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Television Businesses Media Apple

Should Apple Buy TiVo? 68

Posted by pudge from the yes-they-should dept.
st. jude writes "In a story over at Business 2.0, John Battelle says yes. As the man who made music downloading legit, maybe His Steveness can conquer Hollywood's loathing of the PVR next. As a lover of both my TiVo and my Mac, the thought makes this dreamer drool ... TiVo + Mac = iTV ... two great tastes that taste great together? Or just another version of a long-rumored geek fantasy that's as silly as the iWalk?" Although, if it means per-show payments, I'll pass.
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Should Apple Buy TiVo? More

Should Apple Buy TiVo?

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  • of course. (Score:3, Funny)

    by poil11 ( 186519 ) * on Monday May 12, 2003 @11:14AM (#5937044)
    just as long as they can make my ipod record my favorite shows.

  • One has got to wonder (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ike6116 ( 602143 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @11:16AM (#5937061) Homepage Journal
    How long TiVO's would be running Linux under the hood if Apple did annex TiVO. Personally, im all for it.

    • Re:One has got to wonder (Score:3, Insightful)

      by GoRK ( 10018 ) *
      Probably quite a while since TiVo has changed from PPC to MIPS and that'd mean another port of OS/X.

      Plus, the cost of reimplementing every piece of software on the unit, head end servers, and back-end data processing systems and the like while maintaining interoperability with the old equipment out there probably outdoes the cost saved by only having to maintain one codebase -- plus if they *bought* tivo, they'd get all the engineers that go along with it -- embedded linux engineers.

      Sort of like how Micro
    • Wow! Been a while since I've seen someone give props to OS/2. :) Maybe I should unzip my last OS/2 disk image to an old PC just to reminisce. I loved that you could just unzip the disk image and it would boot. Made for really flexible blasting of fresh images to new machines.

      -Alex
    • How long TiVO's would be running Linux under the hood if Apple did annex TiVO. Personally, im all for it.

      I would not assume that Apple would change to a new OS. Keep in mind that Apple uses a 3rd party OS for the iPod.

  • And (Score:3, Funny)

    by Isbiten ( 597220 ) <`isbiten' `at' `gmail.com'> on Monday May 12, 2003 @11:18AM (#5937073) Homepage
    It will only be avalible in US but will be availible in Europe shorty after.

    Wait didn't they say that about iPhoto and iTunes Music store too... /me goes back to the madressed cell.

    • Re:And (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jlower ( 174474 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @12:19PM (#5937536) Homepage
      You think TiVo is available worldwide now? You can't even use it in Canada.

      • Re:And (Score:2, Interesting)

        by sogoodsofarsowhat ( 662830 )
        Funny i know lots of canadians using Tivo's (especially DTIVO's)..... Dont make me laugh. Do you think its because canadians have different power? There is no reason a Tivo will not work in Canada. (and before you start with the crap about only supplying programming for the US, i suggest you get some US programming up there, yes its available, and is way better then that drivel called canadian TV. Why do i know this, well lets just say, Canadians for one, take their US TV very seriously. MWUHAHAHAHAHAH

  • TiVo is dieing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quandrum ( 652868 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @11:19AM (#5937079)
    Everyday new PVR (DVR) technologies come out. Many of these don't have subscription fees. ./ geeks even know of some homebuilt linux solutions. There is nothing that TiVo provides that can't be had for free or for cheaper.

    OTH, they have lasted this long because they provide all these things in one box in an easy to use form factor. Hallmarks of Apple. But I don't think the Steve's golden touch can help TiVo.. it's on the way out unless they can find a new buisness model. Sorry.

  • This would be silly (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BortQ ( 468164 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @11:20AM (#5937093) Homepage Journal
    Apple doesn't need TiVo because they already have the equivalent capabilities. A mac with the right software could do everything that TiVo does. What has Apple been spending its time on these days? The answer is software.

    Now that they also have the nifty music store thingy set up it probably wouldn't be that hard to add videos of all kinds to their offerings. (Although they would have to change the name away from 'music store').

