TiVo’s not doing so well these days. A gadget I once considered it nearly impossible to live without has since been buffeted by streaming set-top box competitors like the Apple TV and Roku Box, even as more and more HDTV manufacturers bake DVR functionality right into their sets. Last year, TiVo actually lost $84.5 million while simultaneously running up a deficit of nearly $800 million, so needless to say, they need to pull something out of their posteriors quick if they want to stay in business.
It looks like that “something” might well be repositioning the TiVo box as a streaming device that will pump its recorded content straight to your iPad. TiVo is asking customers how they feel about the option to “stream live TV, DVR recordings and TV shows from a cable company’s On Demand library to one’s iPad” from both the comfort of their home and while they were out on the road.
That sounds like a pretty killer feature to me, especially given the feature paucity of the current TiVo remote app. Unfortunately, I don’t know if TiVo can pull it off: TiVo announced that HulU Plus would come to its DVRs “soon” way back in September of last year, and that functionality still hasn’t arrived. TiVo needs to be sprier if they want to stay relevant.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
6 responses to “TiVo Hints At DVR-To-iPad Streaming Coming Soon”
TIVO. Poster child of why we need patent reform.
Great ideas but zero ability to execute in a timely fashion. But who needs a product when you can just sue everyone using a hardrive in a product
Great if you have Tivo Premiere!! I have 2 Tivo’s that are a couple of years old and I love it, but this iPad app will do me absolutely no good!! :( Boo to Tivo for not supporting their older models.
I love my TiVo, but their development is unbelievably glacial. This is the same company that released the premiere with its half-finished OFFENSIVELY slow HD interface strewn everywhere with advertisements.
The original TiVo was a streamlined bulletproof machine that did one thing and did it well– recorded TV shows. It Just Worked. That made it awesome.
TiVo has done their best to bloat up the platform with added garbage ever since without ever thinking to improve that core functionality. The DVR wasn’t perfected in 2001– but it has been unchanged ever since.
TiVo deserves to die.