Airplay on old Apple TV

Apple - are you listening? I have been a loyal customer back to the original Macintosh SE and with every update I have never felt more left behind than I do now. I paid $400 for an Apple TV a year ago and now I can't use AirPlay.....? ***! Are you going to take care of us 1st generation folks who paved the way for you to make AppleTV2 or leave us behind in the dust? How about at least a discount for us 1st Gen owners if the original hardware can't hack it?

Apple has to know our opinion. Let's go
https://expresslane.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.do#tab-product-cats
and ask them:
1. How to use the airplay on ATV1?
2. Why I can't?
3. How is Apple buying back our ATV1?

Here's the thing, though, capaho,

I know you're probably right on a few things but on the Airplay page ( http://www.apple.com/itunes/airplay/), Apple themselves claim +"AirPlay wireless technology will be arriving inside speakers, AV receivers and iPod accessories, making it possible to enjoy your entire iTunes Library — every song and every playlist — in every room."+

This means the Airplay protocol will be available on various third party TV set ups and speakers which also do not run iOS or OSX but can receive a Wi-Fi signal. Is the AppleTV device the company were happy to sell a few short months ago, at full price, therefore not classed as an AV receiver? As with Airport Express, additional hardware is not necessary either for these future speaker and video manufacturers to include the feature. Since Airplay is merely a way of translating information received over a WiFi signal it is not such an massive ask to add the plug-in as a final update to everyone who paid a premium price for such a promising product before it was taken seriously.

Stephen Reilly wrote:
Here's the thing, though, capaho,

I know you're probably right on a few things but on the Airplay page ( http://www.apple.com/itunes/airplay/), Apple themselves claim +"AirPlay wireless technology will be arriving inside speakers, AV receivers and iPod accessories, making it possible to enjoy your entire iTunes Library — every song and every playlist — in every room."+

This means the Airplay protocol will be available on various third party TV set ups and speakers which also do not run iOS or OSX but can receive a Wi-Fi signal. Is the AppleTV device the company were happy to sell a few short months ago, at full price, therefore not classed as an AV receiver? As with Airport Express, additional hardware is not necessary either for these future speaker and video manufacturers to include the feature.

Apple was speaking about future AV devices; they certainly made no claim that every existing AV device would acquire this technology. It is very unlikely that you will see any previously available AV devices retrofitted to use Airplay. At minimum, some sort of firmware upgrade would be required. More to the point, it would require an additional investment in software development, debugging, and user support, for older hardware that will not be bringing in additional sales income to the company. It is a fact of life that a commercial company has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders, who expect to see a return on investment. This will tend to preclude spending money on enhancing old products, when the same investment into new products would bring substantial income to the company. For the same reason, don't expect TV manufacturers to be offering retrofits to give 3D capability to the TV that you bought last year. Yes, it would be technically possible, and probably not even difficult, but it makes better financial sense for the company to offer 3D as an incentive to buy a new TV.

Or to put it into plain English: "Don't hold your breath. You got what you paid for. If you want new features, we have a shiny new product to sell you."

DanLaguna wrote:
A definitive Apple response to this topic would be appreciated Mr. Jobs. Nobody likes playing guessing games. Tell us what you're going to do with ATV1 and we can all made decisions accordingly. Many thanks.

Not likely. Apple's policy has been not to divulge future plans. The rare exceptions have been when it would help to sell a product, which obviously doesn't apply here. The most reasonable expectation is that future support for ATV1 will be similar to that for other discontinued products--i.e. limited to maintaining its existing capabilities as opposed to adding new features.

Regardless, a user forum such as this is likely not the most effective place to convey your wishes to Apple management. You might want to make your case at their feedback site, http://www.apple.com/feedback/

A lot of people here are missing the point - Apple specify that 1st gen AppleTV (software version 3.02) is able to receive streamed content from any AirPlay enabled device: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4437

I've got the same issue as a load of others here - iPhone with AirPlay can stream to my Airport Express but not my ATV gen 1. iTunes 10.1 on my Mac can stream to either the Airport or the ATV.

This is a bug, not an issue with a product being obsolete, and as such it needs fixing.

A lot of people here are missing the point - Apple specify that 1st gen AppleTV (software version 3.02) is able to receive streamed content from any AirPlay enabled device: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4437

Thanks for pointing that out.

This is a bug, not an issue with a product being obsolete, and as such it needs fixing.

If it's a bug in the AirPlay software, an iOS a bug fix should resolve the problem for the ATV1 as far as audio is concerned.

so many people keep talking about apple not going and rewriting code for the old appletv, but the point is that there should be no code to write!

airtunes is the older, audio only version of airplay.
the apple airport express has an audio output and supports airtunes.
it has not had any special update to enhance this support to "upgrade" it to airplay
an iphone running 4.2.1 can stream to an airport express

thus, logically, ios 4.2.1 must support airtunes!

the g1 appletv supports airtunes, so an ios 4.2.1 device should be able to stream audio only to it with no extra code. we know that it doesn't, but the previously referenced apple webpage http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4437 states that it should work.

thus it would seem that it not working is a bug rather than a decision to screw the customer. I'd like to see them fix this bug, but I don't see any need to apple to start wholesale rewriting big chunks of code. ****, the bug is probably in the ios code, being as airtunes works fine from a mac.

dave

travelboy wrote:
I don't care about video. I want AUDIO streaming!

