New Apple TV Allows App Installation, Needs Launcher

As reported by Gizmodo, developer Steven Troughton-Smith has discovered that iOS applications can in fact be installed on the new Apple TV with only slight modification of the applications required to identify them as Apple TV-compatible.

While the discovery is an important next step in developers' quest to run applications on the device, the applications are not yet usable, as the Apple TV lacks any sort of application launcher that would be required for an app to function.

According to Steven, while you can install apps after modifying its type, you just can't launch them. There's no built-in facility to do that, so someone has to do it. I bet the first ones will be the jailbreakers (hello, SNES and PlayStation 2 emulators!), but Apple will follow soon.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has hinted that Apple could launch an App Store for the Apple TV when the time is right, but many users are understandably interested in hurrying that process along, especially as Google prepares to launch its Google TV service offering several integrated applications at launch later this month and compatibility with Android Market applications by early next year.