HBO NO! A Rant in Pictures

Posted By: Dan Cohen

HBO GO for iOS is live and available for free in the App Store. It is awesome.

You can watch HBO movies on the go.

You can watch some of HBO’s amazing series. (I am totally into Game of Thrones!)

You can watch HBO comedy, you know, the ones where the funny people don’t need to censor their language or content.

You can even watch HBO “late night” programs… If you are into that sort of thing.

Yes HBO GO is a GO… Unless it is a NO GO…

Which is the case if you pay out the nose to Cablevision the way Elana and I do.

That’s right, Comcast gets it. Verizon gets it. Dish gets it. Cablevision subscribers… Not so much.

That really stinks of them … and worse still their iPad app only works at home.

About the Author

Dan Cohen

Having a father who was heavily involved in early laser and fiber-optical research, Dan grew up surrounded by technology and gadgets. Dan’s father brought home one of the very first video games when he was young and Dan remembers seeing a “pre-release” touchtone phone. (When he asked his father what the “#” and “*” buttons were his dad said, “Some day, far in the future, we’ll have some use for them.”) Technology seemed to be in Dan’s blood but at some point he took a different path and ended up in the clergy. His passion for technology and gadgets never left him. Dan is married to Raina Goldberg who is also an avid user of Apple products. They live in New Jersey with their golden doodle Nava.

3 Comments on "HBO NO! A Rant in Pictures"

Douglas Moran | April 29, 2011 at 5:57 pm |

So, wait; unless you buy a TV package that includes HBO, you can’t use HBO Go? Am I getting that right, or am I missing something?
Dan Cohen | April 29, 2011 at 6:43 pm |

Of course that’s the way it works. They don’t want you just getting their programming for free. This is an app to extend the functionality for their subscribers and to make it more desirable to subscribe. They aren’t giving it away.
Douglas Moran | April 29, 2011 at 8:19 pm |

I fear I didn’t explain myself properly; sorry about that.

One of the things that drives me crazy about cable and dish TV is that you have to get their packages. And I don’t want a flippin’ package; I just want one or two shows. So I don’t want HBO *and* Cinemax *and* TCM and whatever they’ve packaged all together for an addition $20 a month or whatever on top of your cable bill. Heck, I don’t even want HBO; I don’t really even want *cable*; I just want a few programs here and there. Justified from F/X. Game of Thrones from HBO. Fringe. Archer. Just a few things. I don’t really want to get cable w/ extra packages when I just want a few shows.

But I’m perfectly willing to pay for what I get–I didn’t expect it to be free. If HBO wants to charge me 30 bucks for a series, or $3/episode, or $7.99/month (like Hulu) or some such, I’m fine with that. I guess what surprises me is that you can’t do that, that instead you have to go through some cable provider for it. That seems . . . weird. At least to me.

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