Macworld

Here’s my wild guess, now that we’ve seen the first banners at Macworld that say “there’s something in the air.”

Apple will release a ATSC-based tuner & DVR that records over-the-air HDTV and pipes it directly into iTunes for TV and iPhone/iPod timeshifting. This will appear as an add-on for/bundle with the AppleTV and as accessory for existing Macs.

This follows a number of Apple patterns:

• Taking an existing niche product and improving it (MP3 players, smartphones).
• Adopting a product category that shores up iTunes as a media center.
• No overlap with existing Apple products.

This also takes advantage of a couple of consumer problems:

• Digital switchover in 2009. This is a set-top box that regular TV owners can use.
• Broadcast networks are not playing nicely with iTunes, and this circumvents the blocks in getting NBC content onto Apple devices (the cable stations are the Store’s strength anyway, and they are not affected by ATSC).
• Piping HDTV down the Internet requires bandwidth that many users simply don’t have. This is the short-term solution (but the product line becomes a vector for the proper solution when it appears).

Yeah. I’d bet some money on this. :D

[Edited] I’m now $20 poorer. I could still see this product like this pop-up in the future, but alas, the model continues to be downloaded content through iTunes Store only.