LAS VEGAS – Comcast on Wednesday announced that customers will soon be able to watch live TV on their iPad and Android-powered tablets. The company also said it will make on-demand content available on tablets and allow users to change the channel from their computers.
Later this year, Comcast subscribers will be able to watch live news, TV shows, and movies in their homes on the Apple iPad or Android-powered tablet.
"This means customers with tablets and a wireless router can watch and enjoy live TV anywhere in the house," J.T. Ramsay, Comcast's chief blogger, wrote in a post. "Your tablet can be magically transformed into a personal TV set you can carry all around your home."
Comcast is working to have a customer's entire cable TV lineup available for live streaming. It's not clear if it will cost extra.
Coming to its Xfinity TV app, however, is the ability to stream on-demand content. Users will be able to access 3,000 hours of on-demand content that can be watched inside or outside the home. "That means you can watch Xfinity TV in airports, doctors' offices, on the train -- anywhere you can find a wireless connection," Ramsay wrote.
The feature, known as Play Now, will be added to the Xfinity TV iPad app in the coming weeks and Android tablets later this year.
The app also allows users to turn their tablets into a remote – change TV channels, search and browse TV listings and on-demand content, and program the DVR. Comcast said future releases of the app will include social-networking features that will allow subscribers to share real-time updates with friends, as well as a "MyTV" feature that allows viewers to make personal recommendations to friends.
"Live streaming and the play now feature on our Xfinity TV app are two important pieces of our strategy to deliver any content to any device, any time," Comcast chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts said in a statement. "Comcast has a series of upcoming online enhancements and app releases that are part of a much larger effort to reinvent how customers interact with their entertainment on TV, online and on mobile devices."
Roberts will provide more details about the releases at Wednesday's Citi Conference for Media, Entertainment, and Technology.
Finally, Comcast added some of that remote control functionality to the Web. Users can now search for content and change the channel from a computer via XfinityTV.com. They can also program the DVR. "In other words, you can search and browse live TV programs and On Demand content on your computer and then click on it to change the channel on your television set," Ramsay wrote.