Tivo doing Damage Control for Mac Fans

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Tivo doing Damage Control for Mac Fans

TiVoPony, an employee from their product marketing group, drops in from time to time on the TiVo Community site to let folks know what the official word is.

Regarding the recent story that TiVo's CFO let slip mac support for TiVo ToGo could be years away, even I was surprised at the amount of backlash from mac users. There are dozens of people in yesterday's thread swearing off their TiVo as a result of it and saying they would no longer support the company that didn't support features for macs.

Today TiVoPony dropped in to state that that the reporters at the school might have misrepresented the story and they are indeed working on TTG support for the mac:

I've traded emails with Dave Courtney, and here's the scoop...

His comments were not represented accurately at all in that article.

We value Mac enthusiasts who own TiVo DVR's. And as we've previously stated, we're working towards support that would bring TiVoToGo to the Macintosh platform.

We have not yet announced a timeline as to when that service may be available though.

No firm dates, but at least they're listening, which is a good sign.

by Matt Haughey April 15, 2005 in News, TiVo

Comments

So official word is still "we're working on it" while the CFO (and presumably others inside tivo) think that it's never going to happen? What's changed? A claim (which we'll likely never know the validity of) that his words were "misrepresented"? Sounds to me like it's probably still years away. They need to come out with a more public statement than a comment in the tivo forums, and they need to provide some semblance of an expected date of completion. When did they first say they were working on it? January? And no progress since then? Clearly a top priority, eh?

Posted by: rory at Apr 15, 2005 4:14:17 PM

Sorry, but my comments from yesterday still stand. TiVo uses PowerPC chips running Linux for cripes sakes, and they can't support Mac functionality? Then why have Series 1 owners been able to do their own homebrew TivoToGo on Macs for so long? Hey, what's that smell? Oh, right. That's the scent of *bullsh--*.

Posted by: El Payo at Apr 15, 2005 5:19:38 PM

Matt,
Part of the reason why they are having to do damage control is because you jumped all of this story as if it was written in stone. In my opinion, the whole thing sounded kind of strange. That is why I told my readers that we needed to wait and see what TiVo had to say..

Posted by: Alex at Apr 15, 2005 5:56:39 PM

My bullshit meter is going off also. BUT, I don't blame the CFO for not wanting to waste precious cash developing a product for 1-3% of the total PC market, of which another subset of that might install and use TivoToGo on their Mac. Mac people are much LOUDER than they are numerous IMHO, and (let's face it) Tivo is struggling and cannot (should not) waste cash developing a Mac product. If you run the numbers, it doesn't make sense.

Posted by: MattZ at Apr 15, 2005 6:33:22 PM

MattZ, I feel pretty comfortable stating that Mac owners are a higher proportion of the TiVo owning populace than of the general personal computer population (which includes all those heat exchangers idling in Microsoft Office all day...)

Posted by: d.w. at Apr 15, 2005 6:59:57 PM

I just want them to be forthright and honest... and to provide some sort of timeline.

I agree that it does seem fishy. Either you're working on it actively or you are not. Either you are planning on implementing it in the near future, or your not...

what does it mean to "...no yet announce a timeline..." ? Does that mean they are a afraid to commit to a date and have the date slip, or that they just have no earthly idea when it'll ship or if it'll ship?

rampy

Posted by: rampy at Apr 15, 2005 7:06:25 PM

Alex - the main reason they have to do damage control is because they're treating a large portion of their customers (I agree with d.w.) as if they don't matter, and they've shown no visible signs of rectifying that. Their "we're still working on mac support" answer in the F.A.Q. hasn't been updated for months, and even their "damage control" is a half-ass denial in the tivo forums, with no new info on a timeline. The reason everyone's going apeshit and taking this as fact is because it's the only information we've gotten - official or otherwise - about this in months. Finally, for you to attack Matt for passing on what he thought was legitimate information is unfair. It's fine for you to say it sounded strange, and you can weigh in with your opinion, but Matt definitely isn't the bad guy here. If TiVo was more "forthright and honest" (as rampy put it) this wouldn't be an issue at all.

Posted by: rory at Apr 15, 2005 8:54:57 PM

And just for posterity, it should be noted that Apple's marketshare is rising: http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/04/15/gartner/index.php

Posted by: rory at Apr 15, 2005 8:58:44 PM

I'll not buy a Tivo because of this little bit of news. Tivo, you can drift off into oblivion, now.

Posted by: Rene at Apr 15, 2005 10:00:04 PM

Matt stop spreading the FUD about Mac numbers.

Apple is coming back in a big way.

Apple leapfrogs Toshiba in US PC shipments

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/04/15/gartner/index.php

"Mac people are much LOUDER than they are numerous IMHO."

"Friday that despite disappointing results for most vendors shipping computers in the United States, Apple has leapfrogged Toshiba to become the fifth largest vendor of PCs for the region."

Posted by: Rene at Apr 15, 2005 10:05:02 PM

The Mac share is also disproportional with heavy users in media and production - unlike in areas like wedding kiosks and cash registers where it's all PC's.

Posted by: jbelkin at Apr 15, 2005 10:47:04 PM

What TiVo should be asking is what percent of their customers are Mac users. And, I agree with MattZ and Rene that may be a lot more than Alex is stating. It is not that there are a lot of Mac people who will do something else (Replay - DVD archive) but the simpel fact is they better listen to the rumbling of they will miss an important group of people... TiVo users who also use Mac. If TiVo was open about their interface there would be a SourceForge project in weeks. I was going to buy another TiVo but decided not to for now because there are better alternatives comming... of course TiVo could get back in the game...

Posted by: Richard B. at Apr 15, 2005 10:59:14 PM

Just realized the names are off by one... replace MattZ by d.w. but Rene remains the same...

