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"Comcast Mobile App" Hits the App Store

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Apr 12, 2001
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U.S. cable TV and Internet provider Comcast has released Comcast Mobile App [App Store, Free], offering integrated access to the company's Digital Voice, Digital Cable, and High-Speed Internet services on the iPhone. Macworld provides an overview of the application's package of features.

The Comcast Mobile App lets you access your Comcast e-mail, manage your Digital Voice account, peruse Comcast's TV listings, and watch trailers for movies on Comcast On-Demand. The opening interface can be viewed as a list, a grid, or in a CoverFlow-like icon rotation. Shaking the iPhone switches between these three views.
Click to expand...

The application offers a "SmartZone" inbox that displays both e-mails and voicemails for Comcast subscribers, viewable either in a combined feed or in separate lists. The application also allows for management of the subscriber's Digital Voice account, providing such features as call logs and call forwarding settings.

Comcast Mobile App also offers television listings, providing the ability to mark shows as favorites, share program descriptions over e-mail, and set reminder alerts for shows. Unfortunately, the application does not offer a DVR interface that would allow subscribers to remotely schedule recordings. Finally, the application offers on-demand viewing of movie trailers. Comcast is reportedly looking at ways to offer additional content beyond trailers, but there is no word on when new content might be deployed.

Article Link: "Comcast Mobile App" Hits the App Store
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2009/07/16/comcast-mobile-app-hits-the-app-store/
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Eddyisgreat

macrumors 601
Oct 24, 2007
4,851
2
Pretty cool. I like the TV listings. Now I don't have to roach titan tv every time I need to know what the next show is about.
 
deannnnn

deannnnn

macrumors 68020
Jun 4, 2007
2,090
625
New York City & South Florida
Comcast doesn't allow us to set our DVR from anywhere but the DVR itself. No mobile services, no setting it online. I just don't understand why TiVo & DirecTV can do it no problem, but Comcast neglects to give us the feature. Do other cable providers like Time Warner allow remote DVR setting abilities?
 
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MarkAK

macrumors newbie
Jul 1, 2009
28
0
By default it is set to look for messages every 5 min.
I had to go into setting and turn it to manual.
 
I

itsjustmeee

macrumors 6502a
Dec 28, 2008
602
7
Yeah, without being able to program your DVR from this program, it's mostly useless in my opinion. We can answer our comcast emails already and there are various free tv guide apps out there. The On Demand is nice, but if you're not in front of your tv set, what good is it? And if you are in front of your tv set, do you really need this app??!!
 
8

80s Fan

macrumors member
Jan 31, 2008
75
15
MarkAK said:
By default it is set to look for messages every 5 min.
I had to go into setting and turn it to manual.
Click to expand...

How does this work? Doesn't this check your e-mail ONLY when you are already in the app? I can't imagine Comcast would be able get this to check e-mail while you are in other apps or not using the phone.
 
M

MarkAK

macrumors newbie
Jul 1, 2009
28
0
80s Fan said:
How does this work? Doesn't this check your e-mail ONLY when you are already in the app? I can't imagine Comcast would be able get this to check e-mail while you are in other apps or not using the phone.
Click to expand...


Good quesiton.....

I dont know.

It is checking every 5 or 10 or manualy on there server and then sending an alert ot your phone when it needs to?
 
Speedracer04

Speedracer04

macrumors 6502a
Sep 8, 2006
617
0
Michigan
MarkAK said:
Good quesiton.....

I dont know.

It is checking every 5 or 10 or manualy on there server and then sending an alert ot your phone when it needs to?
Click to expand...

or just set up your comcast email to go to the email app already on the iPhone? why go to two places to check email?
 
E

Excellerator

macrumors 6502a
Aug 3, 2008
530
2
deannnnn said:
Comcast doesn't allow us to set our DVR from anywhere but the DVR itself. No mobile services, no setting it online. I just don't understand why TiVo & DirecTV can do it no problem, but Comcast neglects to give us the feature. Do other cable providers like Time Warner allow remote DVR setting abilities?
Click to expand...

Time Warner doesn't allow remote setting either. I wish they did. Looks like only Tivo and DirectTV do.
 
P

pacmantech

macrumors member
Sep 18, 2006
40
4
The app is fairly useless without DVR recording. I'd pay good money if I could remotely program my DVR.

I'm guessing it's close to impossible because Comcast utilizes different boxes in different markets, and a lot of the DVR boxes aren't even close to being able to offer that technology.
 
