While TiVo may have been the first to offer remote scheduling, a number of television service providers have functionally leap-frogged them by offering dedicated iPhone DVR apps. Most of which take it to the next level with two-way communication, allowing one to view a list of previously recorded programming, view upcoming recordings, and delete recordings right from an iPhone.
Experience the best features of Comcast Digital Voice®, Digital Cable and High Speed Internet services on the go-right on your iPhone and iPod touch. Watch trailers for the latest movies available On Demand. Schedule programs to record on your DVR from your iPhone and iPod touch and view your upcoming recordings so you never miss a show again. (expected to be available to most markets by summer 2010)
FiOS is making its DVRs even more accessible by giving customers the ability to program them remotely through their mobile devices. That means that Verizon FiOS customers never have to worry about missing anything they want to watch, as they’ll always be able to set their DVRs to record from virtually anywhere they happen to be. It also means that customers can set parental controls, set bookmarks, browse and search TV programming, set a series recording, view the DVR status and see how much space is left for recording, browse and search VOD listings, and see their lists of scheduled and recorded programs.
Introducing DISH Remote Access – a whole new way to manage your DVR and record your favorite shows – anytime, anywhere with your iPhone™ or iPod touch®. With the touch of a fingertip you can easily browse the program guide, schedule DVR recordings and manage your DVR library as if you were at home. Manage recording conflicts, delete shows you’ve already watched, view and adjust your recording schedule.
AT&T U-verse TV Mobile Remote Access
AT&T Mobile Remote Access for the iPhone allows you to access your Total Home DVR, view and search within your channel Guide, set favorite shows & channels and much more. Download it now so you can start setting your recordings today or search for your favorite actors and see what other shows they are starring in. Set recordings on your Total Home DVR, edit your scheduled and recorded shows.
With DIRECTV you can easily set your home DVR from your iPhone or iPod touch. Browse shows and movies using the simple and easy technology of Apple. Record shows by a single episode or entire series. Program DIRECTV Cinema movies to be recorded and ready to watch any time. Order movies and events without your receiver connected to a phone line.
TiVo
Although TiVo hasn’t provided their own dedicated iPhone app, we’re not without options. TiVo’s somewhat spartan mobile website gets the job done for the most basic of DVR scheduling needs. Also, over the years, TiVo has allowed select third parties to tap into their scheduling API. And on the iPhone platform, the very nice i.TV (iTunes) fires off TiVo recording requests, amongst many other things – including providing a virtual TiVo remote control. While the app is free, as you can see above, ads may periodically obscure your view and that’s X is one heck of a small target to hit.
Being somewhat curious how others tap into our TiVo accounts, I did some poking around i.TV’s various files and took a look at the network traffic using Wire Shark. It appears that i.TV uses our TiVo.com credentials once to retrieve a token, valid for one year, which is subsequently used to access our account data and authenticate scheduling requests. While network communication appears secure, our TiVo.com username and password are stored in the clear by i.TV – accessible from both the iPhone file system and computer-based iTunes backup. It’s obviously not best practice; However, in the real world, the security implications are most likely inconsequential.
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