Aereo, for those not familiar, is a service that will allow you to watch live television over the internet. The service will cost you a few bucks each month, but what you get is control over an antenna that will allow you to stream local channels that you would normally get at home. The perk is that you do not need any cable subscription, just an account with Aereo. The drawback here is that Aereo has yet to come available for Android.
At this time the service supports the iPhone and iPad as well as Roku and Apple TV set-top boxes. There is also support for a handful of web browsers. But more important for today is what will be coming next month — support for Android. The details are coming by way of the International Business Times who are reporting that Aereo will have an announcement in September.
There hasn’t been anything specific in terms of a release date, however Android users can start keeping an eye out for more information in just a few days time. That being said, the Aereo service runs between $8 and $12 per month and is currently available only in select markets. The catch here, you have to live in one of those markets in order to get service.
At present Aereo has service available in New York, Boston, Salt Lake City and Atlanta. Future support is expected in quite a few more locations including Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Miami, Tampa and more. Similar to the Android app release, we have yet to see specific launch dates for these new markets. But on the bright side, Aereo has said they have plans to support most major US markets by the end of the year.
It kills me, that despite owning the majority of the market share, manufacturers/vendors, choose to support Apples platform ahead of Android. Ingress aside, it seems like every app we have, we had to wait for them to come around to it instead of just initially offering it the way they have for Apple. Is it me, or is the snooty Apple crowd getting special treatment because they choose to use an inferior platform and have name recognition, and perks at Starbucks?
I am not an apple fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but the way I understand it the app developers have a much easier time creating apps for apple becasue the list of devices they neeed to work on is significantly smaller and apple users are more willing to pay for apps. They go where the money is. Wouldn’t you?
If I am paying a monthly fee for Aereo they better be providing the app for free.
why would you pay for local channels you can get for free?
can you get them on your tablets? with Aereo you can. Plus not everyone can get the OTA despite being in the zone of transmission.