AirPlay on First Generation Apple TV

No. You need to update apple tv to 4.2.1 for airplay to work and that is not possible on the ATV1 (updates are no longer supported)

Airprint is supposed to enable wireless printing capabilities but it currently supports a limited selection of printers.

Message was edited by: vazandrew

Here's what Steve Jobs has to say:
It’s different technology. It does everything it did when you bought it.

From this site:
http://www.emailsfromstevejobs.com/2010/11/30/steve-says-airplay-on-1st-gen-appl e-tv-is-a-no-go-its-different-technology/

What Steve said might be technically correct, but it's still a load of crap. The first generation Apple TV could easy have it's software upgraded to work with Airplay and even stream Netflix. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see some "hack" that does it already, I've seen some stuff that comes close.

The fact is Steve doesn't want to upgrade the first generation Apple TV so that you'll go out and buy the second generation Apple TV. Saying anything else is disingenuous at best and a lie at worst.

The fact is Steve doesn't want to upgrade the first generation Apple TV so that you'll go out and buy the second generation Apple TV.

That may well be true, though the 1st-gen's hardware the completely different version of the OS makes it not just a slam-dunk to add such features. But regardless, this is what just about every manufacturer does at some point. It's rare for a company to make money on upgrades of products you already own, so they're going to limit new features to new versions of the product to entice you to buy it. This is the way of the consumer market, and thinking things will ever be any different is naive. Apple is generally better than most companies about providing upgrades to existing products, but at some point they have to sell people something new or go out of business. Apple could perhaps charge you for an OS upgrade to give the 1st-gen Apple TV some or all of the new features, but they'd probably have to approach the cost of the 2nd-gen ATV which would make it impractical.

'nuff said.

Regards.

Slam dunks or the behaviors of companies isn't the point. The point is that the upgrades could be done. Sure, the Airplay upgrade wouldn't bring in any new money (at least I can't see how it would), but the Netflix upgrade would.

It would be nice if Steve et al., just told the truth in a straight forward manner and said "Hey look, the new one is cheap, just go buy it, we're dropping any support for the old one. We're sorry if the people who owned the old ones got screwed, but that's how it goes some times."

Instead of that we get a lot of Apple apologists telling us how hard it would be to upgrade the versions already in use. That just isn't true.

Except people with the old one didn't get "screwed". The device is 4 years old. Apple gave it 13 free updates and added many features it did not have initially all for free. It has simply had its time. Four years is a long time in the tech world to continue giving free updates. Especially for major features like Airplay. Nobody got screwed as you try to call it. Heck, the original iPhone came out after the original Apple TV and I don't see anyone complaining that Apple is not adding Airplay support to it. Airplay support is not even on the iPhone 3G. The complaining and crying about this much older device over Airplay is baffling to say the least. Its a 4 year old device with an old outdated customized version of OS X Tiger for crying out loud. Not Leopard. Not Snow Leopard. Not the new Lion they are working on. Tiger. A customized version of Tiger. And the new device isn't even using OS X it is using iOS. So obviously the code is vastly different as SJ was hinting to in that email. You must not know much about software development.

And you think to add the new Airplay support for it is trivial on an old outdated operating system when they haven't even gotten all the bugs worked out with the new Airplay feature on the new one?

That doesn't mean it can't be done but that means it costs Apple money to do it and also means they must support it with customer support as well as more updates to fix any bugs with it. Since they are no longer selling the product and it is 4 years old it makes no business sense to do that. And any reasonable customer would understand that. But I do emphasize reasonable.

I can understand if you want them to add the feature and all but to suggest that Apple is somehow wronging their customers in this situation considering all the above is ridiculous.

Sure they got screwed. There are any number of posts in these very discussion groups by people who just bought a "new" AppleTV a week before the second generation appeared. Maybe they were silly for doing that or maybe they thought the first generation would be supported like it always had before.

The first generation Apple TV could easy have it's software upgraded to work with Airplay and even stream Netflix.

No. No matter how many times I explain it to you when you post comments like that you never seem to get it. It's time to let go.

James Elliott1 wrote:
Sure they got screwed. There are any number of posts in these very discussion groups by people who just bought a "new" AppleTV a week before the second generation appeared. Maybe they were silly for doing that or maybe they thought the first generation would be supported like it always had before.

Apple has a 14 day return policy. Seems like there was an easy solution if they had cared to take advantage of it.

if airplay was added to itunes so you could do it to your mac mini acting as media center
then it would be easy to port it to 1g appletv as it's the same os even if appletv 1g is old tiger

, the Airplay upgrade wouldn't bring in any new money (at least I can't see how it would), but the Netflix upgrade would

Apple almost certainly doesn't make a nickel off of Netflix sales. Netflix is in fact a competitor to the iTunes Store, so Apple loses money by providing Netflix support. Adding Netflix support benefits Apple only if it sells more Apple TVs, which of course it can't do with the 1st-gen ATV since Apple no longer sells it.

Instead of that we get a lot of Apple apologists telling us how hard it would be to upgrade the versions already in use. That just isn't true.

Yes, it is true. It would take dozens if not hundreds of programming hours to add those new features to the 1st-gen Apple TV OS. We can argue until the cows come home about whether Apple should, but the fact remains that it would a significant expense for Apple for not one dime of extra revenue.

You can all us "apologists" all you want, but the reality of the marketplace still exists. If you don't like it, there are many other companies whose products you can purchase. Buy whatever you feel best fits your needs.

Rudegar wrote:
if airplay was added to itunes so you could do it to your mac mini acting as media center
then it would be easy to port it to 1g appletv as it's the same os even if appletv 1g is old tiger

Uh... huh? Not sure how that's related to returning something within the 14 day return window.

its possible now with a new add on app. requires a simple hack. if you want it bad enough you will buy. this is not my site, just solving the issue.

http://blog.firecore.com/3631

Well said. I do feel bad for Apple TV owners who bought the product during the final year of production as they received substantially less value then early adopters. Then again, they didn't have to endure the buggy first version. I'm just happy that the last update to my Apple TV makes it look like the new one.

Bottom line is that it's not cost effective for Apple to engineer new software for the shrinking base of gen 1 Apple TV users when they have an rapidly growing base of new gen 2 Apple TV users.

All the same, my ATV1 continues to work fine as an AirTunes speaker, so I can stream from iTunes on my mac, also using newer versions of iTunes. So, AirPlay works from a mac, but not from an iOS device. What is the fundamental diffence?

When AirPlays for iOS was released, I expected it to be able to stream sound only to the ATV1, and sound and video to the ATV2.