    • Re:This would be silly (Score:5, Interesting)

      by WatertonMan ( 550706 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @12:27PM (#5937590)
      While this is true in theory, in practice it isn't. There isn't an equivalent to iTunes for PVR for the Mac. There are some opensource Linux projects that have been ported. But in terms of UI they suck. (At least based upon what I've read and seen) You could in theory use iMovie and pipe the video through your camcorder. But that loses most of what makes a PVR cool - i.e. easy timed recording.

      There also is limited *good* hardware for the Mac. Yes there is EyeTV and I know some people love that. Personally I'm not sure I like it as much as a stand alone PVR. I came close to buying one but didn't.

      This really is a place Apple could clean everyones clock with. Especially if they had a HDTV version.

    • Re:This would be silly (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Buying TiVo means buying their customer base.
    • A Mac with the right software(iTunes) can do the same things.

      Apple made an MP3 player because they could make it significantly better. I believe Apple could also make a significantly better PVR. I'm not saying that you couldn't get all the hardware and software together and do it yourself. Apple can deliver the total package.

      Also if Apple wanted to expand into downloadable videos, I don't thing users would go for it clogging up their computer hard drives. A seperate hub device that stores all your movies,

  • Skipping Ads (Score:4, Insightful)

    by oni ( 41625 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @11:20AM (#5937100) Homepage
    From the article: Mystro TV decides which programs can be recorded and whether ads can be skipped.

    I'm trying to picture them asking advertisers if it's ok to allow viewers to skip their ads. "Oh, sure" they'll say "we don't mind if they skip this ad we paid a megabuck for"

    That's not likely to happen. So basically, every ad will be skip-protected and this device will actually be worse than an old fashioned VCR.

  • I dunno... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HebrewToYou ( 644998 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @11:23AM (#5937116)
    Is it really necessary for Apple to begin incorporating all these 'traditional,' and I use the term loosely, media devices into their collective? I'm as big a fan of Apple as they come -- I just think that at some point they might be stretching themselves thin. It's not a stretch for Apple to tackle television recording as the next big thing. I'd just rather they spend their time doing something a bit more related to the field of personal computing. But hey, maybe we'll see the return of those Apple TV/Tuner cards like the one in my Ancient Performa 6320. Those were pretty nifty....when I was in middle school. ;)

    • Re:I dunno... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Is it really necessary for Apple to begin incorporating all these 'traditional,' and I use the term loosely, media devices into their collective?

      Well, yeah. For the last couple years, Apple's big thing has been the digital hub. Steve Jobs says your computer (Macintosh) should be the center of your digital lifestyle, and Apple's mission has been to deliver on that vision. (ack, synergy, paradigm, I sound like a PHB!)

      People keep getting all these little gadgets to enhance small areas of their digital lif
      • Interesting points. But as someone already pointed out re: Apple/Tivo, Jobs is not a huge fan of television. I don't think it would be a bad idea. I just don't think it would be a good idea. Lets let Apple get around to creating a bit more usable file system in their personal computers before they go tinkering around with television. Anyways, I always think back to the Pippen when folks wax sentimental about Apple and television. I just don't see it happening. But what do I know.

  • Jobs? (Score:5, Funny)

    by sporty ( 27564 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @11:38AM (#5937219) Homepage
    Did Steve Jobs submit this? I'm disappointed in him. Slashdot is NOT a lawyer or business forum.
  • I think the reason Tivo has been mildly successful is not because of the programming on TV, but because of the features it has. Since most computers can get these same features with a simple TV card, I couldn't see Apple trying to offer this as a service. If they make it easy to record and more importantly, share programing over a network, then I could see Apple being interested. It seems like the Music Store thing has prompted all sorts of expectations for Apple to delve into other forms of media, but I

  • No Chance (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12, 2003 @11:47AM (#5937297)
    There's one very good reason why this will not happen. Apple, now more than ever, needs to convince major record labels that he is on the side of protecting intellectual property. The labels' biggest fear is losing control over their vast libraries as part of a distribution agreement. Jobs won't do anything that casts even a shred of doubt over his role as one of the good guys.

