Phillip Stacy, you have not tried Tivo, you tried a DVR that wants t obe Tivo. Tivo sends updated air times to the Tivo via the internetor phone connection. they also let you extend lrecording times in both directions as long as it does not conflict with any other recording you have. It also lets you set programs in an order of priority so the rules regarding the higher priority over rule the lower priority conflict. There is a lot to how Tivo works that sets it apart from all other DVR’s. It truely deserves to be called Tivo. Don’t judge Tivo by how any other DVR works. They win law suits for a reason, they have very smart ways to do things that we think are simple, and making us keep believing they are simple.

I can see how not everyone would agree with the Tivo being the product of the decade. Tivo has been around a long time. How do I know this, because I have owned a Tivo for a very long time. I had series one, series II and not HD Tivo. Anyone who wants to say that Tivo isn’t the only dvr game that’s worth a darn, keep in mind how many law suits Tivo has won from companies who tried to rip off their technology. Tivo is not a word that I use freely, I do not take every mention of DVR, or PVR to mean Tivo. I have had many other DVR’s and non were as well designed and easy to use as Tivo.. Any DVR that has come out after the invention of Tivo, should not be able to take the tile of Product of the Decade away from Tivo. if you never really spent time using a Tivo, you have no room to talk. Iphone, is just another flavor of cell phone / PDA . It’s really nice, but they didn’t do anything except pump a load of money into a better design. That isn’t exactly ground breaking.  Spend some time on a Tivo to see why Tivo owners are known as Tivo lovers. It’s not about watching TV, it’s about storing it and controlling it. I can watch HD Tv from a WDTV Live, but it crashes every time I try to fast forward, or do anything besides warch it. Tivo is so much more.

DVRs and iThings are both great product lines. I use and enjoy both on a daily basis.

But (IMHO) the most influential product (or rather a technology) of the past decade was the rise of media streaming (as in YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, Amazon OnDemand and many others). That’s one thing that completely changed the media landscape for years to come. This is what will drive a new generation of products (media tablets, TVs with Internet connections, etc) and technologies (optical fiber networks for end users) in the coming decade.

By the way if we talk about DVRs I think that Microsoft’s Media Center is the best DVR hands down. One reason is that you can easily extend its capabilities with third party products like Dragon Global’s ShowAnalyzer (which would automatically skip all the commercials for you).

There are other products than Tivo that offer the same type of service, Moxi is an example of a great DVR service and is not a tapeless VCR as EHM put (Although all DVR services are basically glorified VCRs). Comparing a type of service vs a product is really not the best comparison. I agree had you compared smartphones in general to DVR it brings a whole new way to measure impact. I know viewing documents, web browsing, messaging service, etc has had way more impact in peoples lives than a glorify VCR. It wasnt too long ago we all had a large collection of video cassettes and with VCR+ could record our favorite shows with ease. DVR made it simpler and put it in digital format, but as far as impacting lives more than a smartphone, I think not.

I love my iphone! I think it is the coolest gadget. Every bill I get from my provider makes me mad at my iphone even though I love it. My TiVo on the otherhand makes managing TV easy and I never get mad at any of the fees TiVo Charges me. TiVo itself not the DVR it self is product of the year. As for other PVR’s other than TiVo they are just VCR’s without tape and the iphone Wins hands down.