troughton-Smith has hoped that the hacking might convince Apple that it could institute its own app platform on the Apple TV. He saw unofficial apps on the iPhone in 2007 eventually leading to the App Store in 2008, although that’s more commonly attributed to having extra time and competitive pressure rather than hacks.
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