Apple TV Teardown Shows A4 CPU, 256MB of RAM
By - Source: Tom's Hardware US
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25 comments
Apple's second generation Apple TV is very small; in fact it's a quarter the size of the old one. How did they fit everything inside? More importantly, what the heck is in there?
As always, we have some burning questions when faced with a new gadget and, as always, the iFixit team is more than happy to step up to the plate and tear apart the latest piece of electronics in the name of science. Their latest victim was Apple's Apple TV settop box. Inside they found 256MB of RAM (just like the new iPod touch and the iPad), as well as Apple's A4 CPU and 8GB of NAND flash.
Check out the pictures of the disassembly session below and be sure to click on through to iFixit for the full step-by-step teardown and gallery.
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And this new Apple TV is one of the better products released by the Apple camp as of late. Was playing around with one the other day and I was rather impressed. Still not sure if it is worth $100 though. Hooking up the 3rd output on my video card to my TV is working fine for me.
It's a separation tool. The pros use/sell those, the rest of us use credit cards/gift cards.
99 bucks ? nah, thanx for the offer ~
The jailbreak is just around the corner. And now that we have the guts exposed..
Solder a 30pin connector on there and slap on the UFAD001973 cram it all in the case with a usb hub that draws from the psu and make some holes in the side for connectivity.
I think apple just wanted to give a little challenge to the hackers.
It looks cool and sexy.
Apple customers need no reasoning beyond that point.
hundred for the box hundred for a 1tb external and you're good
Now true.. The whole "renting" movies and stuff sucks.. Lord knows I don't want to pay Apple more than I have to.. But at 99 cents a show, or like what.. 2.99(maybe) for full length 720p movies.. I'd still have to "rent" between 16-20 movies or 50-60 shows, or a combination of both, etc.
Honestly.. It's not too hard at all to see the benefits it has. I can save hundreds a year($600-$720 if I don't rent at all and just dl/torrent movies and stream them through iTunes) with it.. and lord knows I don't even watch TV much anyway. I basically only watch it to fill the voids when I'm eating dinner, or having a family movie night. However.. I'm still not sure if I'm going to buy one now.. Or wait until they upgrade it to include full 1080p support.
Which I'm sure they will.. If it's as successful as I hope it is.
Also, I fully expect Hulu+ to be on it within 6 months, along with an explosion of apps. (WWDC 2011 at the latest!) Like the original iPhone, it took some time before the dev tools were made available for 3rd party apps. I think the primary reasons for this was to mature the tools and documentation, but most importantly for developers to experience the Cocoa Touch UI approach and change their thinking prior to them porting desktop designs over. (Windows Mobile anyone?)
The AppleTV is iOS based, but the UI layer obviously isn't multitouch, and there need to be different interaction paradigms. Apple would want to get people used to their "Cocoa TV"-based apps, so the apps get a consistent quality, look and feel. Most of iOS is mature, but Apple will probably need to spend time cleaning up the new parts before opening them up.
Now, I suspect that jailbreakers get apps within a month, perhaps XBMC or Boxee will make an appearance! (Drool from a guy is has no interest in jailbreaking his iPhone here)
I'm kind of split between the AppleTV and Roku. As of today, I think the Roku has better value, but the AppleTV has better potential value. I could buy both for less than a Boxee Box, or three months of cable. Almost disposable!
The HTPC route is interesting, but I don't think will be a good fit, and a bit more expensive.
But at the end of the day, Apple TV is/can be a very simple and elegant solution for TV that might better fit a person's lifestyle, myself included, for a relatively cheap price tag. Not to mention I bet the power requirements for this thing would be well under the power draw for a typical HTPC setup(a review I'd be most interested in seeing btw), not to mention the costs of making/maintaining one.
However, as I said before.. the only thing that might keep me from addopting this solution would be 1080p support. And that, I think, will all depend on how successful the new Apple TV is. On the bad side however.. I bet a 1080p version would likely double the price. Which sucks, but even that is still cheaper by far than what I'm paying for now.