During a keynote session at CTIA Wireless Tuesday, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said the company will be releasing an app that enables U-verse customers to remotely manage their DVR, view programming schedules and watch recorded video on the handset over WiFi.
It’s a cool move that’s not completely unexpected – rival Comcast recently updated its app and Verizon’s FiOS apps is pretty solid. There are no solid details about what platforms this will come to but I’d imagine you’ll see an iPhone app first, then it will come to Android and BlackBerry.
One strange and somewhat embarrassing wrinkle is that you’ll only be able to watch videos over WiFi, which kind of limits the appeal. I’m not sure if there are mobile distribution rights issues or partnerships that can’t be stepped on, but excluding 3G makes it look like AT&T is not confident its 3G network can handle the load. It’s not like U-Verse has a ton of subscribers that will bring the network to a halt either. No word on a release date, but look for it relatively soon.
Update: I was being overly harsh about this because AT&T told me you’ll only be able to download shows over WiFi but you can watch them on the device whenever. That makes it far more useful than I thought. I still think you should be able to download over their 3G network though.