The owners and developers behind the popular XBMC software have announced a name change that will see the software rebranded as ‘Kodi’. The name change has been a long time coming in fairness, with the outgoing title suggesting to users that the powerful software is capable of being installed and invoked on Microsoft’s Xbox gaming consoles. That may have been true once upon a time, but XBMC hasn’t been capable of running on an Xbox since the original hardware release, with no compatibility being offered with Microsoft’s 360 or One offerings. The rebrand will see the software welcome in its third name change in the last 12 years and should also provide some much-needed clarity on the Xbox compatibility issues.

XBMC is the most popular open-source media center app known to man. It’s the reason many seek to jailbreak their Apple TVs, for example, but since one has to jailbreak any Apple device in order to use such software, support for Android has been much more progressive. XBMC 12, otherwise known as ‘Frodo’, has just been released officially, and among a slew of features and improvements such as Live TV and PVR support, offers what’s being described as “initial” Android support.

The powerful and extremely well thought of XBMC software has often been thought of as a complete media center solution for the Windows, OS X and Linux platforms, but thanks to some incredibly hard work from the people over at XBMC, it looks like we can reliably add Android to that list of supported platforms. We’ve been hearing about Android pre-release and nightly builds of XBMC for quite some time, so we knew it was in the works, but the team has officially announced what they call the “first end-user friendly release of XBMC for Android”.

If you happen to be one of those people who keep abreast with technology and open-source projects, or additionally just love movies and media in general, then the chances are; you will already be familiar with the extremely popular XBMC application. Over the last few years, XBMC has dramatically risen in popularity, with users loving the fact that it is not only free and open-source, but also cross-platform and extremely powerful. The project itself is supported by a host of volunteers from around the world, and although it is popular on things like the jailbroken Apple TV, it really comes into its own when installed and used on a high-end media PC.

When we talk about jailbreaking an iOS device, the large majority of people conjure up images of running software like Redsn0w or Absinthe to liberate an iPhone, iPod touch or an iPad. Granted, those devices are the most popular and more of those particular models are in circulation but it’s important to not exclude the fantastic Apple TV product when discussing the art of jailbreaking. At the time of writing we currently have the second and third-generation Apple TV units in circulation, with a jailbreak only being available on the former of those two models at present.

Announced at Google I/O last month alongside Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and the Nexus 7 tablet, the Nexus Q is the sort of gadgetry that has, so far, left most of us wondering, “Why, Google?” It has the innards of an Android smartphone, and strictly requires an Android device to work. All it does is stream TV shows, movies and music from the Google Play Store and videos from YouTube. It doesn’t even work on its own as you need an Android smartphone / tablet to control it. To top it off, it costs $299 which is simply unreasonable for a device with such a limited feature set.

XBMC, the free, open source cross-platform media player extraordinaire, will soon be arriving at the Google Play Store, the company has confirmed in a blog post on its site. Although mobile iterations of software tend to be considerably watered-down, XBMC is said to be a fully-fledged, feature-rich port, and will be available for Android tablets, smartphones, or set-top boxes.

The XBMC app for iPad, iPhone 4, and the Apple TV is now available. The following method will allow you to install XBMC on your jailbroken iPhone or iPad.

The XBMC app has been released for iPad, iPhone 4 and the 2nd-gen Apple TV. The following method will enable you to install XBMC on your jailbroken Apple TV 2G.