  • A very good couple. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zbowling ( 597617 ) * <zac.zacbowling@com> on Monday May 12, 2003 @11:49AM (#5937308) Homepage Journal
    The idea is a very exciting to think about. With Apple's track record with working with Unix based products (Tivo being Linux based) and very great history of graphics processing (I haven't worked at a TV station yet that could say that haveing Windows machines is better then having a majority of Macs in the graphics and video departments) the match would be perfect.

    Apple also has a histroy of being the underdog with the more soild product and bug free product. I could see Tivo really changing with support from Apple, and maybe a bunch of new features. Apple would benifit in fighting the OS wars again if it owned Tivo. As it has done with products in the past, (such as the I-POD) make them intergrate with only their product (at least at first). I don't know anyone who can't say that the I-POD being only useable on Mac at first didn't help sales of the Mac in at least the smallest bit.

    A down side you might see is a change in the policy to allow commerical skipping. Being a larger company with its own active interest in commericals might be compailed to retract some of the ease of this feature. On the other hand it might not because of the competition from SonicBlue's ReplayTV [sonicblue.com] which from what I hear alread has better commerical skipping technology that detects commericals and automaticly skips them. (I own a ReplayTV 4500, which has this feature. From what I have heard, Tivo allows you to manually skip.)

    I would buy a Tivo if Apple bought them. I'm a dedicated UNIX/Linux (former Mac user as of 1994), who programs for Windows at work. My interest in Mac is comming back now with their dedication to designing such a soild product.

    I'm for an Apple owned Tivo. Its better for everyone (expect Micro$oft, hehehe).

  • Some missing the "picture" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Visigothe ( 3176 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @11:56AM (#5937346) Homepage
    ...no pun intended.

    What some people are missing is that Jobs dislikes TV quite a bit. He's gone on record saying that he doesn't see TV as a part of the "Digital Hub" strategy, as it is a passive medium. With music, you can bring it anywhere with you. With television, you're prettymuch resigned to sitting on the sofa and letting the cool rays wash over you. Apple has always promoted a "lifestyle". This "lifestyle" is active, smart and creative. It involves doing things, *making* videos, *making* music, not "just sitting there".

    I don't think he'd [Jobs] go for buying TiVo. It isn't part of "The Grande Vision"
  • "the man who made music downloading legit"
    HA more like the man who repackaged crippled DRM downloads and is only succeeding (If he actully is succeeding) beacuse the apple brand is less evil than M$ and the others
    • True. I'm not buying anything from the Apple store. But it's not just the brand that less evil. He got it so you can stream it and also burn it as many times as you'd like, something nobody else in the industry could get the record companies to agree to.

      It doesn't really matter though. In 10 years, You're going to see the big 5 drop from 85% of the record industry to 40%, and we won't be complaining so much.

  • wow....hold up (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mgbaron ( 457884 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @12:10PM (#5937463) Homepage
    Woh...hold the phone. Let's not call the iTunes music service a success just yet. While I am a huge fan already and it has definately won me over, let's not forget that us over zealous mac fans are just a very small portion of the market. When I tell my non mac friends about the store I have difficulty convincing them of its advantages...

    And let's not forget about Apple's recent troubles [thestar.com] porting their iTunes software to windows. This battle is far from over in terms of winning the rest of the market over. Some of the record labels are viewing the Mac situation as a small market test, as I believe Jobs sold it to them. They are unsure it should be moved to the windows platform so soon.

    So as for purchasing TiVo... I am all for it, in the long run. My point is simply that we should be more careful with terms like "conquer." The iTunes music store is far from conquering anything... and with their recent removal of radiohead from the database...i think they are one step further at that.

    • "And let's not forget about Apple's recent troubles [thestar.com] porting their iTunes software to windows."

      First clarification, my comments are not aimed at you but at this comment in general. I have seen similar posts all over the place and finally enough is enough. What are the troubles in porting this to windows? Studio issues? The only studio exec to be identified was the CTO for Sony. While the tech guys will have input as to wether the lables go for a windows version of iTunes or not, the fi

  • I am sure TiVo is good technology... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pretentiousPPC ( 618549 ) <evers@cablespeed.com> on Monday May 12, 2003 @12:11PM (#5937471)
    but really, tell me exactly who is willing to buy a nearly $300 box and then pay $14 a month after that for it to just work properly, and for the the privilege for all of there TV viewing habits to be sold off to marketers? People who are, are stupid, and the company that thinks that this is a decent business plan is even stupider.
    Apple's not stupid, and they wont be touching a subscription based company, BTW isn't iTunes suppose to be so great because it isn't subscription based?

