Dish (also) wants to turn your smartphone, tablet into a portable TV
On the heels of rumors that Verizon and Motorola are working on a mobile-TV tablet comes news from satellite carrier Dish Network, which is reportedly planning on unleashing free apps for iPhones, iPads, and Android handsets that’ll let you watch live and recorded TV wherever you go. Hmmm ... do we have a trend here?
Dish Network TV apps for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch should be on the way sometime next month, according to the Associated Press, while an app for Android phones is slated for October.
So, how will Dish manage the trick of slinging live TV from your Dish-supplied DVR to your smartphone? Well, as savvy home-video and mobile aficionados will know, "sling" — as in Slingbox — is the key word here. As the AP notes, former Dish parent EchoStar snapped up Sling Media — which makes the Slingbox, a device that piggybacks on your home DVR and "slings" live TV to desktops, laptops, and phones via broadband — a few years back, and the pricier Dish DVRs come with built-in Slingbox capabilities.
Of course, owners of the stand-alone Slingbox (which uses pass-through video connections and an IR blaster that let you remotely watch and control your home-bound DVR) can already watch live TV on a variety of smartphones via Slingplayer Mobile, which is available on iTunes and the Android Marketplace for $30. (There’s also the Vulkano Player, an iPhone/iPad video app for the competing Monsoon Vulkano TV set-top device.)
But the upcoming Dish TV app — including a version for the iPad — will be free for Dish Network subscribers with the right Sling-ready DVRs, the AP reports, and something tells me that Dish will put far more marketing muscle behind the new service than Sling Media ever did for the Slingbox.
The Dish news is coming right around the same time as rumors of an Android-powered mobile TV tablet from Motorola, that might "tie closely" with Verizon’s fiber-optic FiOS digital cable service.
And that’s got me thinking ... is this a way for the big cable and satellite carriers to fend off the threat of the "cord cutters" who are slowly but surely dumping their cable and satellite subscriptions in favor of watching TV over the Web? Maybe we’re looking at the new quadruple (or quintuple — I’m losing count) play here: digital cable, digital phone, home broadband, and TV on your smartphone or tablet, wherever you go.
Sure, the carriers might say, you could go for streaming TV over Hulu Plus or Netflix ... but they don’t offer the zillions of channels we do. You want live sports (including the NFL, and SportsCenter!) on your phone? We got ‘em. Full-on DVR functionality and electronic programming grids? Done. And don’t worry, you’ll be able to watch your favorite shows the moment they air, rather than waiting a day for them to get posted to Hulu.
Now, that’s purely conjecture on my part — and besides, the Motorola/Verizon TV tablet hasn’t even been confirmed yet — but if I were the big cheese at a cable carrier looking at ways to keep subscribers from cutting the cord, well ... offering live TV apps for smartphones and tablets would be one of the tactics I’d pitch. Whether such an offer would actually work is another question.
So, what do you think? Like the idea of being able to watch and control your DVR over your phone or a tablet? Is live TV (and particularly live sports) over your phone a cable or satellite offering that would keep you from cutting the cord? Or would you still be ready to dump your cable subscription in favor of TV on the Web the first chance you get?
AP: Dish to stream live TV on iPad, other devices
On the heels of rumors that Verizon and Motorola are working on a mobile-TV tablet comes news from satellite carrier Dish Network, which is reportedly planning on unleashing free apps for iPhones, iPads, and Android handsets that’ll let you watch live and recorded TV wherever you go. Hmmm ... do we have a trend here?
Dish Network TV apps for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch should be on the way sometime next month, according to the Associated Press, while an app for Android phones is slated for October.
So, how will Dish manage the trick of slinging live TV from your Dish-supplied DVR to your smartphone? Well, as savvy home-video and mobile aficionados will know, "sling" — as in Slingbox — is the key word here. As the AP notes, former Dish parent EchoStar snapped up Sling Media — which makes the Slingbox, a device that piggybacks on your home DVR and "slings" live TV to desktops, laptops, and phones via broadband — a few years back, and the pricier Dish DVRs come with built-in Slingbox capabilities.
Of course, owners of the stand-alone Slingbox (which uses pass-through video connections and an IR blaster that let you remotely watch and control your home-bound DVR) can already watch live TV on a variety of smartphones via Slingplayer Mobile, which is available on iTunes and the Android Marketplace for $30. (There’s also the Vulkano Player, an iPhone/iPad video app for the competing Monsoon Vulkano TV set-top device.)
But the upcoming Dish TV app — including a version for the iPad — will be free for Dish Network subscribers with the right Sling-ready DVRs, the AP reports, and something tells me that Dish will put far more marketing muscle behind the new service than Sling Media ever did for the Slingbox.
The Dish news is coming right around the same time as rumors of an Android-powered mobile TV tablet from Motorola, that might "tie closely" with Verizon’s fiber-optic FiOS digital cable service.
And that’s got me thinking ... is this a way for the big cable and satellite carriers to fend off the threat of the "cord cutters" who are slowly but surely dumping their cable and satellite subscriptions in favor of watching TV over the Web? Maybe we’re looking at the new quadruple (or quintuple — I’m losing count) play here: digital cable, digital phone, home broadband, and TV on your smartphone or tablet, wherever you go.
Sure, the carriers might say, you could go for streaming TV over Hulu Plus or Netflix ... but they don’t offer the zillions of channels we do. You want live sports (including the NFL, and SportsCenter!) on your phone? We got ‘em. Full-on DVR functionality and electronic programming grids? Done. And don’t worry, you’ll be able to watch your favorite shows the moment they air, rather than waiting a day for them to get posted to Hulu.
Now, that’s purely conjecture on my part — and besides, the Motorola/Verizon TV tablet hasn’t even been confirmed yet — but if I were the big cheese at a cable carrier looking at ways to keep subscribers from cutting the cord, well ... offering live TV apps for smartphones and tablets would be one of the tactics I’d pitch. Whether such an offer would actually work is another question.
So, what do you think? Like the idea of being able to watch and control your DVR over your phone or a tablet? Is live TV (and particularly live sports) over your phone a cable or satellite offering that would keep you from cutting the cord? Or would you still be ready to dump your cable subscription in favor of TV on the Web the first chance you get?
AP: Dish to stream live TV on iPad, other devices
