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Apple’s AirPlay streaming feature enables the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad to stream video and audio to the Apple TV 2. But why stop there?

Wired.com’s friend Erica Sadun has been hard at work hacking away at AirPlay to expand its powers. About a week ago she released AirPlayer, a Mac app to stream video from the the Apple TV to the Mac. And just recently she released AirFlick to do the reverse: stream video from the Mac to the Apple TV. No jailbreaking required.

If you own a Mac and the new Apple TV, you need the AirFlick hack. You already can stream video from the Mac to the Apple TV, but you’re limited to iTunes-compatible videos (.H264-encoded MP4). AirFlick adds support for a multitude of video formats that you wouldn’t be able to stream normally (such as AVI, MKV, FLV, WMV and RMVB).

The AirFlick and AirPlayer hacks are in very early development stages, so be warned: Some features might be buggy. They’re free downloads, though, so give it a whirl. See the video above for a quick tutorial.

AirPlay utilities [Erica Sadun]

Brian is a Wired.com technology reporter focusing on Apple and Microsoft. He’s also writing a book about the always-connected mobile future called Always On (publishing April 2011 by Da Capo).
Follow @bxchen and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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Apple has issued a press release saying that it expects to sell one million new Apple TVs by the end of the week. The second-gen set-top box has been on sale for three months. That puts it out of the league of Apple’s top-sellers, the iPad and the iPhone, but it’s still selling a lot faster than the first version.

Apple likes to brag about its sales numbers if they’re good enough. Otherwise, those numbers are never mentioned.

The timing of this announcement is rather odd. Apple is usually very clear with it’s messages, but here it is expecting us to report that it will probably sell one million units by the end of this week. This is because of the Christmas weekend, of course, but it’s still out of character.

The press release is also less clear than usual. When I read the headline “New Apple TV Sales to Top One Million This Week”, my first thought was that Apple was shifting one million units in this week alone.

Either way, it shows that Apple’s hobby has finally become a paying job.

New Apple TV Sales to Top One Million This Week [Apple PR]

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

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Year-over-year smartphone sales are up 98% worldwide. Over 80 million of the over 400 million handsets sold in the third quarter were smartphones.

The sheer growth of the global market and the meteoric rise of Android means that hardware and software companies who once dominated this market can ship tens of millions additional units and still lose share, in some cases by double digits.

Smartphone OS providers have entered a period of accelerated platform evolution, stimulated by more regular product releases, new platform entrants and new device types, said Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza. Any platform that fails to innovate quickly either through a vibrant multi-player ecosystem or clear vision of a single controlling entity will lose developers, manufacturers, potential partners and ultimately users.

Market share and unit numbers don’t tell us everything, even how profitable a mobile company has become. But they do reveal an evolving space.

Customers in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia — what Gartner’s report calls “mature markets” — are gravitating towards full-featured, name-brand, consumer-oriented smartphones. This seems to be partly a function of wider 3G data capability, greater hardware and software choices, and especially lower prices. Gartner’s report singles out ZTE’s sub-100 Android phone with the UK’s Orange carrier. Smartphones can be burners now.

Meanwhile, generic manufacturers are cranking out handsets for developing markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Growth in non-3G mobiles isn’t as sharp as smartphones in terms of percentages, but the global distribution is radically different.

This growth on either side squeezes out name-brand midlist feature phones — Gartner’s report singles out LG — who can’t command the prices or share they used to hold through carrier sales in Europe, Asia and North America.

The report closes by predicting that the growth of the media tablet market (projected sales of 54.8 million units) will begin to affect smartphone sales, attracting consumer dollars and developer attention away from some platforms and towards others — especially Apple’s iOS.

It’s a sharp reminder that companies with forthcoming tablets like Samsung or RIM/Blackberry aren’t simply trying to open up new growth areas or slow iPad purchases. These companies need to offer tablets in order to protect their customer and developer relationships in their core businesses — multimedia entertainment for Samsung, smartphones for RIM.

