When I wrote my TiVo book last year, I lamented the lack of cool third-party/open source apps for Series 2 TiVos, relative to Series 1. Soon that will all change, thanks to the release of the TiVo Home Media Engine (HME), a software developer’s kit (SDK) for creating apps for networked S2 TiVos.
This is a really smart move on TiVo’s part — opening up the TiVo platform to hackers for the creation of awesome apps that’ll help keep TiVo up and running in an increasingly competitive DVR marketplace. Unfortunately, you need the 7.1 TiVo OS on your TiVo, which most of us don’t have yet (they’re slowy upgrading the network). But after this happens, and with widespread distribution of the SDK, it’ll be fun to see all of the apps that people dream up. Already there’s a Weather app (see image), an RSS feeder, and a game (Skull and Bones). The latter sure beats the Tic-Tac-Toe game that comes with JavaHMO.
The industrious devils over at PVRBlog have created a Sourceforge-like project page to track development of HME apps, to discuss the SDK kit, etc.