A very interesting series of patents that were granted to Apple Inc by The U.S Patent & trademark Office have been researched by patently Apple. The research indicates that one of those patents could be Apple TV related patent. The specific patent is for recording episodic cable TV & has “Steve Jobs” as inventor. With the entire industry buzzing with Apple’s iTV rumors & Apple’s entrance into the HDTV hardware market, this new technology could very well be implemented in the future Apple Televisions.
The patent goes on to state that the menu items, could, for example, “correspond to television shows that have either been recorded from a broadcast or purchased from a content provider. Recording broadcast TV shows isn’t an option available today on Apple TV, so it’s interesting to see that this option was listed in this 2006 Apple TV patent which also credits Steve Jobs as one of the inventors.
Within this patent is a mention of ! “Apple TV working with a cable network”, & PatentlyApple reports that the patent published in Jan 2011 it details the ability for a media system that can connect to a “cable service provider”.