# Apple TV - Patchstick



## nice&easy mac&cheesey (Apr 10, 2008)

Let me start by saying that I am not affiliated in any way with any Apple TV patchstick business, nor any Apple related business for that matter.

I recently bought an Apple TV (so sweet!) and, after searching the forums, decided that I wanted to hack it. I'm not proficient with hacking and, to be honest, wasn't really geared up to learn. I just wanted a simple answer to my needs. I listened to the MacBreak Weekly podcast in which Merlin Mann talked about purchasing a USB drive with the patchstick already on it. He recommended AppleCore. A google search will find it for you if you want it. They looked great. The price was good. I called with a few questions... No response to a message requesting a call back. I called again the next day... No response again to a message requesting a call back. A few days go by (some on the weekend, to be fair). I do some more searching and find another patchstick site. This one however, is very poorly reported on in the patchstick community. It seems the guy running the show is reported to be profiting off of other people's hard work. So I do some more searching. I come across a member of this forum: "atvpatch".

I checked out his site... On-Site and Remote Support for Apple TV and Other Apple Products
Site looked okay. I emailed a couple of questions to him. Took a day or two (again, to be fair, they were days on the weekend) but I got a very personable response back from him. I ordered the patchstick from him the next day and got a very speedy two email response from him. One contained the tracking information for the patchstick and one contained the instructions for the stick once it arrives. So professional!

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to let anyone who is thinking of hacking their ATV but doesn't know where to start know about my experience thus far. I'll update this thread once the patchstick gets here and I install it.

So far, I'm very impressed. And oh, I forgot to mention that On-Site and Remote Support for Apple TV and Other Apple Products is based in Canada and was $5 cheaper than the AppleCore one I was going to get.

The guy from AppleCore returned my calls today. I told him I hadn't heard back after repeated calls so I got the patchstick somewhere else. He seemed surprised but was totally polite.

I apologize if this type of post is frowned upon and gets deleted by a moderator. I just wanted to let people know of my very positive experience thus far. People often write to complain; I just wanted to give atvpatch (not atvpatch.com by the way!!!) his credit as it is, so far, very much due. :clap: 

Thanks,
n&e, m&c


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## gtgt (Jul 19, 2005)

Nice to hear the site is in Canada.
Good luck with your patckstick. I must prepare you though.
Just getting the patchstick is the easy part. You are in for a big battle now. ssh'ing and coding and so forth.
The hardest part is to get the atv to show up in your side bar like it was an attached hard drive (apple file sharing). Not too necessary to do, but so handy.
Once you do however, the atv is sooo sweet. You just drag any type of file you want to it and voila, it there to be played. And you can hook up an external usb drive and it see's that too.
Personally, I think the best way to hack it would be to clone a disk image of a fully hacked atv disk to the hd of your atv. It involves taking your hd out but it's not hard to do.
What really gets me is that the atv is fully capable of being the best media product out of the box but Apple chooses to cripple it. I suppose it has to do with drm or just selling more from their store. Anyway good luck and nice to hear your good experience Canadian story.


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## atvpatch (May 12, 2008)

Thanks for this positive review !

To clear up a bit the confusion around atvpatch and atvpatch.com - we (AppleTV&More) have been using [email protected] as our primary email address from the beginning. 
When Cisco from former ATV4Windows.com changed his site to atvpatch.com, we decided to change our email address to [email protected] to reflect that we are not at all affiliated to atvpatch.com. So we apologize for the confusion.

Regarding issues / problems with the Patchstick - we include a free 15 min support session (email, chat etc.) with each Patchstick, so in case you really run into trouble, we are there to help you.

Happy Hacking  

AppleTV&More, a Canadian business


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## harvey499 (Aug 5, 2008)

How's it going?


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## nice&easy mac&cheesey (Apr 10, 2008)

*re: update*

I had written a long update but when I hit "post reply" it was lost (as has happened to me repeatedly on this site) and I just did not have the will to re-do it at the time.

I'll post an update shortly. 

n&e, m&c


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## nice&easy mac&cheesey (Apr 10, 2008)

*ghost of threads past...*

I know, I know, it's an old thread.

Anyway, sort of an update here : http://www.ehmac.ca/ipod-itunes-iphone-apple-tv/82550-anyone-have-atv-flash-their-apple-tv.html

n&e, m&c


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