“Apple’s dramatic expansion of iOS with the iPad and the continuing success of the iPod Touch are important sales achievements in their own right,” said Carolina Milanesi. “But more importantly they contribute to the strength of Apple’s ecosystem and the iPhone in a way that smartphone-only manufacturers cannot compete with.

Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Grew 35 Percent in Third Quarter 2010; Smartphone Sales Increased 96 Percent [Press Release]

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Apple TV may not have native apps yet, but AirPlay provides a workaround to run apps on your TV — so long as those apps involve streaming video or audio.

Ars Technica’s Jacqui Cheng wasn’t able to try out AirPlay video streaming to the Apple TV in full — that won’t be possible until iOS 4.2 ships in November — but she did unearth two important bits:

• With iOS 4.1, you can already easily stream audio to the Apple TV, including audio from movie files;
• Every iOS app using Apple’s standard audio and video profiles can stream to Apple TV. Not just your iTunes library.

Some of these applications are no-brainers, like Netflix and YouTube. Since both apps run natively on Apple TV anyways, this might appear redundant; still, it’s nice to be able to seamlessly throw video from your phone to your TV in the middle of watching something, without having to start over and search for the same video again.

Other iOS apps add content that Apple TV doesn’t have. Ars Technica mentions sports applications like MLB at-bat and internet radio. You might be able to preview a movie you’re editing in the iPad’s iMovie mobile app on the big screen without plugging in.

Of course, applications that either don’t want their content streamed to Apple TV or don’t want to put in the work to reformat their video into H.264 will be left out — just keep your video and audio in a format that can’t be streamed. For others, there’s nothing else they have to do on the software or hardware side to make their applications AirPlay compatible.

That prospect could be exciting for both developers and users — at least until full-fledged iOS apps for Apple TV come along. Or Google TV’s apps sweep through and steal the whole show.

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Apple’s cheap, puny Apple TV set-top box shares many of the same internals as the iPad, according to a teardown of the device.

The nimble engineers at iFixit cracked open the Apple TV earlier this afternoon and found the same type of Samsung flash chip that’s also inside the iPad, holding 8 GB of capacity. iFixit speculates this storage will be used to for caching while streaming TV shows and movies.The teardown also revealed that the Apple TV features the same A4 processor and amount of RAM (256MB) as the iPad.

Of course, the Apple TV has connectivity features that the iPad doesn’t: Ethernet, HDMI output, an AC adapter and an optical audio-out port. But it’s pretty interesting how similar the two devices are otherwise. Perhaps this is a clue that the Apple TV and iPad will be very tightly integrated in the near future (going beyond the AirPlay streaming feature we’re already familiar with).

An 8-GB drive doesn’t sound like much, but it’s pretty good considering the Apple TV’s $100 price tag. And because the Apple TV’s focus is streaming media, 8GB should leave more than enough room for extra third-party apps, if Apple later decides to open an Apple TV app store, which some have speculated to be a possibility.

A full step-by-step teardown of the Apple TV can be found on iFixit’s website.

Photo: iFixit

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When we’re constantly barraged with new computers, smartphones and tablets, it’s hard to take the time to appreciate small details that have a lot of significance. Take AirPlay, for example: a feature integrated into Apple’s iOS devices to wirelessly stream content to the new Apple TV.

That feature has the potential to be killer, even at its most practical level, my friend Arnold Kim of MacRumors.com points out in today’s Tweet of the Day: “didn’t really occur to me before, but instantly streaming iphone 4 captured vids to appletv via AirPlay is a pretty killer feature.”

Think about it: You shoot some video of your kids running around in Disneyland, and when other relatives visit you whip out your iPhone, tap “AirPlay” and boom that video is streaming to your Apple TV and playing on the big screen. (You can do the same with a photo slideshow, or some new music you just bought off iTunes).

Sharing personal media isn’t normally so seamless: You usually have to attach a cord and copy a file onto a drive, or at least yank out a photo card and stick it into a reader to undergo some sort of uploading process. Streaming is instant.

