AppleTV 2G users now have their choice of methods for jailbreaking their new set-top box.
Chronic Dev has used Greenpois0n to successfully hack AppleTV, while Dev-Team has just released PwnageTool 4.1, which now includes official support for AppleTV 2G.
The successful Greenpois0n hack was revealed Wednesday when Joshua Hill posted a picture via his Twitter account. Hill, who goes by the name P0sixninja on the Chronic Dev Blog, reportedly used an unreleased version of the software to accomplish the jailbreak.
Shortly thereafter, a post appeared on the Dev-Team Blog announcing that PwnageTool 4.1, which we reported about in early October, was now available for download. The announcement included a welcome message to AppleTV 2G users, who now join the leagues of those who have been able to jailbreak their iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch with PwnageTool:
“Welcome to the JB family! Right now, about all you can do is command-line stuff via ssh. You also have afc2 available, so you can use tools like ifunbox to move files around. These are the *very* early days of AppleTV 2G jailbreaking, so it’ll take some time for JB app developers to come up with methods to use your AppleTV 2G from the remote, versus the command line. PS: Your ssh password is “alpine”…please change it when you can :)”
Now that the tools are out, developers are free to begin making custom applications for AppleTV. Shortly after the jailbreak applications were posted, Engadget posted pictures of what may be the first custom AppleTV software, a barebones weather application developed by nitoTV.
Apple officials certainly have been quiet during all of this. Maybe they were a bit too caught up in their “Back to the Mac” event to notice what was going on. As the story unfolds and more applications are available we’ll be anxious to see how the company reacts.
