Will Apple TV ever include DVR functionality?

Probably not, but the real question, will apple TV ever do home automation. I think yes.

Probably not… then again, to my memory: Most DVR units cost more than Apple TV does. You can also rent/download/pirate everyone in theaters and on television for play on the Apple TV. I also know you can get a 500GB external drive that can permanently connect to your AppleTV for under $100 so you have a near limitless “Library” of video content :)

“Who needs it?” basically.Probably not… then again, to my memory: Most DVR units cost more than Apple TV does. You can also rent/download/pirate everyone in theaters and on television for play on the Apple TV. I also know you can get a 500GB external drive that can permanently connect to your AppleTV for under $100 so you have a near limitless “Library” of video content :)

“Who needs it?” basically.

Woah. Wierd fluther glitch is wierd. Pardon that strange “double post” of sorts.

I wish.

Warning: a crystal ball rant:

With the current revenue model of iTunes and “owning” and renting content, I don’t think Apple has an interest in DVR capability, nor do the majors (big film and television companies), in terms of playing nice with their monolithic point of view (them being Steve Jobs in particular)...you can see evidence of this in the anemic roll-out of the rental store in iTunes. Majors also have a real problem with the notion of people circumventing DRM via DVR technology; they would much rather support an infrastructure for on-demand viewing of content, subsidized by ad revenue; just check out Hulu and you’ll get the big picture from several major studios already moving in this direction.

Bit Torrents are also dissuading companies from entering into “capturing” technologies like DVR-it’s just another means to pirate content. Keep your eye on on-demand repositories, like Hulu (and Rhapsody, Fuse, Last.fm and Pandora on the music side)...together with tech like the SlingBox, VCast and 3G/FIOS, the idea of “hording” content onto a storage appliance will be largely relegated to personal (home) movies, nullifying the necessity to “capture” and store media for time-shifted consumption…If and when big Telco opens up (relative) unlimited bandwidth over the ether and cell networks, we’ll see this come to fruition and Network media will experience a boom as folks consume mass media from their mobile appliances via live stream.

The new/bigger picture involves “place-shifting”-that is, consuming media on-demand direct from the source, wherever you are. Ad and subscription models are pretty much going to be the default for this tech as it rolls out here in the “West”...

Alas, in spite of all this, we’re still about 5 years behind tech-folks in Korea and Japan can already stream personal media from home to their cell phones.

I would speculate that Apple TV will not get DVR functionality, and here’s why. Companies that feature DVR or are built around DVR have a very specific revenue model. They are information brokers. They are selling you TV listings. They are selling advertisers customer information and demographics. That’s what they do, that’s why they exist.

Apple is not in that business. They are in the media business. They sell and rent movies, music, and software. The Apple TV is more or less an iPod for your TV. It’s just a way for you to get media somewhere. Even though it’s connected to a TV like a DVR, and it makes sense to a consumer with a remote in-hand to combine that functionality, it doesn’t really make sense for Apple. They don’t want you watching TV. They want you watching iTunes movie rentals.

On top of that, DVRs take a lot of man hours, and aren’t all that lucrative. How many independent DVR companies are out there. Tivo. Any others? The only other DVRs I can think of are through cable companies.

I know what you’re going to say. “What about Windows Media Center!” Don’t forget that Microsoft endgame is home domination. They want to be in everything and do everything. Apple does not. They want to do a few things extremely well. That’s why you’ll probably not see an Apple DVR anytime soon.

But obviously, that’s all just speculation.