Only the biggest Cupertino fanboy could consider the Apple TV perfect out of the box, so an army of armchair hackers has already taken to Apple's new media player with gusto and so far seem to have found it surprisingly easy.

The Apple TV seems easy to hack, maybe too easy

The fact Apple TV runs Intel and Mac OSX under the bonnet means it has lots of hacking potential, and the fact it only plays nicely with iTunes and MPEG4 or H.264 gives would-be hackers plenty of incentive to expand its feature set. In just a few weeks we've already seen people upgrading the 40GB hard drive to something beefier, booting from a USB stick and modifying the OS to add extra codec like DivX. Some people have even turned them into an Asterisk Voice-over-IP server.

Apple doesn't seem to have gone out of its way to stop people modifying the Apple TV. The case is easy to open, it runs on standard hardware and software and there's even a built-in factory restore if things go pear-shaped (hold down Menu and - on the remote).

If this were a company like Sony, you could expect a firmware update supposedly offering new features but primarily designed to close the loopholes used by hackers. I don't think Apple will do this, I actually think they want people to modify the Apple TV. Apple must realise that people want these extra features, but the more functionality it builds into the Apple TV the more complicated it gets and the greater the chance of problems. If Apple provided DivX playback, for example, its support staff would be swamped with people complaining they can't get certain files to work.

With Apple limiting the Apple TV's functionality but making it relatively easy to hack, power users have the freedom to do as they please but Apple doesn't have to clean up the mess when things go horribly wrong. I'd call that a win, win situation and I think the end result will be that Apple sells more Apple TVs. After trying out an Apple TV I wouldn't buy one today, but I might in the future if hackers can expand the feature set - especially if it's done via the USB port so you don't have to void your warranty by popping the bonnet. Throw in a USB TV tuner, turn it into a PVR and you've got my attention.

Sony and Microsoft don't want you hacking their games consoles because they sell the hardware at a loss and hope they make their money back on games. If you're not buying games, they're losing money. Microsoft and Sony waste time and money devising ever more intricate protection schemes, which are then hacked again anyway. Apple aren't in the habit of selling hardware at a loss, so they're far less likely to care what you do with the Apple TV. If buy content from the iTunes store then that's a bonus.

So Apple TV hacking has become the latest lounge room sport. Hopefully someone can transform it into something non-Apple-worshippers would want to use.