Since the release of the ATV3 in March of this year we've received a ton of interest from folks wanting to get aTV Flash (black) up and running on their new devices. From a development standpoint the hardware was almost perfect...1080p capable, with a faster processor and more RAM...what else could you ask for? Well unfortunately the powers that be have not (yet) shared our enthusiasm for running 3rd party apps on the Apple TV, and the burden of jailbreaking these devices (in order to get apps onto them) has remained unchanged since the release of the ATV2 in 2010.
As you may recall we were very optimistic about the ATV3 when it originally launched back in March, and while this optimism remains unchanged it's clear things have not progressed as quickly as anyone would have liked. The biggest hurdle that has yet to be overcome is also the most essential - the jailbreak. While we tend to think of ourselves as pretty resourceful, the security related expertise that is required in order to release a jailbreak for iOS based devices like the ATV is just not in our wheelhouse, and we're simply left to encourage the capable few as best we can. No one is more anxious than us to get the ATV3 opened up to 3rd party apps, but due to the reasons mentioned above we're not able to provide any kind of release timeline right now.
With all that said, we still think an Apple TV with aTV Flash is the best bang for your buck media center on the market, and things will only improve once the ATV3 is ultimately opened up to apps (whether that be via a jailbreak or an official app store). However, this means that for the time being the fun will be limited to the ATV1 and ATV2 which are fully supported by the current versions of aTV Flash and aTV Flash (black) respectively. Both these models can easily be found on many sites such as Amazon and eBay, though the ATV2s usually carry a bit of a premium.
In closing, we're extremely grateful to all those who have continued to support us over the past few years, and even though we don't have an ATV3 version to announce at this point we do have a number of exciting new things in store for the remaining portion of 2012. Keep your eyes on this blog as well as our Twitter feed for all the details.
All the best.
-James