Every week, iDB picks interesting iPhone and iPad apps to show you. While we tend to choose apps from the App Store, we occasionally throw in a web or jailbreak app as well.
This week, we've got two awesome App Store apps and one web app for you to check out. We hope you enjoy this week's picks!
Optimum, a big player in the New York cable TV business, also offers iPhone and iPad apps to its customers that bring live TV and on-demand content to iOS devices. Optimum's apps have proven popular for those who use the service, but they now appear to have waged something of a war on the jailbreak community.
According to reports from its customers, Optimum's iOS apps now fail to work on devices that have been jailbroken...
We don't usually cover non-Apple related news here on iDB, but this recent announcement from Netflix was too big to pass up. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has publicly apologized for the way that the company handled its recent pricing restructures for streaming/DVD rentals, and has announced a total division of Netflix's DVD and streaming divisions.
Many customers were outraged that Netflix essentially screwed subscribers of the DVD rental + streaming plan by raising prices, and Netflix has since rethought its approach to content distribution. The DVD rental service that made Netflix famous will be spinned off as "Qwikster," while Netflix will be used for online streaming only...
Following NBC and TNT, TBS has updated its iPad app with the ability to stream full-length TV shows. The iPad is increasingly becoming the hub for online content distribution, and the studios allowing TV and movie mobile streaming is one more step towards the future of media playback — a future that could already be considered a reality, depending on how you look at it.
Who's ready for Conan on the iPad?
TNT has just released an app optimized specifically for the iPad's larger screen, bringing with it full-length episodes and movies for TNT satellite and TV subscribers.
The app provides features you've probably come to expect from similar apps, including episode guides, clips, behind-the-scenes footage, show schedules with reminders, and Facebook, Twitter, and GetGlue social network integration.
You will of course be prompted to authenticate your TNT subscription with your cable provider in order to get access to the app's collection of full-length content. Current supported providers include DirectTV, Optimum, Dish, Comcast, Cox, Verizon, Suddenlink, and AT&T U-verse TV.
NBC has just updated its iPad app adding the ability to watch full-length TV shows. Also with this update adds performance enhancements and bug fixes. One good thing about this is that watching full-length TV shows is completely free and doesn't require any subscriptions.
The app lets you check your local listings, so you can see when your favorite shows are on. NBC's iPad app also lets you play trivia, to the show of your liking.
Elgato, the company well known for making TV tuners and the like for the Mac, is set to release an iPad accessory that will effectively turn an iPad 2 into a freeview television.
Aimed squarely at the European market, Elgato's tuner will come complete with a telescopic aerial and will receive the DVB-T frequencies. A companion app will also be available in the App Store, which promises the ability to record live television using the dock connector tuner accessory...
Several websites reported yesterday that Apple has discontinued its TV show rental program. The service launched last Fall and just never really garnered support from the major networks. They felt that the $0.99 price point was too low.
TV Show rentals were available through both the iTunes Store and Apple TV, but that is no longer the case. And Apple's website has even been updated to remove mention of the rental option. So, what happened?
In a recent article about Tim Cook, The Wall Street Journal dropped an interesting tidbit about Apple's future plans to invade our living rooms. The article questioned if Cook was aggressive enough to muscle Apple into the TV industry.
As most of you know, Apple is rumored to be working on a television set. And there has also been ongoing speculation that it is thinking of launching its own subscription-based content service, worthy of competing against NetFlix or cable.
The Journal's article lends some more credibility to the latter theory by confirming Apple's interest in a "subscription TV service..."
You've likely already heard of Cablevision's Optimum app for the iPad. The software garnered a lot of attention when it first launched, allowing Cablevision customers to stream their entire channel lineups to their tablets.
A few days ago, the company released the popular cable-client for the iPhone and iPod touch, with the addition of a major feature. Not only can you watch live TV on your iDevice, you can now control the content on the big screen as well...
Apple just slightly edited 2 TV ads, showcasing several applications, including Apple's own iPod and iTunes app. The concept of the ad remains the same as the ones that recently aired.
These 2 ads originally aired in April, but Apple decided to refurbish them by slightly changing the ending tagline. The previous ads ended with "If you don't have an iPhone, well, you don't have an iPhone." These new ads end with "Just one more thing that makes an iPhone an iPhone..."
Would you buy an Apple TV set? That's the billion dollar question I'm sure Steve Jobs and company are asking themselves right now, as speculation continues to suggest that Apple is bringing an HDTV to market in the not-so-distant future.
While the Cupertino company has identified their interests in the TV industry as "a hobby," there have been several reports over the last 12 months that indicate they are about to take it to the next level. So what could Apple do to make their TV set better than the competition?