Posted by: Richard B. at Apr 15, 2005 11:01:31 PM

Someone said in another thread that mac users among the tivo customer base may be around 15%, which sounds about right to me (figure 5% in the general population, three times as high among tivo owners).

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Apr 15, 2005 11:59:20 PM

The TiVo CFO's answer is classic weasel-talk spoken by a corporate suit. The lack of respect for the intelligence of their customers is breathtaking.

If TiVo is reversing course and *NOT* providing Mac support, lay it on the line and say so. Accept the flames and move on -- at least you will maintain what little good-will your customers have left by offering an honest answer.

To those readers who aren't Mac users and don't give a fig about this tempest in a teapot, allow this to offer a clue that TiVo's opinion of you might be the same -- they just haven't gotten around to you yet. Or perhaps they have -- and you now get to enjoy billboard ads...

Posted by: NewsReader at Apr 16, 2005 10:02:09 AM

Well, I'm glad I was able to cancel my order. My girl was ordering one for me for my bday, but after finding this out, screw it. Tivo can kiss it.

Theres more Mac users then there are Portable Media Center users, but of course, Tivo is now MS's *itch.

Posted by: Charles at Apr 16, 2005 6:43:06 PM

Here in Canada we don't get Tivo, we are stuck with our cable carrier. Here in BC that's Shaw. They use Motorola units for both the digital converters and PDRs. Both units distress the channels below channel 60 which makes viewing and recording them painfull.
Shaw sells the Motorola 6400 for C$789 plus 14% sales tax.

How does this performance compare to the Tivo unit? How about price?

Shaw and Motorola know of the shabby performance of the units but are keeping quiet about it and still selling them.

Still think Tivo is giving us Mac users a bad shake?

Posted by: Hugh at Apr 16, 2005 8:01:11 PM

Actually, the percentage of Macs in homes is much greater than any number supplied by IDC or Gartner. The percentages from those two companies is so far off, they shouldn't be used for anything. There numbers actually represent the percentage of sales, not market share of systems in use. First of all, since Wintel users replace their machines every 2-3 years and Mac users replace theirs every 4-6 years. The percentage of sales at any one time does not accurately measure the number of machines in use. Second, the percentage of Macs in homes is much larger than the percentage of Macs overall. The great majority of Wintel machines are in businesses (which, for the most part, would never be used with Tivo), whereas a much greater percentage of Macs are in homes (where they just might be used with a Tivo).

Thus, in the end, the percentage of Macs in use in homes is actually probably much closer to 6-9%. Now, people can believe this or not, but it's true. Just do a little research into the total number of machines in homes vs businesses.

Posted by: Michael Reiland at Apr 16, 2005 9:35:48 PM

Michael, where do you get your figures from?

Posted by: ask michael at Apr 16, 2005 10:22:46 PM

This is pure BS! Quicktime will load 3rd party codecs. The Tivo encryption is proprietary so it would be simple for them to write a Quicktime plugin.

CYA TIVO

Posted by: John at Apr 17, 2005 12:42:24 AM

I've got four TiVo units (with four lifetime subscriptions) and am thoroughly disappointed at the lack of Mac support.

I've had to hack up two units just to get some functionality that should be very easy to build in and is a relatively minor update for PC users.

Listen to the people who actually buy, use and support your products TiVo--and they'll stand behind you! Ignore us and we're gone!

Posted by: MacTiVo4 at Apr 17, 2005 10:58:30 AM

I'm wondering if TiVo is waiting to see how Apple's "year of HD" strategy is going to play out. If Apple is going to offer similar functionality, they might not want to waste the effort integrating on their own.

In my fondest fantasies, Apple and TiVo have already sketched a deal whereby Tivo content is Bonjour-enabled with your Tiger-based Macs. Unfortunately, TiVo's hands are wrath-of-Steve bound from saying so, and they are left in the position of stating "we are working on it". Probably just a fantasy.

Posted by: PopeSammyJoe at Apr 17, 2005 11:49:59 AM

PopeSammyJoe:
It is a fantasy. Tiger's announced, the feature set has been public for months. If TiVo was waiting for Apple, their train has passed. I'm gonna agree with rory at the top, nothing has changed... just a marketing suit who wants to put out this fire, but doesn't have any water to extinguish it. If they were working on T2GMac, they'd have a timeframe for it.

FYI, TiVo is already Bonjour (Rendezvouz) enabled... that's how your computers and TiVos communicate for HMO.

Posted by: Sean M. Savage at Apr 18, 2005 10:29:06 AM

Still another reason why I love my Replays (and Tivo can bite me).

Posted by: Alfonzo S. Tangerine at Apr 20, 2005 12:26:48 PM

Micheal your assumptions are flawed. Even if we assumed that PC users buy new machines every 2-3 years and Mac folks do so every 4-6 years, it does not logically follow that the 'older' machines are being tossed in the trash. They may still be in active use and nothing in your argument considers that.

Posted by: Greg at Apr 21, 2005 8:34:14 AM

I'm reading beween the lines and it's clear TIVO won't support Mac's any time soon. Having just gone back to the mac world (let's face it, Apple has made some stupid business decisions in the past), I don't plan to wait for TIVO. Could anyone recommend a good replacement for my aging TIVO that *is* mac compatible?

Thanks!

Posted by: AT at Apr 26, 2005 12:40:42 PM

I love DAMAGE CONTROL. I wish could be on the show

Posted by: carley at Apr 28, 2005 4:35:10 PM

Three phrases should be among the most common in our daily usage. They are: Thank you, I am grateful and I appreciate.

Posted by: sizegenetics at Dec 7, 2005 6:21:36 PM