Steve Jobs awarded patent for episodic TV on the Apple TV

According to Patently Apple, Apple has been awarded a patent that it filed over five years ago related to sorting episodic TV content on the Apple TV. Steve Jobs himself is among the people credited with the patent, which on the surface merely appears to describe the sorting features already present in the Apple TV's interface.

Patently Apple dug a bit deeper, though, and found an interesting tidbit referring to menus that "correspond to television shows that have either been recorded from a broadcast or purchased from a content provider." This seems to suggest that at one point there were plans to include DVR-like functionality in the Apple TV; it's unclear if those plans were shelved indefinitely or if they'll show up in some future iteration of Apple's "hobby."

An updated Apple TV, perhaps integrated within its own dedicated display, is pretty much 2012's Rumor of the Year. An included DVR-like function which combines the existing Apple TV interface with a TiVo-esque recording ability would be a killer feature. As usual, though, Apple's patents aren't necessarily indicative of products it actually plans to bring to market -- particularly a patent filed so long ago.

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Source: http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/01/steve-jo…

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According to Patently Apple, Apple has been awarded a patent that it filed over five years ago related to sorting episodic TV content...

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jeanne

I do agree that most would want at least some access to the content not available that way. Assuming Apple wants to be completely integrated into (or indeed to be) the home entertainment infrastructure (and I think they need to or ultimately they will be pushed out).

Wednesday at 9:51 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

AeronPeryton

Is this the first posthumous patent ever awarded?

January 19 2012 at 2:17 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Broo2

Apple would need to do like GoogleTV and have a HDMI pass-through- unless they have found a magical way to separate and record the encrypted QAM channels from Comcast -or bypass the encryption card for DirecTV.

January 19 2012 at 12:42 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

suburban_war

Recording TV, a killer feature? More like a 10 years ago feature. Apple has never included even a TV tuner in the AppleTV, because they knew it wasn't the future. Anyone still reliant on their broadcast or subscription television, complete with the concept of "channels" and "timeslots" for shows, is a bit behind the times. Why would Apple, of all companies, make a product like that.

January 18 2012 at 11:43 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to suburban_war's comment

steve

For better or worse, there is a massive amount of TV content that is not available except via broadcast or cable/satellite (including, for example, most unscripted shows, whether news, sports, reality, talk, or whatever, plus most content from many of the semi-"documentary" networks - Science, FoodTV, Discovery, History, NatGeo, Animal Planet, etc., etc., etc.). While some TV viewers don't care about that and would be willing to have access only content available from independent streaming/rental/download providers (Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, etc.), most would want at least some access to the content not available that way. Assuming Apple wants to be completely integrated into (or indeed to be) the home entertainment infrastructure (and I think they need to or ultimately they will be pushed out), then they cannot ignore those content sources - particularly as those sources are currently _by far_ more significant than the streaming sources in terms of viewership. The problem is how to integrate with the various "tuner" devices (broadcast tuners and cable/satellite/IPTV set-top boxes) so that an Apple device can both query/control them and be in the video data stream. This is going to be a problem, because the incumbent STB providers (the cable/satellite/etc. companies) have no incentive to let them in, since they and Apple would be competing in the areas of pay per view and other premium content.

January 19 2012 at 4:32 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply