My love affair with TV has been an on-again-off-again fling. With the advent of Internet streaming, TV is tugging on my heartstrings once again. HBO has just entered the mobile streaming arena with a new app, HBO GO, available on iPhones as well as Android-based phones. HBO GO puts in the palm of your hands all the amazing HBO original television programming, as well as a big catalog of movies.

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HBO GO works similarly to other mobile phone streaming apps, such as Netflix (free but requires subscription, starting at $7.00 per month, 4 stars). As with Netflix and Time Warner Cable's TV iPad app, you need subscription to view content, even though the app itself is free. The app works well, and the picture and audio quality are very good. A few minor bugs and inconsistencies are likely the result of the app being brand new—and in any event they are minor. Having the contents of the HBO vault at your fingertips should help you forget these little glitches.

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It's Not TV…
To get set up, download and install the app, select your television provider and log in (to authenticate that you're an HBO subscriber), and set up an account with a username, email address, and password.

The app's home screen advertises a featured piece of content, such as Treme, an HBO exclusive serial television show. Along the bottom, a navigation menu lets you dive into Categories (to view content by genre), Search, Watchlist (where you can save a list of things to watch), and Sign Out.

Presently, categories show Movies, Series, Comedy, Sports, Documentaries, and Late Night. Select any of the categories, and the next screen lets you drill down another level. The options change depending on which category you select, but for example, for Late Night, you can select from Featured, A-Z (to see all listings for the category alphabetically), Specials, and Movies. In Series, the options are All, Featured Episodes, and Family.

Once you start browsing the catalog, available options become more visual. Stills from movies and advertising artwork entice you toward the content. Had I just seen the title of the show Bored to Death without an image, I would have forgotten that it's a fairly new series I had been meaning to check out . The image of star Jason Schwartzman helped reignite my interest.

In testing, I found the picture quality over a decent Wi-Fi signal to be great. I kicked open the first episode of Bored to Death and started watching. I killed the app about five minutes in, and re-launched it to see what would happen. The show resumed where it left off. At the 15-minute mark, the app crashed, though, and when I re-launched this time, I had to start the show again from the beginning. I was able to scrub forward using a slider at the top of the screen and find my place, but I would have preferred if the app saved my place. Once more, I quit the app in the middle of the episode (on purpose), and once again when I re-launched, the app did not indicate that I started watching that episode.

When you select a show, the app provides a snapshot of the title, with year made, leading actors, and more. I'd love to see an option on this page to "resume," not only so I could pick up where I left off, but also to remind me that I had started watching a particular title.

One great feature is the ability to add a Series Pass. The Series Pass automatically delivers to your Watchlist (saved shows and movies you want to view, similar to Netflix's Instant Queue) every new episode of a television show while the latest season airs.

Some other nice features in the mobile app HBO GO are the ability to stream video over only Wi-Fi or 3G network; a warning signal when you're about to stream over 3G; and parental controls. One feature that needs a little more work is the search tool, which requires a whole word, rather than just a few letters, to return results. For example, "Sopra" left me empty-handed, but "Sopranos" did the trick.

...It's HBO!
HBO Go users get access to HBO original content, as well as movies that the network licenses on-demand from their mobile devices. When it comes to choosing an entertainment diet, HBO is one of the four major food groups. With shows like The Wire, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, its content is stellar. The mobile app HBO GO is free to download, but you need an HBO subscription in order to view content. You also must be over the age of 17. If you're not an HBO subscriber but you're interested in what the app has to offer, you can still download the app for free and select Preview to get a tour of what's available. If you have HBO and an iPhone or Android-enabled phone, there's no reason not to download this free app.

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