TiVo appears to have put on hold its official tvOS app for the Apple TV media-streaming box, confirming that the software project has been put “on hold” following almost a year of unforeseen technical issues and a broader strategy shift at the company.
TiVo’s Vice President of consumer products and services Ted Malone told TechHive at CES 2020 that its streaming apps for both the Apple TV and the Roku devices are no longer being actively developed. The apps were supposed to release before the end of 2019.
Malone added that Android TV support may arrive as an update to its Android-based TiVo Stream 4K, which in turn would enable them to fast-track support for Amazon’s Fire TV.
My bet is we’ll get Android and because of that we’ll get the Fire TV, because it’s the same app, just different qualifications. I think Roku and Apple are in limbo.
After the story was published, a TiVo spokesperson added the apps are “on hold.”
During the second half of this year, we re-prioritized several projects in order to focus on the launch of TiVo Stream 4K. Because of this, the streamer clients were put on hold. We are looking at moving forward with the Android streamer client in order to provide compatibility between Stream and Linux based DVR’s.
Apple TV and Roku clients are currently on hold.
Even though TiVo wouldn’t definitively say the apps have been cancelled, it did acknowledge that the delays come down to limited resources, technical challenges and strategy changes.
From the article:
On the technical side, Malone says TiVo must transcode the video before streaming it to other devices, which causes quality and performance issues that the company hasn’t resoled. TiVo has also just been putting more effort into streaming with both the TiVo Stream 4K and the TiVo+ streaming service, leaving the DVR apps farther down the priority list.
Malone said:
If we really believe the streaming market is where it’s at, we need to double down on that and not get distracted by a bunch of things that other people want, but aren’t really going to move the needle.
As we reported a year ago, the streaming apps for the Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV and Roku were announced at last year’s CES trade show.
The software was supposed to include advanced features such as the ability to watch live or recorded video on additional televisions in the home without having to invest in separate TiVo Mini extender boxes, which are expensive at $180 a pop.
TiVo also has the iPhone and iPad app on App Store, but that one is being regularly updated.