Boxee Beta Hacked Onto Apple TV

Apple TV and Boxee, together once again. And that's exactly how it should be. If you have followed the tragic saga between these two, you would know that it was once easy to hack the Apple TV and get Boxee's content portal on there, which made Apple's set-top box a lot more functional and provided easy access to a ton of Web-based programming. Unfortunately, the hack was blocked not long after it was discovered, and for months now Apple TV users have had to pull out their notebooks in order to enjoy Boxee.

But no more. Thanks to a new set of simple instructions, Apple TV owners can now hack Boxee back into life, and the new Boxee Beta is as ready as ever to handle the challenge. If you have the Boxee Alpha installed, you can hit the update launcher to get brought up to speed. We have to wonder how long until the next Apple TV update kills the functionality, but at least it's there for now. Enjoy the moment, isn't that what they say?

For AppleTV users, there hasn't been an easy way to get Boxee's Beta loaded since we released it publicly at CES this year.  

We're happy to report that a few users (see blog post below for full credit) teamed up to resurrect the ATV-Usb creator and craft an updated solution specifically for the Boxee Beta.  Even better - if you already have Boxee Alpha installed on your AppleTV, you should be able to just update Launcher and then update Boxee to install it, no new patchstick needed.

Last week, shortly after Avner’s post on the updated Beta version and the unfortunate lack of AppleTV support (unless you have your SSH teeth fully grown in), the powers that be resurrected the atvusb-creator for Mac.

Yep. You can now, once more, pwn your AppleTV following these super simple instructions, and get the Boxee Beta on that shiny Apple box. In fact, if you already have Boxee Alpha installed, you should be able to just update Launcher and then update Boxee to achieve the same result.

Kudos to JimWiley and hillbilly1980 from the Boxee forum for making the original update script, and Amet, davilla and stephan.diederich from Team XBMC and atvusb-creator for fixing the Launcher, SoftwareMenu and the Creator itself, permitting this goodness.

Enjoy, and let these guys know you appreciate their efforts by commenting below and/or here.