    At this very moment MS has the technology to just roll over TiVo within the year, they have the Xbox, WebTV, and Windows Media Player, toss all of this into box added with the usual MS marketing and you got a killer app. that will kill TiVo and all the other PVRs at the moment, and anyone in the industry should know this and would balk at attempting to go up against it--everyone except for the likes of Sony.
    Sony is the only one with the resources, name, and establishment to beat MS to the punch, too bad for TiVo, Sony likes to keep things in house and won't be knocking on there door to buy them out.
    • At this very moment MS has the technology to just roll over TiVo within the year, they have the Xbox, WebTV, and Windows Media Player, toss all of this into box added with the usual MS marketing and you got a killer app.

      And it will likely feel as crappy and kludged together as all of those homebrew linux on tv projects. People pay for something that looks nice. Something that seems put together properly. Something like... TiVO.

      MS has the parts, but do they have the will to put them together properly? Tim
    • Ummm... The rest of your ill-thought out diatribe aside, Sony has licensed TiVo's technology and sells a Sony branded TiVo [sonystyle.com].
    • ...but really, tell me exactly who is willing to buy a nearly $300 box and then pay $14 a month after that for it to just work properly, and for the the privilege for all of there TV viewing habits to be sold off to marketers?

      <raises hand>

      It's pretty obvious to me that you've never really used a TiVo, nor even looked into the privacy issue. First of all, "my info" is never sold to anybody; aggregate info is sold to networks. TiVo can look at its users' usage as an anonymous whole and say things like "this commercial was watched by 80% of the people" or "only 30% of TiVo owners recorded that show." This hardly gives the network any info about ME.

      Second... simply put, TiVo will change the way you think about TV, and depending on how much TV you watch, can literally change your life. I just gave one to a friend as a wedding gift. She was worried she'd just turn into a couch potato, but she says it has had the opposite effect: instead of having to be home when a particular show is broadcast, she can arrange her own schedule and watch the show when she has time. TiVo has freed her from the shackles of network scheduling, and she spends more evenings out with her friends now.

      But all that aside, it's just a better way to watch TV. How often to you bother to record a show so you can watch it later? With a TiVo, you can do it in seconds, and no worries about finding a tape or anything. It just there, and it just works.

      Of course, in many instances, you only have to do that once. Hear about a new show coming up, might be worth watching? Set up a season pass. Your TiVo will record every episode, even if the network moves it around. You can do this weeks in advance, and only remember the new show when you see it in your TiVo list of shows. Even if the show sucks and you erase the season pass, at least you got to see it.

      Of course, we use season passes for everything: grab all the episodes of the shows we like, or always keep a couple "I Love Lucy" on the list so we can watch them when we're doing something else in the living room.

      Not to mention wishlists. I thought Amy Smart was pretty cute, so I told my TiVo to grab any sitcom episode that she was in. It found a couple Felicity and Scrubs episodes, which was cool. In fact, I so liked the Scrubs ep that I threw in a season pass for it; we'll see how some other ones are.

      Many of these activities you cannot do with a VCR and a TV Guide, or it would take hours of poring over the text and programming the thing, not to mention the tapes. With the TiVo, it's all wrapped up in a truly easy-to-use on-screen GUI. It really is the beginning of the next generation of television.

      At this very moment MS has the technology to just roll over TiVo within the year, they have the Xbox, WebTV, and Windows Media Player, toss all of this into box added with the usual MS marketing and you got a killer app. that will kill TiVo and all the other PVRs at the moment...

      It was called Ultimate TV, and it bombed, and TiVo never even blinked. Thank you, please play again.

      Doug

      • Ok...now if you look at the header you would notice that I think that the TiVo is great technology, and I have no qualms with how great you think the TiVo is, I'm sure it is.
        I just find no need to have to pay $14 a month for really no added content, just a service that I could find elsewhere on the TV guide channel or online freely. But I do realize that its not shot up on to my TiVo so I have to pay a 'service' charge for it to just work properly like it says on the box, and I just find that stupid.

