Everyone who has TiVo (TIVO) loves TiVo; it is to television what Macintosh was to computing -- a revelation. Which is exactly why Apple (AAPL) should buy TiVo and once again redefine the intersection of culture and technology.

Folks love TiVo for the same reason they loved the Mac in 1984 and the iPod in 2001: It gives control back to the end user. TiVo viewers call the shots regarding when, how, and -- soon -- even where they watch. Once content or access is purchased, the end user is in charge, just like with the iPod.

But unlike the iPod, TiVo and systems like it are in serious trouble. The culprit is the entertainment industry. TiVo has an abeyant Napster-like quality -- and the content business is scared silly that it will not only destroy advertising revenues but become the platform for video swapping on the Internet. Case in point: A coalition of entertainment companies recently sued TiVo competitor Sonicblue into bankruptcy.

TiVo's own undoing may come in the form of a recently reported cable service. AOL Time Warner (AOL) (the parent company of this magazine) has realized that its control-based business model will be in jeopardy should TiVo succeed. So last May it neutered its relationship with TiVo (in 2000 it announced plans to invest as much as $200 million with the intent of distributing the services through the now-defunct AOLTV), and it's now focusing instead on a service currently called Mystro TV. Unlike TiVo, which is an intelligent "node" on the edge of the television network, Mystro would be embedded in AOLTW's servers, much like pay-per-view. While it would give viewers some TiVo-like features (pause and rewind, for example), Mystro TV decides which programs can be recorded and whether ads can be skipped. And it requires no storage device, thereby exorcising the ghost of Napster. Comcast (CMCSK), the largest cable provider (Time Warner Cable is the second-largest), has rolled out a similar service.

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