Here at Wired.com we’ve pondered about the big-picture potential for the Apple TV to be a real game changer thanks to iOS and AirPlay. If third-party apps such as Hulu, Netflix or ABC Player are able to incorporate AirPlay to wireless stream online video content to a TV without requiring a mess of cords or extra accessories, then Apple TV might finally be a smashing hit. Turning the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad into a multimedia remote was a clever move that effectively turns Apple TV into amedia ecosystem built around iOS mobile devices.Wired.com chiefEvan Hansen thinks this strategy will disrupt the cable industry.

But as marvelous as that all sounds, building up a major alternative to the traditional cable TV subscription is going to take a great deal of time, even for Apple. In the nearer future, when the Apple TV ships in the next week or two, the hassle-free convenience of being able to share your personal media with a tap of a button should be extremely compelling for gadget lovers.

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Well, color us surprised (and delighted). Apple has approved VLC Media Player for iPad, an app that plays a multitude of movie formats unsupported by the tablet’s built-in video player.

VLC has been a popular open-source app on the desktop, capable of playing a wide range of media formats at high resolutions, making Apple’s standard iTunes video player(which primarily plays .H264-encoded MPEG-4 videos) pale by comparison.

Wired.com’s Charlie Sorrel got an early sneak peek at VLC for iPad about two weeks ago and said it was one of the most polished video players he’d seen, despite a few bugs.

Why is this such an interesting decision? A lot of consumers get movies and TV shows through (cough) alternative means, and before if they wanted to load their videos on the iPad, they’d have to go through the trouble of converting files to be iTunes-compatible. Approving VLC eliminates such headaches and opens the door for some serious competition with iTunes video rentals.I’m personally more interested in what it means for the new iOS-based Apple TV, if it turns out that third-party apps can indeed use AirPlay, a new feature that enables iOS devices to wirelessly stream content to the Apple TV.

VLC Media Player is a free download in the iPad’s App Store.

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Apple TV image from Apple.com

There have been two mysteries about the new Apple TV. 1) Was it still running the old Apple TV’s “Back Row” version of OS X? 2) Just how small is its new pared-down hard drive? Mystery #1 has been solved: just like the iPhone and iPad, Apple TV is now running iOS 4.

This is important for two reasons:

1. Right now, there are no apps (and no app marketplace) for Apple TV. Now we know there could be — and not on some imagined next-generation device, but this one, in the not-too-distant future.
2. The new Apple TV could be amenable to the same jailbreaking techniques that have worked on the iPhone and iPad — so even if Apple doesn’t start a TV app store, someone could start their own if they’re willing to live on the wild side.

Both of these consequences, though, are still a teensy bit dependent on the answer to that other mystery. Until we get a teardown, nobody’s sure exactly how much storage the new Apple TV is packing. There might not be room enough to store a whole bunch of apps, even if you could sideload them through that teensy micro-USB port.

I’ll let Chris Foresman at Ars Technica explain how we know Apple TV is running iOS:

Apple stores configuration information about how various iOS devices can communicate with other devices over its dock connector in a file called USBDeviceConfiguration.plist. Entries in this file have revealed early evidence of new iPhone and iPod models, and an entry labelled “iProd” later turned out to be the first iPad.

An entry in iOS 3.2 was referred to as iProd2,1, and we suspected that it was likely an early prototype of a next-gen iPad. However, an updated configuration file in iOS 4.2b1 reveals the same numeric product ID is attached to an entry for AppleTV2,1, referring to the second major hardware revision of the Apple TV. This presents solid evidence that the new Apple TV is running iOS proper, instead of the other customized version of Mac OS X used for the previous onethat should save Apple from duplicated development effort.

So if Apple TV is running iOS now, why not announce it and invite people to start making apps for it? Wouldn’t that get everyone more excited about the relaunch of Apple TV? I could think of two reasons why they wouldn’t:

1. There’s no natural interface to run existing iOS apps on Apple TV: no touchscreens TVs, definitely no multitouch, no accelerometers, no camera, etc. Until one or more of those things change, or somebody writes some nifty code to make a remote control do the same thing, you can’t port apps over. If that changes, it’s off to the races.
2. The App Store is already fragmented; not all apps work on every device, or even the same device running different versions of iOS. Throwing Apple TV in the mix, with a bunch of TV-specific applications that might or might not work terribly well on the iPad or iPhone, just makes the store more confusing. And Apple’s trying to make its TV products, especially, as simple as possible.