The problem is not in ATV1. ATV1 doesn't need any update. It already plays audio streamed to it (from iTunes). iOS can also stream to 5 year old Airport Express (which uses the exact same protocol). Thus, the fact that ATV1 doesn't appear as a streaming destination in iOS 4.2 has no technical reasons whatsoever. The reason is that Apple made the conscious choice to hide ATV1 from the streaming destinations menu in iOS although both devices are ready to work together with no additional code to be written.

As others have pointed out, according to Apple's specs, any iOS device is supposed to be able to stream audio to an Apple TV1:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4437
So if audio streaming is not working at the moment, it not a "conscious choice," but a bug in the just-released iOS update, which should be fixed in due course. So just file a bug report with http://www.apple.com/feedback/.

Fedux wrote:
Like someone else said here, there are around 1st gen. TVs that are only 1 or 2 months old! Also if someone can do it, tell me if, rationally, there's something that the 1st model couldn't do... The new one isn't more powerful and you know it by the fact they both can play at maximum only 720p movies.

Ask and you shall receive. Yes, both can play 720p but the Apple TV1 is rated to play 720p video only up to 24 fps, while Apple TV2 is rated to play 720p video at 30 fps.
http://support.apple.com/kb/sp19
http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html

Of course, while the original model is over 4 years old, and Apple has had a lot of experience getting the best performance out of it, the Apple TV2 is new, so it is possible that Apple's current specs do not represent its true limits.

I call shenanigans on his response but it's not unexpected. Mr. Jobs is missing the expectations of his customers. I for one expect that when I purchase a smartphone, a blu-ray player, TV, Apple TV or a computer (anything that is upgradable through software) that it will get additional functionality in the future. In fact, most companies advertise the ability to upgrade as a selling feature. My iPhone has had updates that supported additional functionality, so had my TV, blu-ray player, and Apple TV. Yes, it does everything it did when I purchased it but when I purchased it I expected it to be upgraded in the future with new features. Just look at the current Apple TV gen2, the website shows "coming soon" explaining Airplay as a new feature (they've apparently not updated the webpage).

http://www.apple.com/appletv/


His "It's different technology" is misleading at best. I can use Airplay to stream audio to my bluetooth headset (the icon show up on my iphone and lets me pick between the iphone and my headset.) Airplay is not a hardware, it's software. In fact, I venture to say that Airplay is a concept. To say it's different technology is a cop out and meant to fool the masses.

ha - now look at this page from apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4437

The table shows that it should be possible to:
"Play streamed audio from an AirPlay-enabled device." to "Apple TV (1st generation)"

So now we should all stop shouting if it is fair or not for Apple to block airtunes audio streaming from our new iOS4.2.1 devices to AppleTV1 while it works out of the box to the airport express...

*It is supposed to work!*

Now let's all move to a thread that there is a BUG in the sw that it does not work...

It's clearly not a typo. Somebody went to the extra effort to merge the table cells for the Airport Express and the Apple TV1 to make it clear that they have identical capability to stream audio from an AirPlay enabled device.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4437
People have been calling Apple tech support about this, and presumably filing bug reports, yet the support document has not been modified, nor is there any technical reason why this should not be possible. So the simplest explanation is that this is a bug in the current version of AirPlay, and that it does not yet properly recognize the Apple TV1 as a target for audio streaming.

i guess it was a typo.. LMAO.. since it's now been fixed.. doh! lol..

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4437

*Apple TV (1st generation) -> Apple TV software version 2.3 or later. -> Play streamed audio from iTunes on your computer.*

AirPort Express (all models) -> AirPort firmware 7.4.2 or later. -> Play streamed audio from an AirPlay-enabled iOS device or iTunes on your computer..

Apple TV (2nd generation) -> Apple TV software version 4.1 or later. -> Play streamed videos, music, and photos from an AirPlay-enabled iOS device. Play streamed videos or music from iTunes on your computer.

Michael Schoop wrote:
right... I dutifully copy Apple's website pages about upcoming features 🙂

That's a rationale expectation you'd have?

The info about the new features for the new iOS, however, followed Steve Jobs media seminar about those features. Of course it is no longer posted. So I can only ask others that read what I read and have them chime in. Specifically:

With AppleTV1 being the only model for sale at the time... Steve Jobs and the website advertised the attributes of the new OS before it was released.... and specifically stated that the next iOS version would allow video streaming to Apple TV.

Jobs's informal work-in-progress presentations about features that Apple hopes to include in an unreleased OS version hardly constitutes advertisements or specifications. But even then, I don't remember anything in any of Jobs's presentations that could reasonably be read as a commitment to bring AirPlay to AppleTV1. It is not true that his presentations are no longer posted; they can readily be found on Apple's web site:
http://www.apple.com/apple-events/
So perhaps you can point out to me where Steve promises to bring this feature to AppleTV1?