        It wa

        • Re:I am sure TiVo is good technology... (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          holy fuck you are a retard, either that or you have the comprehension skills of a seven year old. seriously, slow down, re-read and try to understand. it will help you out in life, i promise!
    • At this very moment MS has the technology to just roll over TiVo within the year

      Um, I think this was called Ultimate TV, which competed directly with the Tivo DirecTV box, and did not "roll over" anything, unless you count rolling over and playing dead...

    • At this very moment MS has the technology to just roll over TiVo within the year, they have the Xbox, WebTV, and Windows Media Player, toss all of this into box added with the usual MS marketing and you got a killer app.

      Yes. And a good name, like Ultimate TV [ultimatetv.com]; and they'll be unbeatable. Except they already tried and failed. They had two advantages over Tivo, they beat Tivo with dual tuner DirecTV and they built PinP into the box, but they still failed. (I recall it cost about $100 more)

      Sony is the only

  • QuickTime seems to have a decent enough implementation of MPEG4, I would like to see them use it in more interesting ways. PVR seems like a natural addition to their software lineup for their existing hardware. What I'd be more interested in seeing, though, is an Apple/QuickTime branded digital cinema playback system. Xserve and Xserve RAID loaded up with hi-def telecine transfers could make a nice turn-key solution for a lot of movie theaters. And I bet Jobs would love to have an Apple digital cinema trail

  • Apple's Lovely UI Design (Score:4, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @12:28PM (#5937606) Homepage Journal
    "Honey? Why does the remote have only one button?"
    • LOL! A funny refrence, but has a relevant unintened meaning. Apple is know for making things simple and user-friendly but really powerful. Tivo is overly user-friendly that they sacrafice functionality and control for ease.

  • iMovie Store, anyone? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by davstein ( 636390 )
    This sounds like a logical extension of the iTunes Music Store. I would venture guess Apple has a component audio iBox (at the least) in the works.

    So, they buy TiVo or make an audio/video box and voila, you can stream not only your iTunes library to your stereo but MPEG 4 video as well! Slap on a Airport Extreme card and you're ready to get jiggy or watch a flick on your TV.

    Imagine an iMovie store, where you can buy a movie, burn it to DVD or stream it to your iBox...sounds pretty good, and a logical ext

  • I want my iTV (Score:2, Funny)

    by s4dfish ( 672747 )
    I want my iTV (bad 80s rock in the backgound)

  • Per-Show Payments (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @06:16PM (#5940640) Journal
    Although, if it means per-show payments, I'll pass.

    I have the oppisite view. I have practically given up watching broadcast TV now. I simply do not have enough life to waste 15 minutes of it in an hour watching adverts. I generally wait for the DVD release (which usually has better sound, better picture quality and no ads). If I could buy an episode of a TV show for a reasonable price (and the reasonable part is important) then I would probably do that.

  • I guess then Apple would have to form the Ministry of Silly iWalks, right?
  • Regardless of tivo's strengths as a product, it could be interesting to consider the financial side of things.

    Tivo is trading at around $7 right now. This is pretty normal for tivo's stock. In the last year it's been as high as $8 or so. (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TIVO&d=c&t=1y&l=on& z =b&q=l)

    Apple on the other hand is trading around $19. It's a tad down right now (as is everything else), but has been as high as $25 in a year. (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AAPL&d=c&t=1y
    • Tivo's share price means (almost) nothing. Each company has a different number of outstanding shares. Tivo has 57 million shares, and Apple has 365 million shares. The share price of the combined company will depend on what Apple's investors think of the deal. Ultimately it should depend on the profitability of the combined company.

      I can tell you this, Tivo is not doing well, losing more than $1 per share per year. Apple is almost break even. Based on this, the acquisition can be expected to bring down App
  • If Apple and TiVo merge, we are just going to have higher prices and just a few huge corporations who have all the power. Where's the diversity? Where does Apple's and TiVo's unique individualistic qualities go after that?

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