AppleTV as an in-car PC


First it was the Mac Mini now it’s the AppleTV. In-car hackers are stuffing the wee, kind of dead set-top box into cars now after hacking it to death and installing outside apps. The result — a slim, fairly quiet machine — makes for a good GPS and media device.

The audio is plugged into the aux of my deck. The Apple TV and video convertor are both run off of my 300-watt invertor hidden beneath the dash. The screen and the Apple TV are powered on and off using switches. I also wrote a GPS plugin for the Apple TV called Road Trip. It uses my USB GPS device to display its current location on a map. I am hoping to have the plugin online very soon. All of the media content on the Apple TV gets synchronized to my iTunes via wifi as soon as I park my car in the drive way! Everything works great!

In-car navigation system courtesy of Apple TV [AppleTVSource]