Why the AppleTV WON’T have a DVR

Posted by James Matarrese on 01/12/08 in Articles, Hardware, Opinions

AppleTV to DVR? There’s been a lot of speculation about what will be released at Macworld this year, and one thing that keeps coming up is the AppleTV. Among some of the hopes for the device, the one that stands out to me most is the suspected DVR. Now, at first glance, it would make a lot of sense for Apple to include DVR functionality. The hardware is there, and the software wouldn’t be very hard to implement, plus, it gives Apple entrance into yet another market yet uncharted to them, competing against the mighty TiVo.

Going a little deeper, though, one notices a few fatal problems with this.

Apple already has a business selling TV shows through the iTunes Store. A DVR-enabled AppleTV would cut into this business plan and potentially take money away from Apple. It’s also somewhat unlikely that the content providers (Fox, Sci-Fi, etc) will enjoy customers being able to record their shows and not have to pay royalties, though to counteract this, they may ask for something like the “Zune Tax” in which Microsoft payed Universal $1 for every Zune sold.

While introducing a DVR would make quite a few customers happy, Apple would have a hard time getting studios to agree to it, and it wouldn’t really be in the best interest of their business selling TV shows. Sorry, guys, but I don’t think your DVR will be coming this MacWorld.

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Bill Shirley said on

January 12th, 2008 at 12:23 pm

There are already DVRs all over the market. It hasn’t stopped there being a business for selling TV shows, selling Movies, and renting movies.

I would LOVE a product with
DVR
HDTV (over airwaves) tuner - the schedule could be fed over the web, and a satellite tv-style interface provided
Digital FM receiver

Grab that 5am new radio so that you can listen to it on your ipod on the way to work.

Backlog the Sesame Street episodes for your kid.

Catch the PBS documentary that’s on while you’re doing something else.

They could build in expiration if they wanted to, but I don’t think they want to.

(Of course, I’ll get none of this, like you said.)

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Jim said on

January 14th, 2008 at 8:34 am

Bill, the difference between other companies selling DVRs and Apple doing it is that other companies don’t have the iTunes Store and contracts with movie/TV/music companies.