“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
Definite WOW factor in Front Row… love it!
However, I think I’ll wait till the official release of Front Row… this current version, admittedly hacked, is a very good effort, but a little too buggy for me to use consistently. The Movies section seems to stutter alot, and even when I got iTunes to play a song, exiting and re-entering Front Row scanned the playlist list indefinitely.
BTW, using Mac Mini 1.25Ghz, 1GB ram, 40GB drive, OSX 10.4.2, itunes 6.0.1
which one do you download to get Front Row on your computer?
Can you use the iphoto option?
i can get to the list – and theres a nice ‘square’ that shows the pictures besides the list but if i try to access an album nothing comes up!
anyone else?!
Apple have just tested the water… they always knew that FR would become public domain…
and now they know people are going crazy for the hacked version – they will go ahead and sell a packaged version for all mac users… the market is there – and now they have proof of it.
could someone take me step by step on how to put front row on my powerbook 12″?
Restarted Front Row, still not working. Will try restarting computer all together soon, after finishing up a job.
Photos works perfectly.
Videos works perfectly.
No DVD to test
iTunes just still giving me errors.
Anyone know if I can set up the bluetooth remote with a Motorola A630?
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EndlessElevationProductions –
download front row from one of the sites that has it mirrored – you can still get it here – http://eden.org/eric/uploads/front_row.zip
launch the front row app – it’ll appear in your dock – make sure FR is the front most app – then press escape! use left / right keys to navigate – simple!!!
although its a bit hit and miss in when it wants to work etc – but i got it working on my 15″ PB
Thanks a lot! I am going to download it.. my real name is Gregory.. I am a 12 year old Mac lover….EndlessElevationProductions is my production company…. check out my new nano commercial…. http://homepage.mac.com/margera/iMovieTheater13.html
just watched your vid/ad
nice work!
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looks like we got a 12 year old entrepreneur here – more power to you gregory!
Working ok on a new iBook 12″. It starts iTunes and iPhoto in the background when you play music or watch pictures. Guess that´s why it´s slower the first time. If I exit, do something in iTunes and then enter again, the iTunes part dosn´t work.
Does anyone have a download link for Photo Booth?
MW: children… ha.. once my MW was Death
Hey if you cant get it to work with iTunes or iPhoto, make sure you quit those apps before you go into Front Row and it will open the apps itself and should work perfectly. I had the same problem earlier but the only thing that is broken is when i use it for iTunes, exit front row, and try to go back.
Hope that helps!
Oh, is Front Row an application. I thought it was part of the OS. Like Dashboard is part of Tiger. Thanks for the heads up MDN. Time to crank up Transmission.
Ssnx, Movie trailers work, full-screen, and are very cool.
“Apple have just tested the water… they always knew that FR would become public domain…
and now they know people are going crazy for the hacked version – they will go ahead and sell a packaged version for all mac users… the market is there – and now they have proof of it.”
Uh, why would they? Everyone would just pirate it and put it up on bittorrent. That’s the problem with a lot of people, they’d rather just leech (I won’t use the word ‘steal’) and not buy.
Toby, I believe that front row is more of an add on for Tiger. After all, they’d have to release an entirely new version of 10.4 just for the new iMac if it was integraded fully into the OS X itself. I think that’s why we’re able to get it to work on other OS X installs (is anyone running it on anything other than Tiger out there?). I’m sure someone with more know-how can clear this up, but that’s just what makes sense to me.
how do you set it up to work with a bluetooth phone? i have a sony ericcson t616..
thanks
deoes anyone know where I can download Photo Booth? ??????????
Front row without a remote= useless.
Who cares about the software if you cant use the remote on your non-iMacs. Apple should release it standalone for other Mac users. Bad form Apple.
works fine, no bugs
http://www.gadgetsonthego.net/2005/10/front-row-1st-thoughts-on-my-powerbook.html
Up and running on my powerbook.
Joewannamac….
just do a search for “front row” in the mac help… I found 12 help articles
in the apple help menu… I did a search for “front row”, came up with 12 listings… one of them is named “About Front Row” and is cryptically has this sentence in it.
“Front Row works on newer Macintosh computers equipped with an infrared (IR) receiver.”
newer mac computers, not IMacs……
anyone have the link for the download of Photo Booth yet?
put it on my g4 1ghz powerbook 15in….runs supper smooth….absoulutely awesome….all 4 functions work fine.