HBO Now's Apple Exclusivity Ends, Coming to Android & Chromecast
posted Friday May 29, 2015 by Scott Ertz
Ever since HBO Now was officially announced, the fact that it was exclusive to Apple devices was a shock. Apple holds a minority percentage of almost every market they are involved in; Android phones and tablets outnumber iPhones and iPads, Macs are statistically insignificant in the computer world and the Apple TV is outsold by many other set-top boxes, like the Roku. Why, then, did HBO Now release exclusively for Apple devices?
It is likely that Apple paid for exclusivity, to make the announcement for the much anticipated service part of their event. That exclusivity seems to have come to an end, however, as Google announced at their annual Google I/O developer event that HBO Now is headed to Google platforms. Some Google platforms, that is - it will be available on Android and Cast, but will seemingly not be natively available on Chrome OS devices.
With the end of Apple exclusivity, and a move to Google platforms, means the beginning of actual availability for the service. Hopefully this is just the beginning, with Windows 10 and web coming soon behind. The issue at hand is that we still don't know when the Google platforms will actually get the service, just that it is coming soon. Soon could be next week, or it could be after Windows 10 ships - there is currently no way to know.
As someone who spends much of his time surrounded by as many as 15 Windows screens and only two Android and one iOS screen, I really hope that HBO Now will come to Windows 10 and Xbox One in the near future and, failing that, at least the web. That would certainly expand their reach for the service, as Xbox 360 and Xbox One have been within the top streaming devices for many other services. Maybe at the official Windows 10 launch, or even at E3, we will hear about HBO Now on more platforms.