Time Warner Cable was the first operator to bring live TV to the iPad earlier this year (apart from Dish with its Sling solution), and now TWC has added an Android app to its arsenal. Multichannel News reports that TWC hit the Android market yesterday with an app that enables remote DVR programming, channel tuning, and filtered program searches. There’s just one catch. The Android app doesn’t include any video streaming. That’s right – no live or VOD content.
I got a glimpse of the new Time Warner app at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo earlier this month, and it looks pretty much like what you’d expect from a tablet-based TV guide today. However, the fact that there’s no video streaming is a big disappointment. Time Warner’s iPad app already confines live streaming to the boundaries of a subscriber’s home, but at least the service offers a simple in-house place-shifting option. The Android app’s limitations are more significant, and one has to wonder if they’re a result of the legal battles Time Warner is currently fighting over streaming rights. Viacom took Time Warner Cable to court in March over its iPad app, and TWC pulled several channels from the service as a result. Negotiations and judicial debates are ongoing.
For those who are still interested, the new Time Warner Cable Android app is available to all subscribers running the “Navigator” program guide on their set-tops. The app has specifically been certified for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, and the Motorola Xoom, but it’s designed to run on any Honeycomb tablet.
UPDATE: Richard Lawler points out that TWC says it will bring live streaming to Android with Ice Cream Sandwich. Stay tuned.
