You’ll soon be able to keep track of Ari, Turtle, E and the rest of the gang on the go because HBO said it will be bringing its content to mobile devices and the Apple iPad soon.
According to sources close to The Wrap, HBO plans to take that “home” out of “Home Box Office” by giving subscribers access to their favorite shows on multiple mobile devices.
The content will be available through HBO Go, the Hulu-like service that the premium cable channel makes available to subscribers. The company currently has agreements in place with Verizon and Comcast.
Subscribers won’t have to pay anymore to watch HBO on their mobile devices, but the company is still working with manufacturers and carriers to ensure that some authentication process will be in place when the service goes live.
The HBO move could happen as soon as six months and it makes a ton of sense, as nearly every video content provider is trying to get on as many screens as possible. We know that Dish Network will soon stream live video to phones and the Apple iPad. AT&T has also just released a cool Apple iPhone app which lets U-Verse subscribers download recorded shows to their phones to watch on the go.
As more and more providers bring video to phones, I see the biggest losers potentially being SlingPlayer and Flo TV. SlingPlayer has apps which bring its cool service to multiple platforms but it’s honestly too expensive to set up for most users. Sling will be fine though because I’m sure it can license its tech to other networks and video providers.
The future for Flo TV may not be as bright though, as the proliferation of video-enabled apps could defeat the purpose of a standalone mobile TV service. That could be why Qualcomm is looking to ditch this business. To be fair to Flo TV, these video apps will eat your bandwidth up, which could be a problem as more carrier ditch unlimited data plans.
[Via The Wrap]