9 practical uses for your obsolete Apple TV – AppleTV 4 Jailbreak (appletv4jailbreak.com)

Check out nine seriously cool ways to make the most out of your old Apple TV.
Photo: Apple

OK, play time is over. Last week’s article on five things to do with your obsolete Apple TV was meant to bring some light humor to your day, but we heard your comments loud and clear. Many of you looking for legitimate tips on what to do with an old Apple TV felt misled by the headline when you wound up scrolling through a sarcastic list. For that, we apologize. I apologize.

But we’re not all talk and no action at Cult of Mac. Without further ado, here is an actual list of nine things – four extras because we like you a lot – that you can do with your old or soon-to-be-obsolete Apple TV. For real this time. Seriously.

1. Use your television as a giant computer screen

If you own at least a second-generation Apple TV (anything but the large silver box) you can set up AirPlay Mirroring from your Mac to use your television as a giant display. Bonus points if you add a wireless Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, which will let you toss your Mac aside, sit on the couch and use your Mac with your huge living room TV. AirPlay Mirroring generously runs pretty smoothly so performance shouldn’t be an issue.

2. Jailbreak it and give it new life

Your old Apple TV can still get many new features.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Yes, it’s possible to jailbreak your Apple TV and yes it’s legal. So now that yours is old and seemingly losing value, breathe new life into it with third-party apps and extra media files.

For this, you’ll need some downloads and some cash. Download Seas0npass on your computer to jailbreak the Apple TV. Follow the instructions and make sure you have a micro-USB cable handy for hooking up your Apple TV. Then, purchase aTV Flash (either the Black or Silver edition, depending on your Apple TV model) for $30 and install that. This allows you to play almost any file type for music or video, browse the web, install third-party apps and more on your Apple TV.

3. Turn it into a server

This works nicely as a follow-up for the jailbreaking idea, since for this step you’ll need a jailbroken Apple TV. At the heart of every Apple TV is an extremely low-powered computer. It’s no easy task to accomplish, but it is possible to get it running as a web server. OS X Daily has a great guide for exactly how to do that. You’ll need to enter quite a few commands into Terminal, plus have an SFTP client handy for some uploading.

4. Move it to the bedroom

Just because a new Apple TV is grabbing your attention doesn’t mean you can’t use the old one exactly how it is. Apple always talked about using the Apple TV as…

https://www.cultofmac.com/384188/9-uses-obsolete-apple-tv/
AppleTV 4 Jailbreak (appletv4jailbreak.com)