Apple TV in the Car

sandau

I'm not sure how much content you can keep on the Apple TV, but I think it might be an interesting use to install it in your car to a small monitor and be able to sync with your computer when its parked in the driveway. Can you dump a lot of content on the Apple TV and not have iTunes running in the background? Does it require iTunes at all times?



any thoughts?

saiko

Interesting thought, i'd consider this for my car. I know that the Apple TV has a built in 40 gig hard drive... I'm sure it could possibly run without iTunes running on another machine. What happens if you want to watch a movie / listen to music through the Apple TV and your computer is out of battery? (macbook (pro)), or restarting, or in for service, or for some reason can't leave it on. I'm sure it might work fine. Take that with a grain of salt though.

sandau

after looking over the demo's at the Apple store, this device is a sync device, so we are good for car installations. iTunes sets up a sync, just like an iPod. It really is just a headless iPod with wireless and HDMI.



very cool indeed, people will be able to sync from their driveway if installed in a vehicle.



I'm going to have to consider this over a new Alpine head unit (current works good with iPod) but wanted the new one with the color display. Add screen and Apple TV, keep current head unit (for CDs and Radio) but use Apple TV for music and podcasts.



I like it.

b3ns0n

That's a really excellent idea, one weakness however is you'd really need some way of hiding it yet keeping the IR remote functionality; it'd obviously be pretty likely to get stolen. I can see some third party accessories helping with this. Maybe for in-vehicle purposes connecting an iPod to a screen would just be better? Wireless syncing is tempting though.

sandau

Quote:

Originally Posted by b3ns0n


That's a really excellent idea, one weakness however is you'd really need some way of hiding it yet keeping the IR remote functionality; it'd obviously be pretty likely to get stolen. I can see some third party accessories helping with this. Maybe for in-vehicle purposes connecting an iPod to a screen would just be better? Wireless syncing is tempting though.

that's really what I'm driving at ( lol ). I love using my iPod in the car, but hate pulling it out and syncing it, i forget to get the latest podcasts or whatever. have a little power running to that thing and it'll update itself and I can manage it from inside the house.



IR can be moved. Drop the device under the seat and run the IR receiver into a mount in the dash. Easy. If you are already modding the power, moving the IR is part of it.



I expect mods and pictures doing this will be out within 10 days of release of Apple TV. Lots of people put iBooks and Minis in their cars, this one is well suited for it: low power, good outputs, handy interface.

midfat

My brother rigged up a wireless car synch for his iPod about a year ago. He leaves his iPod in the car all the time. When he pulls in his garage, his wireless automatically connects to his MacMini and syncs his iPod. The only tricky issue is power consumption when the vehicle is parked. He built a little auto timer that continues to power the unit for 15 minutes after the ignition has been shut down. That way, it has enough time to update with out running the battery dead sitting around for hours or days.



Yes, he's a little eccentric. He also has laser guided parking references in his garage and a 40K watt military generator to power his house in the event of a power outage. That's enough power to run a city block!