Modifying the Apple TV 4th Gen

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Level 1

22 points

Modifying the Apple TV 4th Gen

I didn't do my research before buying my Apple TV 4th Gen. I have 2 Apple TV 1st Gens (160Gb HD) whose hard drives finally quit, so I bought the 4th Gen to replace them without confirming that the 64Gb could natively host media files without having to stream from my macbook pro, which is the feature I most want out of my Apple TV. Obviously, I know now that the Apple TV 4th Gen is designed not to do this.

I had my Apple TV 1st Gen connected to my home theater receiver which, in turn, is connected to a 6 zone speaker selector. The speaker selector distributes sound to 5 zones inside my house, and 1 zone outside in my backyard. I use Apple Remote App on my iPhone 6S to scroll through my music files which are natively stored on my Apple TV 1st Gen to play throughout my house. That way, I don't have to have my TV turned on and be standing right in front of it to see where I'm navigating on my Apple TV.

Here's what I want to be able to modify the Apple TV 4th Gen to do:

1. Not have my laptop on and running iTunes (in other words no streaming either from the cloud or computer)

2. Be able to scroll through playlists, smart lists, and individual artists albums on the Apple Remote App on my iPhone while I'm outside in the backyard, or in an area of my house away from my TV, where the Apple TV is located. In other words, force the 4th Gen to store music files on it's 64 Gb hard drive (I have ~20 Gb of music files).

I have read about apps that enable the Apple TV 4th Gen to store movies/tv shows natively on the 4th Gen. I presume these apps would also enable music files to be stored as well, although every thread I have read about the various apps (VLC, Boxee, Plex, Infuse). Although descriptions are vague, so I'm not clear whether they actually force storage on the Apple TV itself, or do they store on their server instead, which defeats my purpose? I don't want to pay rent on my media files to store them in the cloud, nor do I want to waste my time having to turn on my computer to run iTunes (or use the extra energy having my computer running to accomplish something that the Apple TV did so perfectly 4 generations ago).

Which of these apps, if any, accomplish my goal to force the Apple TV 4th Gen to store my music files on its hard drive?

We have the technology! We can rebuild it! Can't we?

Thank you for your help.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Jul 6, 2017 8:45 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 6, 2017 10:27 AM in response to emeraldthree

Hi. As you already know, the Apple TV 4 is an internet (cloud) media player. As such, its local storage is implemented by tvOS as a temporary resource. That means that any app storing data locally needs to be able to reload the data if it gets deleted. This link: Apple TV is a radical rethinking of your relationship with the hardware and games you own | Polygon has a long and interesting discussion of this cloud-centric approach. You need to find an app developer prepared to ignore these concepts and treat the storage as static.

It might be easier to get a Mac Mini or small Windows machine and run it as a dedicated iTunes server.

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Answer 2

emeraldthree Author

Level 1

22 points

Jul 6, 2017 10:52 AM in response to emeraldthree

The other bad design feature of the Apple TV 4th Gen is it seems there's no way to view my playlists and media via the Remote App on my iPhone 6S as there is using the 1st Generations. I have to stand in front of my TV with the TV on in order to navigate through the streaming files. This completely defeats the purpose of using the Remote App in my situation since I often want to control the music playing while I'm out in the backyard, or in another room that's far away from my TV.

Am I doing something wrong? Is there any way to view playlists and media files via the Remote App? The only iPhone screen that comes up when I have the Remote App connected to the Apple TV 4th Gen is this:

Is this the only screen available using the remote app with the 4th Gen?

The playlists are available on the remote app connected to a 1st Gen:

Is this not possible while connected to the 4th Gen?

Thank you.

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Answer 3

emeraldthree Author

Level 1

22 points

Jul 6, 2017 10:40 AM in response to Diana.McCall

Thank you for your quick response. The beauty of the original Apple TV was it was a reasonable price and was incorporated into the Apple ecosystem, and it worked with Apple Remote. I'd like to not pay $600-800 for a Mac Mini and I don;t want to go outside the Apple universe to buy a Windows machine that isn't compatible with my multitude of Apple products. I also have home kit in mind, so I'd like to try to make the hack of the Apple TV 4th Gen work before I decide to just install a new HD into the great Apple TV 1st Gens that worked so well until the hard drives failed.

Does anyone have any experience hacking the Apple TV 4th Gen to force it to house media files natively on it's own hard drive? Alternatively, is there a way to use a jump drive connected to the USB port at the back of the 4th Gen to accomplish this?

Do any of the apps mentioned do this (VLC, Plex, Boxee, Infuse)?

I really don't want to pay rent to house media on the Apple Cloud. I don't want to run 2 machines in order to accomplish what 1 machine was perfectly capable of doing much more efficiently 10 years ago.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

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Answer 4

Jul 6, 2017 2:58 PM in response to emeraldthree

The new black Remote app is simply a replication of the Apple TV 4 Siri remote, adding a keyboard for text input. You may be comparing it with the earlier Remote app, now called the "iTunes Remote".

Earlier, you asked about VLC. It does allow storing videos in the Apple TV 4 flash storage (not hard drive). I don't know how it would handle music, but it's a free app, so you could check it out. However, I doubt that it does much with playlists, so it might not meet your requirements.

The problem is that users like you want to do something different, but don't want to lose the features integrated into the Apple music and video apps. However, those features are difficult or impossible for 3rd party implementors to implement, so their results will be seen as second-rate. For example, another user said that VLC was unacceptable because it didn't have movie boxcovers and cast info. And Apple has designed the cloud-based architecture, so they are not likely to invest in implementing a contrary concept.

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Answer 5

Jul 6, 2017 7:34 PM in response to emeraldthree

You asked about hacking Apple TV 4. I expect that's essentially impossible, since tvOS 10 is based on iOS 10, so it has all the locked-down features of an iPad or iPhone. Only a software developer could create code for it. It would be limited by the system sandboxing, and it would have to be acceptable to the TV app store. Similarly, I doubt that tvOS offers any application interface to access the USB port.

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Answer 6

emeraldthree Author

Level 1

22 points

Jul 6, 2017 7:38 PM in response to Diana.McCall

Thanks again for your help. So Boxee doesn't work on the 4th Gen like it did on the 1st Gen?

Also, is there no way to make the Remote app display the content stored on my MacBook Pro from which the 4th Gen is streaming?

If true, is there another app that is capable of this-so I don't have to be standing in front of my flat screen TV in order to change a song?

Thank you.

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Answer 7

vazandrew

Level 8

40,840 points

Jul 6, 2017 7:53 PM in response to emeraldthree

When music is playing you can tap on details to bring up what is currently playing, and you can also scroll down to see the up next queue.

If you want access to more you can use the aforementioned itunes remote app

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