The team behind the Xbox Media Center has released two versions of the software for jailbroken iOS devices. XBMC is a more flexible media center platform, for instance supporting audio and video formats either omitted or deliberately blocked by hardware manufacturers. In the case of iOS devices users are also no longer limited to sharing via iTunes; the second-generation Apple TV becomes capable of streaming video in 1080p, suggesting that the standard 720p limit is artificially imposed. Beyond the Apple TV, XBMC can also run on the iPad and the iPhone 4, both of which support full hardware acceleration “for most formats.” The current interface is more iPad-oriented though, to the extent that the iPhone 4 app is admitted to be “frustrating” to use.
The XBMC team is encouraging people to develop gesture-based skins for the iPhone/iPad version. After jailbreaking, installing the iPhone/iPad version simply requires loading Cydia and adding XBMC as a source. The Apple TV installation is somewhat more complex, requiring manual commands to root into the device and load material from the web. XBMC appears as a list option in the hacked interface.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nrKJd5jeMU
