About the only thing wrong with Apple TV is the dreadful remote control. Later, it was the easiest way to use loads of video streaming apps like Netflix and Hulu.Įventually, every app ended up on every device (with varying quality of experience), but Apple TV continues to boot up faster, fly through menus, and play video faster and smoother than other platforms. In the early days, I hacked mine to mirror browser video and any downloaded movies I had. I try out a lot of gear and I've owned every version of the Apple TV since its launch. The only TiVo model I haven't owned is the new Bolt since my 4-year-old Roamio seems to do it all just fine.įor the last two years I've asked myself why I feel no need to buy a TiVo Bolt, and it's mostly because of Apple TV.
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Then a Series 2 TiVo, then every new version that followed after that. I used that TiVo for the next several years, adding and upgrading hard drives and doing it all from the Linux command line until later, I got the DirecTV with its early pre-HD DirecTiVo box which I loved (it recorded digital streams natively, no compression artifacts). TiVo is now 20, and looking back I realize I've had one for 19 years, getting my first TiVo in March of 2000 through a contest on their site. TiVo turns 20 this week! A look at how far the DVR has come in 20 years (and a look at our first commercial from Y2K 🙀). TiVo was and continues to be incredible, but I think they'd be in a much different place today if getting new customers up and running was much easier, much earlier on in their company history. They didn't add ethernet and wifi until much later, and they didn't let you add shows to your TiVo via your keyboard and mouse on their website until maybe 2010 or so. The box was too expensive, and the monthly costs were hard to swallow on top of your cable bill. In hindsight many years later, TiVo should have relentlessly worked on every one of these barriers to lessen the number of steps and cost to consumers so they could get to that final step of loving their TiVo and TV much easier. In software company speak, their onboarding process was atrocious. A few weeks later, you get to enjoy your TiVo!.Wait a week or two for the TiVo to start grabbing your shows.Use the simple, well-designed, and amazing remote to enter dozens of shows you love, one letter at a time using the remote.Sign on to a monthly plan or pony up loads of money for a lifetime subscription even though you don't know how well you'll even like it yet.Bring it home and hook it up to your TV, your A/V unit, and the phone line you must have near your TV (get a new phone jack installed if need be).Simply put, it made TV good again.Īnd then they'd ask, how do I get started? And I'd have to answer: They'd say to me, how great is a TiVo? And I'd say that it was definitely life changing, that it let you become untethered to TV schedules and you could watch sports replays all you wanted, and you'd never miss your favorite shows.
I remember having this conversation many times over from 2000-2007 with friends. The one thing the writer missed was my comments on why TiVo didn't end up in every household and I think it was (and continues to be) their core marketing problem. I kinda wish they had a few more voices like Margret Smith to get more info on how they drilled down on the design that really won over early users like me. It's a very good and long read, and one of the things that was new to me was hearing they were deliberate in how they gave away so many early TiVos to celebrities and even online nerds like me who blogged a lot. A couple weeks ago, I did an hour long interview with the writer of " The Definitive Oral History of TiVo" and he used a few quotes of mine in the storytelling.
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