“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