Apple TV as "Home Server"

[Ashley Aitken]

Hi Neil (et al),

On 12/02/2007, at 7:18 PM, Neil Laubenthal wrote:

> One of the gurus at the local user group (Washington Apple Pi) has  
> exactly this thought. He is sort of expecting something along the  
> size of the mini so that it's a full up machine if need be I  
> guess . . .but realistically the AppleTV could serve as the basis  
> of it as well.

Yes, it could be a mini.  I guess a big difference between a mini and  
the Apple TV is the lack of the optical drive in the Apple TV.

Which way Apple goes on this probably depends upon whether they want  
this to be an appliance home server - in which case it would probably  
be an Apple TV without an optical drive (all updates done via the  
Internet) - or a general purpose home server - in which case it  
probably be a mini.

I'm guessing they may go with the appliance model because most users  
probably don't want to run a complex server (but that could be  
limiting).

> Combined with a slimmed down version of Leopard Server and some  
> improved tools for setting up Open Directory for network  
> authentication . . .this would provide both the 'media server'  
> capability to interest the masses as well as the real server  
> capabilities that they don't know they need (mail, web, file, Time  
> Machine, etc.).

Yes, a much slimmed down and simplified version of the Server Admin  
tools could be used for remote administration.  Basic administration  
could possibly be done via the TV and Apple Remote.

> It would sure make life easier . . .

Yes, I find the sharing that we have in iPhoto and iTunes is great  
for ad-hoc browsing and sharing but it doesn't really scale in terms  
of functionality.

Cheers,
Ashley.