Apple to buy TiVo?

People have been speculating about/lusting over this for years, but TiVo's stock price jumped more than 17 percent today because of rumors that Apple might be close to buying them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know that Wall Street lives for this kind of gossip, and while the one analyst quoted by Reuters in the story says that the word on the street is that "Apple is interested in [TiVo's] business and that they are a takeout target," we should probably mention that Time Warner, Liberty Media, Comcast, and even Sony (which used to make TiVo boxes) are all said to be taking a look at TiVo, too. Could someone just buy TiVo already and give it a good home? Hate to get all emo, but as much as we've harshed on them lately, it'd be a shame to see the company disappear completely.