Many of our readers were thrilled to discover Connect360 after we posted about it last week. Connect360 "automatically indexes your iTunes and iPhoto libraries and shares them to your Xbox 360. You can then use the Xbox 360 Dashboard to browse and play your media, organized in the exact same way that it is on your Mac."
A simple, elegant solution that, unfortunately, refused to work for many. Undaunted by the task, the developers have already rolled out a significant upgrade addressing many network issues including improved network detection and Mac OS X Firewall support. Anyone with difficulties running this earlier have any better luck with this update?
Read the entire changelog beneath the fold.
[Via Xbox-Scene]VERSION 1.5
- Improved networking / automatic detection
- Added shoutcast streaming
- Added "Add Firewall Entries..." button in Preferences to automatically configure the Mac OS X firewall
- Added options to disable iTunes or iPhoto sharing
- Added control over image quality for image transcoding
- Adds iPhoto 3 & 4 support
- Now works with iPhoto 6 "Copy files to iPhoto folder" option unchecked
- Start on login now works properly
- Fixes spinning beachball problem when invalid DNS servers are defined
- Fixes playback of aliased files
- Fixes memory leaks
- Fixes memory waste when streaming large audio files
- Fixes a potential crash when quickly switching songs or photos
- Fixes crash for albums/playlists/etc with an "@" sign in them
- Fixes listings for artists with international characters
- Fixes beachball when checking for updates w/o an active internet connection
- Speed optimizations
- Minor UI changes
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-17-2006 @ 4:00AM
Grendel Pr1me said...
If they can get support for FrontRow in this in the near future, I will have to forego the idea of a Media Center PC, and just get a Mac Mini that can take up a lot less space.
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2-17-2006 @ 6:30AM
neale said...
i just got my mac mini hooked up to my 360 sooooo quickly, sooooo easily its crazy! i then registered the software (10 dollars is a measly £5.84 here in the UK, thats like 2 drinks when out in town)
i tried getting my pc hooked via media connect and it fucked my pc up.
ive just converted to mac about 2/3 months ago and my god its the greatest! "
but you cant play games on it..."
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2-17-2006 @ 6:34AM
neale said...
wheres the rest of my comment?
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2-17-2006 @ 9:11AM
Frogbrother said...
This piece of software is fan-friggin-tastic. I bought it before this version and have since updated and have had zero problems connecting. It streams pictures and audio (including streams from internet radio) without any need for configuration! I also discovered a neat little trick... when I had access to all my picture on my G5, I found that I could import any of my choosing for my Xbox360 background! Now my "blades" have a cool shot of Hawaii on them!
It's $10... c'mon people! Best ten bucks I've spent all month!
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2-17-2006 @ 10:58AM
C. Grant said...
neale: Not sure about your comment. You're well below the limit. The system doesn't report anything else.
As for not playing games on the Mac... isn't that why we have 360s?
I'm not going back to Windows no matter how much I like their game system! :)
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2-17-2006 @ 2:17PM
neale said...
As for not playing games on the Mac... isn't that why we have 360s?
thats what i went on to say. but seems to have gone missing somewhere.
same, im avoiding windows at all costs now. if only i could afford an imac, or even that new laptop sporting intels.
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2-18-2006 @ 1:20AM
TrevorNYC said...
Now if someone can figure out how to stream video from my pc or mac withough running a Windows Media PC then I'll be really happy.
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2-18-2006 @ 2:34PM
Ajay said...
Hey...wth! How about adding this feature to the PC version of itunes first. I sure would like to have it synch with my itunes instead of just a folder i made.
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2-18-2006 @ 4:22PM
iomatic said...
Wow, I have a picture of my kids in Hawaii as the background too!
Yes, video streaming would be awesome; but if they could get around iTunes DRM and stream iTunes TV/Video purchases, that would be so grand.
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2-19-2006 @ 2:03AM
Silver said...
No big news here. Don't have money for any Apple computers and really don't like iTunes or any of the Apple multimedia software... Just a bunch of pointless stuff for me.
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2-19-2006 @ 3:32PM
C. Grant said...
Ajay: certain things Apple does better. Windows media support pales in comparison. At least iTunes came out.
Silver: It's "big news" to a lot of other people. Thanks for sharing.
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3-07-2006 @ 1:25PM
Mark said...
I've used connect360 for almost a month now and it has worked flawlessly for me. I too promptly registered after demoing the software. Keeping my fingers crossed that there will be streaming video support soon also. I just recently gave my pc to my sister and dont want to have to build another one just to stream video.
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