We Mac users have had the short end of the stick to a certain extent with the Xbox 360, since all that lovely Media Center functionality requires Windows XP or Windows Media Center. No more! The lovely folks at Nullriver who brought us PSPWare have just released the first version of Connect360, which lets you stream MP3s and JPGs from your iTunes and iPhoto libraries to the 360. That’s the same stuff that Windows XP can do, and hopefully future versions will add transcoding of AACs and maybe even video streaming.

I tried it out and it certainly seems to do everything that it promises. I booted up the 360 and it immediately found my iBook over the network, and I could look at all of my photos in their full HD glory on my TV. Music worked similarly well although like they say AACs, both protected and otherwise, don’t work yet. Now we just need it to stream video (I’d kill to be able to watch 720p H.264 on the 360) and we’ll be set.

It’s in beta at the moment so you can get it with free updates for life for $10. Not a bad deal…