Apple is working on a fix for its Apple TV flickering bug

THE MAKER OF SHINY TOYS Apple is apparently working on a fix for a screen flickering problem that recently arose with Steve Jobs' Apple TV hobby gadgets.

The glitches only appeared after Apple released its 4.2 update for the Apple TV last Wednesday. A number of TV sets were affected, including those by Sony, Panasonic, Hitachi, Samsung and Toshiba, which are only most of the Japanese and other big asian TV makers, according to Apple Insider.

The problem appears to be related to the Apple TV's inability to output video in 1080i resolution. Prior to the last update many TVs were able to automatically convert Apple's 720p resolution into 1080i. This is no longer possible without resulting in screen flickering.

Some users are also having problems with their HDMI output settings, which has been locked on Auto while their picture quality has been reduced to 480p. It is not clear if the fix that's in the works will also address this serious issue.

The old adage that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind, but then Apple is notorious for breaking things with its updates, such as when it bricked many unlocked Iphones or when a previous Apple TV update broke Boxee, a third-party client that supports multiple video formats.

Apple is working on the problem, but it has given no timeframe for when it might get this fixed. It took two weeks for the company to address problems that arose in December, so we can probably expect to wait a couple of weeks or so for it to squash this latest set of Apple TV bugs.

The three people who bought one might check for updates often, but we doubt that the rest of us care. µ