Confirmed: ‘iProd 2′ is the new Apple TV (TUAW)

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Steve Jobs has attributed the iPod’s and iPhone’s success to Apple’s ability to write better software than the entrenched Asian consumer tech companies. Now that Korean giant Samsung has Google’s Android OS, they don’t have to write better software than Apple to stay successful; they just have to make compelling devices. On the heels of Apple TV and Sony’s partnership role in Google TV, Samsung’s next Android-powered devices may be a line of net-connected, software-driven HDTVs.

At least, that’s what Samsung’s TV head Yoon Boo Keun told Korean press today, Bloomberg reports. Bloomberg also cited analysts predicting that the market for internet-capable TVs will break wide-open in 2012, with as many as 87.6 million internet-capable TVs by 2013, about six times as many as today.

Samsung is in a tough spot here, but one with potentially huge upside. The company is already making 3D televisions with web-browsing capabilities, and has long sought to develop its own operating system for phones and TVs. Google Android gives its Galaxy devices an instant foothold in touchscreen smartphones and tablets to rival Apple’s iOS devices. Samsung’s strength in designing and manufacturing TV sets, when paired with Android’s interface and app marketplace, would seem to offer them a sizable advantage breaking into digital TV. You could get an app- and net-capable TV without any additional boxes.

However, Google doesn’t have Apple’s experience negotiating with media companies — particularly in Asia. That seems to be both the benefit and drawback of any venture where each player contributes and controls its own piece. Apple doesn’t have that problem.

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Apple is preparing to announce a major revamp for the Apple TV and upgrades for the popular iPod Touch in an event scheduled for early September, according to a report.

Citing two anonymous sources, Bloomberg claims that Apple will hold a special press event on Sept. 7 in San Francisco to introduce the new products along with a new iTunes rental service for TV programs, as Wired.com’s Epicenter reported Tuesday.

Repeating previous rumors about Apple TV, Bloomberg said a new version of the device would cost $100 and include a smaller hard drive, as it will be designed primarily for streaming content from iTunes. Other reports have claimed Apple would rebrand the device iTV and ship it with its mobile operating system iOS, which could potentially mean the television device will have an app store to enhance its functionality.

Bloomberg’s report also claims Apple will announce an upgraded iPod Touch, sporting a high-resolution display like the iPhone 4. Previous rumors add that like the iPhone 4, the next iPod Touch will include dual cameras.

For several years, Apple has held an annual September event devoted to iTunes and iPods. It would make sense for Apple to unveil a new Apple TV at this year’s event, because a TV-streaming media service would likely be accompanied by a new version of iTunes capable of online storage.

It’s also likely that Apple will release a software update for iPad customers, iOS 4, which will bring multitasking capability, among other features, to the popular tablet.

Photo of Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone 4 at WWDC 2010: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

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Apple appears to be internally testing the next-gen iPod Touch and iPad, along with an unknown mystery device, according to configuration files buried deep inside the latest iOS beta.

Apple blog AppleInsider received purported configuration files of the next iOS beta, iOS 4.1., due to ship in “the coming weeks,” showing strings of code referencing “iPod 4,1″ an identifier that denotes a fourth-generation device. (A revision of the current third-gen iPod model would be labeled “iPod 3,2.”)

The configuration files also reveal an identifier for “iProd 2,1″ most likely the second-generation iPad, since the records showed the current iPad was registered as “iPod 1,1.” Most interesting is an identifier for “unknownHardware.” Perhaps this could be the rumored Apple TV upgrade based on the iOS-operating system, as New York Times reported previously.

Apple is expected to hold its annual iPod event in the coming weeks, where we’d likely see the next-generation iPod Touch, which is rumored to sport the same specifications of the iPhone 4 (minus the phone, of course): two cameras, a high-resolution display, an A4 processor and so on. Stay tuned this September.

Photo: JoeBaynham/Flickr

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