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'What we hear on the street is that Apple is interested in their business and that they are a takeout target,' analyst Steven Kroll Jr of Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co told Reuters.

Neither company would comment, but TiVo chief executive Michael Ramsey denied the company is for sale. However at a value of only $300mn, the company has been regarded as a likely takeover target for some time. Apple is latests name to be added to a list that includes Time Warner and Sony.

TiVo was a pioneer in what have become known as personal video recorders, PVRs, which record digital TV to hard drives and subsequently to DVDs. In fact the name has been used as a verb, as in to TiVo last night's programme, such was its early dominance of the market.

However as the price of PVRs from other companies falls, future growth may not be so certain, suggesting that Apple's interest may be nothing more than a rumour.

It is also difficult to see what Apple has

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to gain. Traditionally the company has led markets through innovation and pioneering new technologies, although it has not always reaped the full benefits. However iPod has shown that the company, through a unique blend of hardware, software and cool, can compete in consumer electronics markets.

Meanwhile, the CEO of Adobe, itself a one-time subject of Apple takeover talk, has discussed the company's relationship with Apple.

'They are clearly both a partner and in some cases a competitor. They're an important partner in that about 25 percent of our business comes from people who own Macs,' Bruce Chizen said in an interview. 'That's a very loyal customer to Adobe and a very important customer as well. '

He said that Adobe does a good job of working with Apple where the companies' interests coincide.

'If you look at which software company had more OS X applications available before anybody else, it was Adobe. If you look at how we optimised for that platform, it's probably more so with Adobe than anybody else; we're probably the largest independent software vendor for the Mac,' he said.

Nonetheless, he added that where they do compete, particularly in video, 'we compete ferociously'.

He added that Mac users comprise a decreasing proportion of Adobe's customers.

'A big reason for that is the success that we've had with Acrobat and the enterprise business because that is predominantly a Windows business,' he explained