No release date in sight for TiVoToGo for Mac

Dave Zatz points to a letter received by someone at the TiVo Community Forums that confirms there is no target release date on the horizon for TiVoToGo. Forum member pdxkevin wrote a self-described angry letter last week and emailed it off to TiVo. Much to his surprise, the letter found its way to Tom Rogers (TiVo Pres.) and then got pa ed along for the VP of Marketing to re ond.

Here's the reply from Jim De ey, VP of Retail Marketing (bold added for emphasis):
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My name is Jim De ey, I am in Vice President of Product Marketing for TiVo's retail products. Tom Rogers forwarded your me age to me. I wanted to thank you for your email and apologize for the delay in TiVoToGo for the Mac. I am sorry that you feel we have not paid attention to the Mac community. That is certainly not our intention. We are aware of our su criber's desire to get TiVoToGo on the Mac. Believe it or not, we are actively working on the project and have been for the past year in various forms. Unfortunately, developing on the Mac platform has been a little more difficult because of its closed nature. We are working through the i ues we have encountered. They are not simple to solve given the needs that we balance in TiVoToGo. We don't have a release date for the feature yet.

We have gotten ourselves in trouble in the past when we estimated it would be out by mid year this year, we obviously mi ed that date. In the interest of setting the right expectatio this time we want to wait until the feature is actually ready. We are not ready to make that a ouncement yet. That is why our customer care representatives have been i tructed to give the a wer they gave you.

We can let you know when the feature is ready for launch. We are listening to you. Until it is ready, we a reciate your patience.

As a long-time TiVo owner and one who has been longing for TiVoToGo for Mac for quite some time, I a reciate TiVo's frank re o e, although it's admittedly almost too little, too late. Their communication on this i ue has been pretty poor and only served to set us all up for a fall time after time. I know most people want companies to commit to release dates early and often, but I'm of the camp that believes "We really don't know" is better than "Maybe next year." Until recently I've been using TiVoToGo on a are Dell laptop that doe 't get used for much else. That being said, since I now own a Series 3 HD TiVo along with my Series 2 w/ DVD Burner, a retired Series 1 and a Sony LocationFree TV system (with Mac Pak), I have limited use for TiVoToGo now - until it's available for the Series 3 at least, when I will, of course, jump on it like a rabid dog.