Mac News: Hardware : Apple's New Mac Mini Built for Living Room
Adding video recording functionality would have made the Mac Mini too complicated, says Phil Schiller, Apple senior vice president"We're not trying to replace the TiVo," he says. "This is about taking the media from your computer and accessing it via the TV."
TiVo is safe from Apple for now.
Actually, TiVo's biggest problem isn't Apple (or Microsoft, for that matter), but the cable companies. Almost all of them offer DVR services that deliver most of what TiVo does (minus the spiffy UI and the recomendations) for a competitive monthly fee and no stiff up-front purchase price.
Given the lack of standards around tuning and decoding digital and HD over cable (ie, you need the cable box from your cable company in your signal chain anyway), there are too many dependencies for Apple to make their typical it's-so-simple-it-just-works play. The current generation of CableCard sure isn't the answer, either.
Expect more slow-play from Apple on this hand.
