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Should Apple Buy TiVo?
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.
just as long as they can make my ipod record my favorite shows.
How long TiVO's would be running Linux under the hood if Apple did annex TiVO. Personally, im all for it.
Are you secure enough in your masculinity to run 'man touch'?
It will only be avalible in US but will be availible in Europe shorty after.
/me goes back to the madressed cell.
Wait didn't they say that about iPhoto and iTunes Music store too...
I fought the corporate America, and the corporate America bought the law.
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.
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').
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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.
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. ;)
I'm not popular enough to be different.
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Did Steve Jobs submit this? I'm disappointed in him. Slashdot is NOT a lawyer or business forum.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
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 would hope that Apple makes sure the Music Store continues to be a success before diving into these deep pools.
No, way.
"You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas"
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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.
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 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$oft, hehehe).
No.
...no pun intended.
What some people are missing is that Jobs dislikes TV quite a bit. He's gone on record saying that he doesn't see TV as a part of the "Digital Hub" strategy, as it is a passive medium. With music, you can bring it anywhere with you. With television, you're prettymuch resigned to sitting on the sofa and letting the cool rays wash over you. Apple has always promoted a "lifestyle". This "lifestyle" is active, smart and creative. It involves doing things, *making* videos, *making* music, not "just sitting there".
I don't think he'd [Jobs] go for buying TiVo. It isn't part of "The Grande Vision"
Blocklevel: Practical Information Architecture
"the man who made music downloading legit"
HA more like the man who repackaged crippled DRM downloads and is only succeeding (If he actully is succeeding) beacuse the apple brand is less evil than M$ and the others
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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 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.
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cou
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.
Artist will always make art.
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 trailer splashed up on the big screen between the Dolby Digital and THX trailers.
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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 extension, to me!
I want my iTV (bad 80s rock in the backgound)
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, photos and music and allows them to be shared to your local network would be more appealling.
Imagine if the iPVR could recompress all the shows it's recorded for syncing with your iPod(320x240). Then you could have your video to go.
In about 1997, when Apple first brought Steve back, there were lots of jokes making the rounds in the company along these same lines. People called him "His Majesty" or "His Royal Highness" or whatever. He asked everybody to just call him Steve, but people called him nicknames anyway.
Today, people still don't call him Steve. He asks everybody to call him Steve, but people still call him something else.
Everybody at Apple calls him "sir."
When a guy comes along who, despite all his widely reported and entirely true personal flaws, PERSONALLY keeps your employer in business and makes sure your stock shares and options are worth something five years later, you damn well call him "sir."
Another crippling bombshell hit the already beleagured TiVo community when "quandrum" announced the TiVo is dying.
Random is the New Order.
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.
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I guess then Apple would have to form the Ministry of Silly iWalks, right?
Lose essential liberties to get temporary safety = get only hassles and security theater.
Regardless of tivo's strengths as a product, it could be interesting to consider the financial side of things.
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;) Any CPAs out there who can help interpret the stock stuff?
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&
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&l=on&
So could tivo's aquisition help Apple's stock? I have no idea... I'm a computer science major.
Mac users are all gay and like to suck off their life partners while using their Macs. Additionally, they film themselves having sodomy and then edit the video on their Macs. I would like to know what everybody thinks on this matter. Thank you in advance.
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 Apple's stock at first. What happens after that depends on how well Apple does.
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?