“The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) reader, Zeno, wrote in tonight from Switzerland, having just managed to get Front Row running on his Mac mini with a few ‘tweaks’ (it is currently only included with and supported on new iMacs),” C.K. Sample, III reports for TUAW.
He recorded a video as proof of his success, and included the following notes: “Details: – Front Row transition effects run smooooth on the Mac mini (keep in mind there’s no G5 in the mini and it only has 32MB of vram). First time you launch it, you’ll be blown away, that’s for sure. – Front Row can be controlled from the keyboard (4 arrow keys, space bar and escape) – As you can see in the video, I managed to remote-control Front Row from my SonyEricsson K700 via Bluetooth: using one of the built-in Bluetooth HID profile (no Salling Clicker needed, even if, of course, you could do that with Salling Clicker too) – Because of those ‘tweaks’ (ok, call them ‘hacks’) Front Row on the Mac mini is not working 100% properly (Videos and Photos were ok, but had some problems with DVD and Music).”
Sample writes, “The video is awesome, as you can really tell how completely stoked Zeno is about the whole thing.”
Among TUAW’s reader comments is this gem, “I just tried, works great on a new iBook 12inches. A bit slow on the video. Wanna hear something exciting? .. go to http://labs.divx.com/ and install the divx fusion codec beta 3 for mac (it now works with quicktime 7). Well I can confirm that FrontRow plays Divx in my iBook, most of them perfectly.”
Full article with video here.
Advertisement: The New iMac G5 – Built-in iSight camera and remote control with Front Row media experience. From $1299. Free shipping.
Other reports from around the bowels of the Web indicate that Front Row has hit the torrent sites. [UPDATE: 1:06pm ET: MacDailyNews has confirmed the existence of at least one torrent of a working copy of Front Row.]
Related MacDailyNews articles:
New iMac G5 represents a step forward for Apple – October 24, 2005
NY Times’ Pogue: Apple’s iMac G5 with sleek, virus-free, spyware-free OS earns place in living room – October 20, 2005
Apple’s new iMac G5, iTunes 6, iPod video designed to bait Hollywood – October 13, 2005
Apple’s Front Row with Apple Remote and iMac G5: media center done right – October 12, 2005
Apple introduces new thinner iMac G5 with built-in iSight video camera, ‘Front Row’ media experience – October 12, 2005
I got it from mininova or demonoid
It’s working, although DVDs don’t play
Nice, that is very sweet. Now that all of the Macs have bluetooth, that would be a good, logical step.
Paul Thurrot gave a link to another site where you could download the information, now that link is inactive.
What? No comments yet on Apple lawyers going after them. Right after a story about lawyers going after Apple? What’s happening to this site? Its going downhill.
Anybody think that the next Mac Mini will be the first Intel based Mac with a version of Front Row installed on it? I think there is a big demand for a machine like that.
Tried it… really cool little program, especially with a bluetooth device. slick UI….. It’s really buggy though… i really hope they release this for all macs sometime… possibly iLife ’06?, that’d be sweet.
btw: the Photo Booth app is available if you search real good… that’s a fun time-wasting little distraction… love it.
I tried it on a mac mini I have here at work, it runs, well, okay I suppose. All the effects run clearly but a lot slower than on a new iMac. Well actually now that I’ve been messing with it.. it only seems to go into the different sections of the program more slowly the first time. I’d say it’s perfectly acceptable on a 1.25 mini mine has 512mb
Got it running on the wife’s PowerBook. I picked a great day to play hooky from work. The bugs really come out to play if you exit and try to run iTunes or QT, though.
Still… it’s a fun little project and makes me want the new iMac even more. My wallet thanks you, Steve.
Anyone concerned about how the DivX Fusion Beta 2 installer bypasses the usual security password to install? I am. I Just installed it and I was a little bit scared of that fact. I wonder if Apple knows about this. Might drop them an email real quick.
Has anyone experienced this as well?
I really do wonder if it will be released eventually as a download directly from Apple, as I was searching for something else in Mac Help, and found a reference to “Front Row”. Check it out: I have a relatively new PB 1.5ghz, running 10.4.2. Search for “dvd”, and about nine rows down in the results it says “Playing DVDs using Front Row”. When I show that help topic, there’s a whole page talking about Front Row and the Apple Remote.
Crazy monkeys.
i got it working on my 15″ PB – its very flakey as hell though!!!
I just downloaded it and installed it and it’s really fun. Since i broke my tivo, i’ve been downloding my episodes to shows like Arrested Development and Aqua teen. It’s nice to have a simple solution to all of this!
It works beautifully, except that it’s having a hard time interfacing with itunes and my airport express.
FYI, i’ve run this on both my powerbook (1.5, 64mb video, 1gig ram) and my mac mini (1.25, 32mb video, 512). works nice on the powerbook, a little lag on the mac mini, but definantly very nice.
works well on 2. gen iMac G5. everything checks out ok.
Like a few other people, I got mine working on my 12″ powerbook. It is a bit slow at first, and the iTunes interface is a bit buggy, but I think it’s amazing that we have it up and working! I’m star struck at the opening “panning desktop” effect. That alone is so worth it!
does anyone know if there are any visualizer options for iTunes from within Front Row? Seems like a major omission if there are not
Cute little app – runs decently on my PB 1.25, albeit somewhat inconsistently. I imagine it runs pretty clunkily on machines that can’t run Core Image stuff.
WOO HOO
got it working on my dual 2.5! i had to cut for work so i haven’t checked out everything but the itunes was kinda slow. oh well it works!!!
Alan i have to agree that the desktop –> Front Row and then back to Desktop transition is some of Apple’s best work.
I also just noticed that leaving Front Row running in the background uses next to no system resources. This means that one can switch into it on a whim — lovely. Well done Apple.
It is amazing to see how well they can incorporate these ‘disappearing’ functions into the OS (Dashboard, Front Row, Exposé, Fast User Switching)
Works for me on my TiPB! I didn’t realize I could get the music trailers online. They’re awesome. Photos don’t work for some reason.
Okay, now that the proof-of-concept is over, I guess I’ll have to remove it, now. Where are the instructions for that, again?
Everything I try to play in iTunes won’t play. I just get an “error encountered” message and taken back to the desktop.
Sad.
BTW: 1.8GHz G5, 10.4.2, iTunes 6.01
Does anyone know how he managed to save Steve’s Keynote?? (at least that’s how it looked…)
It’s an MP4 H264 stream which can’t be saved as yet, or so I thought.
Works on my 12″ iBook – beautiful little gimmick
Installed in Rev. B 12″ PowerBook and works great.
It is a bit buggy and sometimes slow.
lilaliend:
Got same error. Restarted Front Row and that solved it.
Do Movie Trailers work for anyone?
I get error: The movie trailer server is not responding.
Anyone?
@anon
Prolly with Snapz Pro.