By: Aseem Gaurav, April 4, 2011 (New Delhi)
New York-based Cablevision Systems Corp has just launched their iPad app, Optimum. The app allows users to watch more live and on-demand TV programming on their existing Cablevision subscription on the iPad for free.
Optimum Live TV for iPad, available at no extra charge, allows the cable operator's more than 3 million customers to watch some 300 channels, search programing by genre and enable customers to record programs. The app has the ability to schedule DVR recordings.
"This application allows the iPad to function as a television, delivering the full richness and diversity of our cable television service to a display device in the home," said Tom Rutledge, Cablevision's chief operating officer. "It gives our customers the additional flexibility and convenience of watching television throughout the home, in places where set-top boxes might not be ideal or even practical, like the kitchen, bathroom or work room. This is the future of Advanced Digital Cable televisions served with virtual set-top boxes, and just one of many digital displays we are going to be serving through a variety of applications," he said.
Cablevision clarified that the content is not delivered over the Internet, as the company uses its secure and proprietary Advanced Digital Cable television network to deliver cable programming to customers for viewing on the Optimum App for iPad. The application turns the iPad into an additional television, enabling Cablevision customers to view the same live programming and VOD content already being delivered to other TVs in the home as part of the service they have paid for.
Many see the decision taken by Cablevision as a response to Time Warner Cable launching its own iPad app in mid-March.
The convenience of watching your shows wherever you want in your house without being tied down to the TV would make a lot more people watch TV.
Optimum for iPad is available now on the Apple App Store for free.
