Does it make sense for the Apple TV to become a DVR too?

When Apple first showed off the Apple TV to the world in January of 2007—then nicknamed the "iTV" and introduced alongside the original iPhone—its functionality was quite limited compared to the Apple TV we have today. The set-top box came with a built-in hard drive and the ability to purchase video content from iTunes and… well, that's pretty much it. Over the years, Apple has continued to iterate on its "hobby" device by adding and subtracting various features; the company eventually removed the hard drive, opting to make it possible to stream iTunes purchases directly from Apple's servers, and added numerous other on-demand streaming services like Netflix, MLB, NBA, Wall Street Journal TV, and more.

But this week, the US Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple a patent (hat tip to Patently Apple) that appears to address the possibility of the Apple TV gaining DVR capabilities. This would mean, in a DVR user's fantasy world, that the Apple TV would gain the ability to look up TV listings and allow the user to choose which shows to record that are coming over broadcast or cable. The specific patent in question is more related to the organization of episodic TV shows, but it does describe menu items that would "correspond to television shows that have either been recorded from a broadcast or purchased from a content provider."

It's that line that has spurred Apple watchers to speculate that Apple may, in fact, add DVR capabilities to the Apple TV sometime in the near future. But aside from the fact that many concepts patented by Apple never see the light of day, we wondered: does it even make sense at this point in time to consider adding this feature?

The case for Apple TV+DVR

In an ideal world, we would be able to purchase from iTunes (or stream from Netflix) any show we want within a reasonable time frame after broadcast. Whether it's Glee, which is broadcast on network television, or Game of Thrones, offered through HBO, we would be able to just find those shows within say, a day of airing, and be able to throw money at the content makers to download them whenever we want.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. Despite the continued efforts of Apple, Netflix, Hulu, and numerous other TV-focused Internet services, the selection of easy-to-purchase-and-download TV shows is still not at the level it should be. While some content creators are happy to put their hit shows online quickly—we're looking at you, Mad Men—others are content to withhold Internet distribution for sometimes a year or more in order to milk DVD and cable on-demand sales.

But few of us are willing to wait that long in order to have easy, Internet-based access to the shows we love, and aside from the obvious ethical impropriety involved in torrenting, pirating those shows from the Internet is just plain annoying to do. That's where having a DVR is useful, because if there's no other way to get access to a show on-demand, at least you can record it when it's shown on live TV for viewing later. TiVo built its entire empire on this concept and numerous knockoffs have flooded the market since—as we've known ever since the VCR hit the market, people just like to record what's coming in through the boob tube. Sometimes it's the only way to be able to watch your favorite shows while still having some level of control over when you watch them.

So the DVR is great for many consumers, but why would Apple want to incorporate one into the Apple TV? 

Doing so could help the company round out the feature set of its hobby device and thrust it into full non-hobby status. In the past, Apple has been resistant to allowing non-Apple forms of content on the Apple TV, but that has changed with the fairly recent introduction of various other forms of content delivery (namely Netflix) that don't necessarily make Apple much money. With that change, Apple has signaled that it's willing to add other content options—ones that are not iTunes—to the Apple TV so that it can sell more Apple TVs. Like the iPod paired with iTunes (and other MP3s from various origins), the focus could be all about selling the Apple TV hardware and less about selling the content for it. A complete solution—an Apple TV with iTunes, Netflix, MLB and NBA, and DVR options—has the potential to significantly boost those sales.

The case against the Apple TV+DVR

But the reason why Apple would lean away from an Apple TV with a DVR built in stems from the same reason why the DVR is currently useful: it is just like VHS, but on a disk instead of a tape. And if there's anything Apple doesn't like, it's legacy mediums. Just look at the original iMac with its lack of floppy drive, the MacBook Air with its lack of any kind of optical drive, or Final Cut Pro X, with its lack of support for output to tape. Apple has always prided itself on its attempts to drag industries forward—whether it's successful or not, or even a good idea or not, you can't say Apple doesn't try.

Given this penchant for progress, it doesn't seem likely that anyone at Apple is sitting around thinking, "man, I wish my Apple TV could DVR that show. Let's add that functionality, pronto!" Instead, that person is probably sitting around thinking, "hurry up on those content deals so we can offer those shows through iTunes," or perhaps, "once we allow apps on the Apple TV, content-creators can make their own apps to control how their shows are distributed." Or maybe just "screw DVRs. Those are so two-thousand-and-late!"

Cord-cutters—people who cancel their cable or satellite TV subscriptions—are a small-but-growing segment of the overall population. Whether it's the economy, an attempt to cut down on brain-rotting idle TV consumption, or a preference for new distribution methods, consumers are constantly looking for ways to save money and free themselves from TV schedules. Yes, there are still numerous barriers for most TV enthusiasts—not the least of which being the availability of live sports—but even that is changing over time. As the months (or years, as the case may be) go on, users will have more and more reason to cut the cable cord and go Internet-only for their media. And Apple wants to be out in front of that trend, just like everything else.

As a reminder, the current version of the Apple TV doesn't have an internal hard drive like its ancestor once did (it does have some amount of built-in flash storage for caching purposes, but you can't simply store tons of TV shows on it). It's unlikely that Apple would backtrack on this decision and add one back in, whether it's disc-based or SSD. The company may have looked at some DVR options back when its DVR-related patents were filed—and may still be looking at some of those options—but I believe the company is willing to take risks to move users forward in their media consumption habits instead of adding a feature that's already on the other side of the adoption curve.

What do you think?

Listing image by Photograph by Aurich Lawson