OneMike

OneMike

macrumors 603
Oct 19, 2005
5,814
1,795
it's not a bad app but I don't really see any advantage to this over i.tv other then the on demand
 
S

somedcmacguy

macrumors newbie
Jul 16, 2009
2
0
I've seen the prototype...

pacmantech said:
The app is fairly useless without DVR recording. I'd pay good money if I could remotely program my DVR.

I'm guessing it's close to impossible because Comcast utilizes different boxes in different markets, and a lot of the DVR boxes aren't even close to being able to offer that technology.
Click to expand...

I've seen some of the early proof-of-concept work. It works, and it's coming. Probably to comcast.net initially but other apps over time. You're spot on about the different boxes being a challenge, but I think there's a plan to address that (not sure what it is). But remote programming of DVRs is high on the list of new features to roll out. So is multi-room viewing, etc (first iteration will have the same program only one unit that FiOS has). There's a lot of new features they're trying to roll out in the next 18 months. The release schedule is moving from glacial to a more aggressive approach.

Basically they're going to start leveraging a lot of the companies they've been acquiring over the past 3 years like thePlatform and Plaxo. There's rumors of them writing an API as well, which would allow 3rd party developers to write apps as well, although I'd bet they'll restrict the hell out of it ala-VZW.

<can't use my real name>
 
S

somedcmacguy

macrumors newbie
Jul 16, 2009
2
0
somedcmacguy said:
I've seen some of the early proof-of-concept work. It works, and it's coming. Probably to comcast.net initially but other apps over time. You're spot on about the different boxes being a challenge, but I think there's a plan to address that (not sure what it is). But remote programming of DVRs is high on the list of new features to roll out. So is multi-room viewing, etc (first iteration will have the same program only one unit that FiOS has). There's a lot of new features they're trying to roll out in the next 18 months. The release schedule is moving from glacial to a more aggressive approach.

Basically they're going to start leveraging a lot of the companies they've been acquiring over the past 3 years like thePlatform and Plaxo. There's rumors of them writing an API as well, which would allow 3rd party developers to write apps as well, although I'd bet they'll restrict the hell out of it ala-VZW.

<can't use my real name>
Click to expand...

Oh, almost forgot one of the coolest things I saw demoed: Change the channel via web service... So a future iPhone app 'should' be able to program the DVR (right from the channel guide) AND be used as a basic remote to change channels. Not sure if that one will make it out of the lab but It was pretty damn cool to see...
 
deannnnn

deannnnn

macrumors 68020
Jun 4, 2007
2,090
625
New York City & South Florida
somedcmacguy said:
I've seen some of the early proof-of-concept work. It works, and it's coming. Probably to comcast.net initially but other apps over time. You're spot on about the different boxes being a challenge, but I think there's a plan to address that (not sure what it is). But remote programming of DVRs is high on the list of new features to roll out. So is multi-room viewing, etc (first iteration will have the same program only one unit that FiOS has). There's a lot of new features they're trying to roll out in the next 18 months. The release schedule is moving from glacial to a more aggressive approach.

Basically they're going to start leveraging a lot of the companies they've been acquiring over the past 3 years like thePlatform and Plaxo. There's rumors of them writing an API as well, which would allow 3rd party developers to write apps as well, although I'd bet they'll restrict the hell out of it ala-VZW.

<can't use my real name>
Click to expand...

That's such good news.
I'm not going to ask how you know this... but do you have any idea of a time frame until remote DVR settings rolls out?
In the Miami market where I live, we use the same Motorola boxes that FiOS uses and I'm sure they are perfectly capable of remote DVR support. If differences in boxes in different markets are a problem, you'd think they would universalize the boxes across the entire comcast network or at least just offer advanced services in the markets that are capable of handling them.
What ever happened to the whole Comcast integrating TiVo menus and services into the Comcast set top boxes? Did that ever deploy? Is that ever going to go network wide?
 
P

paul100

macrumors newbie
Jun 24, 2009
27
0
Comcast has given a wonderful iPhone app. Where you see the TV programs listings. Watch movie trailers on demand and many more. We would be happy if they would have provided even movies on demand too.
 
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prairiefire

macrumors member
Jun 8, 2007
63
0
Not Work Unless You Have Comcast Email?

To use this, it appears that you need a Comcast.net account. I have a Comcast.com account -- although Comcast delivers my email, I use Earthlink.

I can't get this app to work because it requires an "account" with a .net ending. Mine has .com.

Anyone with .com making it work? Obviously, I don't expect (or need) email support. I just want the TV side.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

sjh
 
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