I want Front Row Back

Only the second? Wow, I'm shocked.

Well a huge thank you, from me at least. I've freed myself from other more uneccessarily complicated media centres. I don't mind tinkering with things. And I don't mind a little bit of clutter. But Front Row is just so simple to navigate, it's totally worthwhile.

No worries about the rookie questions. I'll get those figured out.

I going to start over with my 10.3.1 itl once I get VideoDrive2. I'm going to reimport all my media then, to see if it will add all the metadata properly for me (hoping).

Either way, I'm keeping 10.3.1 and Front Row around.

At least until Apple does something about replacement!

Thanks again Edumara! Brilliant fix!!! HUGE THANKS!

Although I'm sure you've already discovered this, I've noticed today that my iTunes (10.3.1) Library wouldn't automatically update the contents acquired with iTunes 10.4+. In addition, I suspect that if you purchase an album using iTunes 10.3.1, swapping to 10.4+ using my script won't automatically import the new contents either. In any case, such purchases are included in the ITunes Music Library.xml file. So, here's what you have to do when, after purchasing some new audio or video files in 10.3.1 or 10.4+, you swap to the other version of iTunes:

1. Use my script to open the version of iTunes that is not aware of your latest purchase.
2. In the iTunes menu, go to File/Library/Import Playlist...
3. Navigate to your iTunes folder, presumably ~/Music/iTunes
4. Select "iTunes Music Library.xml"
5. Once the import is done, close iTunes.
6. Rerun my script and choose to run the other version of iTunes. This makes sure the newly imported data is copied to either "old-style iTunes Library.itl" or "new-style iTunes Library.itl", as the case may be. This is done so that the import will be permanent and keep libraries syncrhonised.

That's it. Enjoy.

I also use front row on a iMac 27' to see movies and photos. i want Front Row back !!!

So Apple don't update it if you want, but leave it function as before.

I just migrated to Mac OS X Lion because my MobileMe account was about to be removed and I had to move to Lion to get iCloud.

Well, I don't find any benefit in this move except that I paid for it and that my four years old daughter discovered that she can't access anymore to her movies via the "menu" button of the remote controller : well, now I know that I paid to get Front Row removed... please, put it back !

Gérald

I seem to remember using my snow leopard install dvd to install just frontrow onto lion.

It all seemed to work fine incl the remote.

Even if Front Row came back, it wouldn't solve the problem because it doesn't allow you to access the iTunes Store. For me the beauty of Apple TV (and the frustration of using a mac mini as a HTPC) is the ability to browse, preview, and rent movies. Front Row doesn't do this and it's ridiculous to try to use iTunes from 10 feet away!! Bringing back Front Row isn't enough. We need full Apple TV functionality running on OS X.

I believe we will get this in Mountain Lion, or if/when iTV becomes a reality. As I wrote previously, Apple knows how great their screens are for watching movies and TV shows, they know this is what we want.

I 100% agree. But it is still nice to have Front Row working for my personal media (for now). My hope is that Apple will develop a OS X App of Apple TV so I can simply pop into that as easily as Front Row, but have the interface & funtionality of Apple TV , or else redesign iTunes to make it a useful home theatre that works on big screen TV's.

That would be great, but none of the reviews or previews of Mountain Lion that I've seen mentioned it. Apple's supposed strategy of forcing users to switch to Apple TV makes no sense, either. Apple TV is basically just a shopping cart for iTunes. Why would Apple want to shut out a whole segment of shoppers??

There does not seem to be any good news about Front Row (or a replacement) from the June 2012 WWDC

http://www.apple.com/osx/whats-new/features.html

Grrr!

You can find Frontrowforlionenabler on mac.softpedia.com. Works fine.

I already have Front Row running in Lion but it has several shortcomings.

Thanks for the Softpedia suggestion but the page does warn

"Since the recent update to iTunes 10.4, Apple has changed how the library is read/written (iTunesAccess.framework). As such, your iTunes Library content will not play in Front Row. You can however access 'Photos' and 'Movies'."

Lack of access to the iTunes library is the main issue in this (long standing) discussion.

The really irritating thing is that I cannot stick with Snow Leopard running the built-in Front Row on my media-center iMac AND use iCloud services, since that requires Lion. I know there are some workarounds for iCloud with Snow Leopard but that will only lead to future frustration.

I have looked at buying a separate Apple TV but that also has major shortcomings compared with my current set-up of Snow Leopard and Front Row. This set-up is perfect for my needs and Apple is forcing me to abandon it.

An "Apple TV" app for the iMac would be great. I would even pay for it!

Hello Michael, for me Frontrow works good enough under Lion, and I doubt whether it will be back in Mountain Lion. (but I have no information). This was all I could do to help.

The Front Row files that I manually installed in Lion are still there after upgrading to Mountain Lion. I can get it to work in ML but, of course, I still cannot access my iTunes Library. I have found that purchased movies play which is good news.

Can you please explain what you do to make it work under ML? I also have the relevant SL Front Row frameworks and applications in the ML hard drive, but pressing Command-Esc or double-clicking the Front Row application won't take you anywhere (on my system). I thought launching Front Row was impossible because the relevant frameworks are 32-bit only. Can you please explain how Front Row works for you?