Apple looks to the future, not the past. That’s why I think it’s unlikely. Not impossible, mind, but unlikely. Apple won’t want to rely on both Tivo and the cable companies. They want to replace them.

Now if Apple adds a new on demand TV program source of their own that can replace sat / cable, like ABC Evening New with Diane Sawyer, then then really got something. El Jobso is pretty influential with ABC as Disney owns it and Jobs is the largest stockholder of Disney. ABC is currently running ads for the ABC iPad app during the Evening New broadcast, so maybe there is something in the works. Don’t hold you breath though.

Although the apple remote is enough for quite some purposes, normal usage isn’t possible.

But then again, the normal remotes suck in their own way.

A good media remote has to be usable in the dark: either buttons you can distinguish by feel (i.e. – the Tivo Remote) or backlighting.

TIVO IS USELESS TO US INTERNATIONAL FOLKS.

Have you ever used a Tivo? One of the hallmarks of the UI is that 95% of what you need to do can be done with 5 buttons (four directionals and select). I could control my Tivo with an Apple remote. Also, for video streaming devices aka AppleTV, Apple supported larger drives than most of the competition, now they haven’t updated the device for 2 years but even using 2.5″ drives they were larger than what many other streaming devices supported and looking forward, if they do a DVR you can look at the storage sizes of the TimeCapsule to get an idea of what Apple is willing to do (not to mention the probability that Apple would support sync’ing with local computers as well for storage). And I’m sorry but in today’s flat screen world size does matter! the fact that my AppleTV is about one twentieth the size of my TiVo and runs totally silent is a HUGE benefit not a negative. There are plenty of options for USB and cloud storage.

Then finally you just plain lie! NO CURRENT SETTOP BOX SUPPORTS HULU!!!!! And Apple is already supporting Hulu, netflix, and other content providers onto it’s iPad, iPod and iPhones so why would you believe an AppleTV would be so different. How quickly people forget. Apple was quick to add YouTube and podcasts to the Apple TV as well as streaming all of your local content and photos from a number of online sources.

As for the likely hood of this being true, I give it a low chance because it does reflect Apple supporting something that I believe is old tech (current cable distribution systems will be replaced by services like iTunes, netflix and hulu). But if they believe that Tivo has the whole cable card thing figured out and they think they can legally add this TV content to the iTunes ecosystem (make it available to iPhones, iPad’s and iPods as well as AppleTV) then maybe it is worth a look. The biggest issue I see is that Apple is a hardware company. It wants to sell a box and then sell you a new one 3-5 years from now. Tivo is a subscription system. they want to give you a box and make you pay for it for the next 3-5 years. I’m not sure how that will play out.

I love my tiny white Apple remote and my Might mouse. Think the look and work great. They do exactly what the are planned for and get out of the way, not disturbing the thing it’s all about, user experience. It’s about what you are looking at or working on. It’s not about the geek factor of the device you are holding in your hand