Apple TV possibly has digital video recorder capabilities planned

[Click here for a larger version]

One of the footnotes in Ars Technica's excellent in-depth review of the Apple TV box had a link to the image above. What is shown there is a list of Automator actions shipped as part of the Apple TV software.

For those not up on Mac OS X, Automator is a system for automating workflows in Mac OS X. It uses published actions by programs, allowing authors to sequence actions in different programs and link their outputs and inputs together using a graphical interface. Unix geeks can think of it as a graphical interface for shell scripts, but because Automator actually uses published Apple Events, it differs in detail and its ability to use individual functions of large programs.

What's interesting about the picture above is that the published Automator actions for Apple TV include:

• New Audio Capture


• New Video Capture


• Start Capture


• Pause Capture


• Stop Capture

Sure sounds like someone at Apple has plans for Apple TV to grow Digital Video Recorder (DVR) functions. Perhaps these hooks are there to facilitate the deal with Miglia we forecast a couple weeks ago?

Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple TV, Ars Technica, Automator, Digital Video Recorder, Mac OS X, Miglia, DVR