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WarnerMedia, and its parent company AT&T, is not the best with branding. There were once three individual HBO apps, each catering to a specific use case, but now the company is attempting to consolidate them across all platforms.
ScreenHits TV wants be your one-stop video streaming subscription hub
Details are sparse, but you can apparently use the service to sign up for multiple platforms
The streaming service landscape is quickly becoming convoluted with every TV network, production company, and entrepreneur launching their own exclusive platforms. That's where ScreenHits TV wants to come in. The company will soon launch a service in the US and the UK that lets you aggregate Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, HBO Go, BBC iPlayer, and more into one single interface and subscription.
HBO makes Silicon Valley, dozens of shows and movies free to watch this month
Other titles include The Wire, Veep, and Detective Pikachu
As the novel coronavirus pandemic is expected to peak over the next several weeks, having the masses stay at home will be most crucial during this time. But the lockdown orders do have their deleterious domino effects from unemployment to mental deterioration. It's under these pretenses that AT&T-owned HBO has decided to offer about 500 hours of shows and movies to everyone, subscription-free.
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HBO has some great exclusive shows that are only scarcely available outside its network, so you need to rely on the cable company's apps to enjoy its content on the go. Besides HBO Go and HBO Now, Home Box Office also offers a European version of its service, simply called HBO. This app has received a new download feature that finally brings it on-par with HBO Go and competing platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or Disney+.
HBO Go isn't a very good app—this is the harsh truth. Yet, people put up with it because HBO has content that they want to see. The app is getting an update today (standard and Android TV) that adds some long overdue features. We could complain that HBO Go is just now getting binge mode, or we could be thankful it's here. That's actually a lie; we can do both.
So far the focus in the new wave of headset-based virtual reality content seems to be video games, simulations, 360-degree videos and the like, but as it turns out, conventional 2D video content is easy to adapt into an immersive (if not groundbreaking) experience. Google itself offers all the content on YouTube in Daydream flavor, and now HBO is following suit. The premium cable channel has published a Daydream-compatible version of its online component, HBO GO, in the Play Store as an unreleased app.
Even with a major infusion of horsepower with devices like the NVIDIA SHIELD and Razer Forge TV, the biggest thing holding back the Android TV platform is a scarcity of apps compared to more mature alternatives like Roku. It looks like Google is quickly trying to close the gap: in addition to the announcement of HBO Now (currently exclusive to Apple hardware) at Google I/O, a handful of high-profile and formerly unavailable apps are also making their way to Android TV in the near future.
Amazon is fond of comparison tables that show how capable the Fire TV is, but there's always been one glaring omissionâHBO Go. The premium streaming service has been listed as "coming soon" for a long time, but today Amazon gets to add another checkbox as HBO Go comes to Fire TV.
Over the next few weeks you're going to a see a lot of mainstream apps get quick (and possibly dirty) updates when the new Lollipop devices and software builds break some of their functionality. (No, we don't have any links to images yet.) Some of the first are HBO's streaming app HBO GO, and the same app for its sister network Cinemax, MAX GO. Both apps have been updated today to include "support for Android Lollipop."
I've wanted HBO for a while now, but I haven't desired it strongly enough to subscribe to an expensive cable plan and put up with an ugly box under my TV. I'm a young twenty-something that has cut the cord with no desire to get tethered down to such a dated system, and since I refuse to pirate content, I've opted to miss out on some great shows. I would love to give HBO my money, if only they would let me. Well, it looks like the company finally will. It reportedly plans to introduce a streaming plan next year that will let people get access to HBO content without putting up with cable or satellite.
Guys, the final piece of the puzzle is now in place: Amazon just announced that FireTV will be getting HBO GO. Since it launched without the service, it raised the question of whether it would ever be available to FireTV users; it looks like Amazon was just busy inking the deal with HBO, because there's actually even more to this story than that.
HBO has a mobile app. It lets you watch shows, and it supports Chromecast. Really, that's all that matters here. There's little else it needs in the way of features that will determine whether or not users will turn to it when the opportunity comes to spend some time with HBO. The real question is - do you really want to watch all those sex scenes on the family TV?
Everyone panic! The HBO app is no longer listed in the Google Play Store! Game of Thrones starts in three weeks, how are we going to - wait, what's that? HBO Go is still there? Oh, it's the other HBO app that's gone. The one that doesn't stream episodes and movies. The one that no one uses. Well that's all right, then.
You asked. You begged. You pleaded. And your requests have not fallen on deaf ears... but it did take HBO a while, didn't it? The HBO GO app got a small update this morning, adding support for Google's streaming Chromecast dongle. Nothing more, nothing less.
It's been over two months since Google started releasing Android 4.3 builds, and in all that time users of the updated Nexus and Google Play edition devices haven't been able to access the HBO GO or MAX GO (Cinemax) video services. Considering that subscriptions to both channels are pricey (on top of a cable or satellite subscription, no less) that made for a lot of less-than-satisfied customers.
HBO has been completely uncompromising in its approach to locking up content in pay-for-TV. If you want to watch what are arguably the best TV series currently running, you need to pay your cable provider. The HBO GO and MAX GO apps have provided a little more choice for existing subscribers by streaming to tablets and phones, but the new 2.0 update finally unlocks HDMI video output.
Most of the time when an app is updated, it's pretty clear what the update brings. New features? Enhancements and tweaks? Bug fixes? Whatever the case may be - it's right there in the changelog. However, there are those circumstances when that's just not the case. The recent update to HBO GO and MAX GO are a perfect example of this - especially the latter.
Three of the biggest TV-streaming apps in the Play Store - Hulu Plus, MAX GO, and HBO GO - were all updated within the past couple of days with eerily similar changelogs that include one key feature: support for closed captions. Past that, both HBO GO and MAX GO received "performance enhancements and bug fixes." Hulu, on the other hand also got support for "social sharing of videos and shows."
Home Box Office Inc. brought updates to their HBO GO and HBO MAX apps today, adding various bug fixes, performance enhancements, and support for Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
HBO GO Update Brings Support For Android Tablets Up To 4.0.4
Back in May, HBO updated their HBO GO app to support Ice Cream Sandwich, but even then the app was still missing support for tablets, a major issue for
Back in May, HBO updated their HBO GO app to support Ice Cream Sandwich, but even then the app was still missing support for tablets, a major issue for an app designed for streaming video. Fortunately, they've rolled out an update today to address that problem, bringing support for tablets running anything up to Android 4.0.4 (sorry, no Jelly Bean support here yet). Oddly enough, HBO's MAX GO app was also updated today, but still lacks support for tablets.