Apple's Macworld Secret This Year May Be TiVo Partnership

When Apple's (AAPL) Steve Jobs announced his iTV strategy last fall, for many of us it sounded pretty weak. You have to pay $300 to buy a device that then downloads movies that you still have to pay for and then to top it all off you only get “near DVD quality”? While I understand why the Apple fans would like the product, it’s hard for me to imagine it having a more widespread appeal without DVR functionality or a Nintendo attached.

At the time, there were a lot of questions raised about why Apple still hasn’t launched their own PVR product and a lot of debate over whether or not the iTV would end up being a DVR after all, but in typically Jobs style he gave out enough information to get everybody all lathered up, but not enough to give out any real details. Over the years, I’ve never understood why Apple hasn’t introduced their own PVR. It seems like it would be a natural compliment to their business and would fit in nicely with their media strategy.

I’ve always speculated that they’ve resisted adding a PVR because Steve Jobs would rather sell content, then turn that control over to the cable companies, but in all honesty, that hypothesis has never really made a lot of sense because Apple has done such a great job of using iTunes to sell iPods, not the other way around.

They make so little off of their iTunes music and video downloads that they’d be far better off by charging more for a fully functioning DVR then to try and sell an inferior gadget without a TV tuner and then nickel and dime their way to profitability.

As it turns out though, PRVBlog is reporting a pretty wild rumor that Apple is in fact planning on launching a PVR at Macworld and the kicker will be that they have licenced TiVo’s techology into their new iTV box. Interestingly enough, his tipster also says that they will be changing the name of the product to the Mac Media Capsule, which sounds a little screwy to me, but then again I never really cared for the name Wii, so I’m probably the wrong one to ask when it comes to branding.

While this is only in phase one rumor status right now, it certainly would make a lot of sense and could benefit both companies. Last year rumors did surface that TiVo was a potential takeover target by Apple, but after a flurry of coverage in the blogosphere, nothing really ever came from the chatter. While it’s possible that Apple may have actually been interested in buying out TiVo at the time, because of TiVo’s takeover pill, it would have poisioned Apple if they didn’t get permission from TiVo’s management first. TiVo has been pretty adamant about not wanting to sell their business and it’s fully possible that a second round of negotions have revolved around licensing instead of equity this time.

If this rumor does turn out to be true, it would certainly create a lot of buzz for the product. Few brands carry as dedicated a fanbase as Apple or TiVo and by combining their technologies, it would undoubtably create an internet superpower when it came to the coverage. While a Mac incorporating TiVo’s technology inside still wouldn’t be enough to convince me to cross over to the darkside, there are certainly more then a few Appleheaded fanboys out there who would reconsider TiVo over Microsoft Vista, if Apple did unveil this technology. While we’ll likely need to wait until Macworld to find out if there is any truth behind this, if it turns out to be true, it would certainly represent a key breakthrough for TiVo and would create a compelling reason for people to use their standalone DMR product over the generic cable boxes.

Comments

[Tom B:]

AAPL has an El Gato connection; I think a PVR is a strong possibilty, but I'd expect it to COMPETE with TiVo.

2006 Dec 06 10:44 AM

[Frank Z:]

Why not just iTunes on TiVo? That would be the killer app! Plus they'd have to do away with the subscription fees. If TiVo was so hell bent on not being taken over, they should have made their own iTunes for TiVo a long time ago. But again it takes Steve Jobs to show people how to make money in this world of game-shifting technology! TiVo is such an obvious content distribution platform and not one person there could think of it?

2006 Dec 06 12:21 PM