Patchsticking Apple TV 3.0 The Right Way

Apple TV (ATV) is a great example of technology stifled by its creator.  If you can live with the concept of renting movies and streaming them from the Internet and tethering your music to iTunes then it’s great.  The photo presentation is great, too.  But what happens when you want more?  Nothing, unless you consider patchsticking the ATV.

What is a patchstick?
A patchstick is a bootable USB flash drive loaded with code to install additional functionality like XBMC and Boxee.  These are just the beginning.  By loading OpenSSH you’re able to SCP into the ATV and manipulate the filesystem.

What I’ve learned.
There are multiple flavors to choose from.  A Google search returned 14,000+ hits.  Ok, looks like I’m not alone here.  ATVFlash is a commercial version which offers support and has good documentation.  Patchstick.ca is a combination free/paid version.  Both of these are around $50 bucks – not what I was looking for.  I was looking for free and full-featured.  The only one I could find that was worth my time was ATVUSB-Creator.  This little gem did exactly what it claimed, installed without issue the first time and now I’m watching all of the content the propeller heads at Apple tried to release before Steve Jobs said no.  What a jerk.

Sounds cool.  Where do I start?
Download the builder, run it, pull the current DMG from Apple and write the “massaged” code to the USB drive.  That’s it!  Literally took 15 minutes to install the builder and pull the DMG.  There is a great step-by-step tutorial on their website here for those of you running a real OS.  The Mac flavor is there, too.

TIP - if you want to SSH into the ATV make sure you select the SSH checkbox in addition to Launcher

Let’s blow this thing up!
Power off the ATV (just pull the cord).  Plug in the freshly cooked USB drive and reapply power.  The ATV boots into Linux and runs the install routines.  When it says it’s done – guess what?  It lied to you.  Pull the USB drive out and power cycle the ATV.

Once booted you will notice a new menu item titled “Launcher”.  Select Launcher->Settings and set ATV OS Update enabled to No.  Omitting this step will erase the patchstick modifications when ATV updates are installed.  Select Launcher->Downloads.  Choose Launcher first, then the other two (XBMC & Boxee) afterward.  Head on over to the Boxee website and create an account (free).  On ATV enter your Boxee account credentials just created and you’re off and running.

NOTE: I did these exact steps and my ATV works 100% as it did before plus the additions.  If you toast your ATV it’s not on me.  The developer had simple steps which I linked you to above.  Failure to follow those is not my fault.  The purpose of this write-up was to document just how simple it is to enrich the ATV experience.