TiVo iPad App To Support Series 3 Hardware

The virtual remote news just keeps on coming… TiVo went ahead and updated their free iPad companion app yesterday. In addition the various bug fixes, better support for multiple DVRs, and background functionality, one user reports a noteworthy upgrade notice:

This app currently requires a TiVo Premier Series 4 DVR. Support for RCN and Suddenlink Premier Boxes, along with limited support for TiVo Series 3/TiVo HD DVRs, is coming soon.

At launch, and as currently designed, the iPad app only supports new TiVo Premiere hardware. Although TiVo has alluded to supporting additional mobile OSes, like Android, we haven’t heard anything in regards to support for previous generation DVR hardware, like the Series 3 and TiVo HD.

Who knows if enabling support for “legacy” DVRs was part of the original plan or is related to customer feedback – TiVo has indeed taken some lumps on Twitter, the forums, and even their blog. Regardless, it’s nice to see this functionality on the roadmap. Now all we need to know is when… and what limitations?

(Thanks to Josh, Rob, and Steve for helping track down the visual evidence!)

15 thoughts on “TiVo iPad App To Support Series 3 Hardware”

  1. Knowing my luck by the time I decide to buy an iPad just for this app and the occasion program I run with a web interface, TiVo will release support built into TiVo Desktop. Either that or TiVocommunity will make enough progress for these features to be added to things like PyTiVo and KMTTG.

  2. TiVo Speak Lesson #13:

    “Coming Soon” = 1st quarter of n + (?>7 years)

    Used in a sentence:

    “… limited support for TiVo Series 3/TiVo HD DVRs, is coming in the 1st quarter of 2018”

  3. “Either that or TiVocommunity will make enough progress for these features to be added to things like PyTiVo and KMTTG.”

    I really think it’s in TiVo’s best interests to open-source the stuff and make it easy for folks to build 3rd party tools, both commercial and freeware.

    It’s part of the value of TiVo’s platform for the hardcore, who tend to be a platform’s best evangelists…

  4. Agreed on two counts… For TiVo, Coming Soon is rarely as soon as we’d like. And opening up the API to the community would be a massive win all around. TiVo should at least be able to publish little things like how to duplicate the scrubber bar. It’s somewhat odd given the support they’ve given companies like Weaknees and DVRUpgrade (now one in the same), who sell replacement expanded internal drives, and their non-action in regards to the cracked encryption scheme.

  5. I definitely agree. TiVo will never do it though. They won’t even release details about their updates usually.

    Oh well 1 day till it has been a year since the Premiere was announced. I can’t believe it has been a year already. I don’t regret my purchase, but I thought we would be further along then where we are. I figured we might have seen at least one new HD UI screen implemented and a couple new features like remote deletion.

  6. “It’s somewhat odd given the support they’ve given companies like Weaknees and DVRUpgrade (now one in the same), who sell replacement expanded internal drives”

    I never even understood TiVo not open-sourcing the file system specs on a box’s release. Fergawdsakes, what percentage of TiVo’s customers are going to open up the box and put in their own hard drive? One percent seems high to me? Two percent at most?

    And, if the file system specs hadn’t been open-source decoded when I bought my TiVo HD, I never would have gotten onto the platform in the first place. So, TiVo lost a couple of hundred of dollars in that I was willing to learn the procedure, open up my own box, and put in my own hard drive, compared to if I’d bought an XL. But I wouldn’t have bought an XL. I’d have done the math and decided I was better off staying with a cableco DVR. Instead, I went TiVo, and beyond the equipment price, they’ve gotten hundreds from me in monthly subscription fees. Not to mention that I’ll soon upgrade to a Premiere.

    And all that money is flowing from me to TiVo only because the specs were open-sourced…

  7. Nice to see that support for the stuff I have (TiVoHD & Android) are even in the current vision. Of course, it’ll be a long time before that support ever shows up.

  8. Brennok, you mention the Premiere’s lack of “remote deletion,” I can only assume you are talking about when accessing the NP list from another TiVo (ie: via MRV)

    Worth nothing that you can “remote delete” from within iPad app…

  9. @josh yeah that is what I am talking about. I hate that I have to get an iPad and then the app to be able to do this. This is something that the TiVo should be able to do especially since the app supports it.

    I have asked for this since they introduced MRV. It only makes sense if I can request a show, I should also be able to delete it.

  10. At this point, I’ll take ANYTHING Tivo does at its admittedly glacial pace over their usual nothing. Certainly I can’t use it at the moment since I don’t have a Premiere, but I still appreciate the fact that it exists. Won’t be holding my breath for it to be updated with compatibility with my Tivo HD’s though.

    And given how much trouble I had recently when I had to replace a failed hard drive (Comcast buggered up the CableCard install, then screwed up up both my Tivo HD’s before fixing everything three weeks in), I won’t be switching to a Premiere anytime soon given how little of an improvement it is over the HD.

    Tivo should be somewhat shocked at the fact that Comcast and other cable MSOs are executing quite a bit faster than them. The Comcast iPad app already supports VOD playback, not something I’m sure Tivo will ever deliver (the equivalent of). And based on their performance to date I would expect Comcast to continue updating their iPad app at a rate that will make Tivo’s glacial update pace shameful. But hey, maybe I’ll be surprised.

  11. My guess is that the “limited” part will be remote control (like the 3rd party DVR Remote app) and the WAN mode allowing remote scheduling.

  12. Glenn, it’s worth noting that Comcast’s iPad app that does VOD streaming isn’t actually streaming from the customer’s DVR, it’s streaming content of channels the subscriber pays for, from the cloud. It would be nearly impossible for TiVo to pull that off. Their best bet would be to get allowances to transcode recorded shows on-the-fly to streamable H.264, something I don’t see happening quickly. In the meantime, getting a Slingbox would scratch that itch.

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