Fluxt is right that Apple has nothing to gain from trying to put together comprehensive TV solutions. But it’s not just a technical/platform issue, but more, as implied above, that the value chain is reshuffling itself and there’s nothing to be gained by Apple over the longer term from pissing off content owners for short-term sales. iTunes music store and the like may make major record labels less relevant over the long term, but in the short term it has to offer them an opportunity. Ditto for video.

The reason there is no TV tuner in the Mac Mini is the same reason the iPod doesn’t have an FM tuner – it’s simply anti-thetical to Jobs’ vision of an all-digital media world. Now, I may disagree with his a la carte pricing model for TV shows, but the point that DVRs are merely a stopgap measure is vital and true.

PVRs digitize analog media. Jobs eventually wants to skip that step. He has nothing to gain by trying to work with a thousand different cable boxes and TV services, he has everything to gain by being first to market with an all-digital, end-to-end solution. He is playing for the end-game, and playing for keeps.

Now if Apple could just convince content providers to move to a subscription model instead of this ridiculous price of $2/episode, I think we might get somewhere in the war against monopolistic cable operators.

Wake me up when this thing has a tuner, or better yet, multiple tuners. Because anyone who pays money to download shows that they can record for free is either rich, lazy or dumb.

Instead I would expect them to announce a deal with Elgato to tie EyeTV into the “TV Shows” menu in Front Row (if it doesn’t already) and sell the Mini bundled with EyeTV. Or, they might start selling high def TV shows on the iTMS and skip the broadcast route altogether.