RSS Feed
Twitter
I was really excited when Tivo showed me an ad for a new feature called Tivo Mobile. What would it be? Would it be like Sling? Would I be able to watch my Tivo recordings on my mobile phone?
No. Tivo Mobile is just a way to schedule recordings from a mobile phone. Only Verizon customers can do it, too. Being a Sprint subscriber, I won’t be able to use it, but Tivo Mobile is exclusive to Verizon for only six months. After that, it will go to other carriers, but there’s no announcements on those deals.
To me Tivo Mobile is unnecessary. Why is Tivo building out features that no one really is asking for, yet is taking a long time to make basic changes to its UI or a lower priced HD box?
It’s not clear from reading Tivo’s website that shows you choose to record via Tivo Mobile will be programmed immediately, and not hours later. After all, if you’re going to program shows on your mobile phone, it probably means you want something recorded very soon. Hopefully, it can schedule shows immediately, or within an hour, at least.
Also, customers need to use phones that support the Tivo application, so if you have an older phone, you may be out of luck anyway. (Verizon has a list of phones that will work with Tivo Mobile.)
Word is that Tivo Mobile will cost Verizon customers $5 a month. That’s on top of the monthly Tivo fee of about $20. I’d love to know how many users actually sign up and download the Tivo phone application when it becomes available.
Tivo Mobile is a big bust. Do we really need to use a mobile phone to schedule a TV recording? Shouldn’t we be able to wait until we get home or are at a computer, where it’s far easier to search and use the newly re-designed online scheduler.
Oh and calling the new service “Tivo Mobile” when all it does is schedule recordings is rather deceptive.
[Via Tivo Website, Engadget]
Related posts:
Posted in 