HBO GO for Android Tablets Due Soon, HBO Confirms

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A version of HBO's HBO GO app for Android tablets is now under active development, and should arrive in the next few months, an HBO spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Last week, HBO announced support for all phones running Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. While that means that every Android phone can now run HBO GO, HBO conspicuously left off tablets from the update list - a format that's particularly suited to video viewing. ICS was also supposed to "roll up" the tablet and phone versions of the Android OS into a single, unified platform.

In response to a PCMag question, however, HBO confirmed that a version for Android tablets is now under development.

"HBO GO is now supported on Android phones running up to version 4.04 (Ice Cream Sandwich)," the HBO spokeswoman said via an emailed statement. "We are actively working on a version of the application that will be optimized for most Android tablets, including Kindle Fire. Please stay tuned as a new version of the application with support for tablets is coming early this summer."

Currently, HBO makes its HBO GO application available for Android phones, the Apple iPhone and iPad, the Roku streaming set-top box, and the Microsoft Xbox 360, including recent support by Comcast. The app allows users with a cable or satellite subscription to HBO access to the same content as video on demand, including the movies that HBO is showing that month. Some of those movies have a short viewing window, however, reflecting the broadcast agreements HBO signed. Alison Moore, the HBO executive in charge of HBO Go, said that HBO was "looking at" allowing users to cache movies offline, so that the HBO GO app wouldn't always need to be connected.

By and large, however, most users use HBO GO to view the company's stable of self-produced series, such as Entourage, Game of Thrones, and older series such as The Wire.

Unfortunately, HBO still hasn't indicated that it will offer an a la carte version of HBO GO, meaning that users must still pay for a subscription with their cable or satellite provider.

HBO GO for Android Tablets Due Soon, HBO Confirms | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

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[bigdave240]

Well, Sirius finally fixed their app so maybe there is some hope that this will actually happen. Nice find!

[Pharoah]

good news indeed.we need more stuff like this.

[Astrix]

Nice find grant