After what may have seemed like an endless wait for Sky customers in the U.K. and elsewhere across Europe, the Sky Go app is now available to download on Apple TV.
The availability of the Sky Go app means that subscribers will be able to stream live Sky's broadcast content on their Apple TV HD and Apple TV 4K devices, rather than having to rely on Sky's set-top box or the equivalent app on their iPhone or iPad.
Over 100 channels can be streamed through the Go app, as well as on-demand access to box sets of popular TV series, all through the familiar blue Sky programming interface. However, it doesn't include the full gamut of Sky channels, and there are some other restrictions to be aware of.
The Go app is only available for Sky Q Multiscreen and Sky Glass Whole Home customers, and allows them to access content included in a Sky Cinema or Sky Sports package, but the app can't be used on Apple TV to stream content if the Sky Go account subscription was an add-on purchase for a mobile device.
The availability of Sky Go on Apple TV will be a welcome addition for many customers, given that the app has been on iPhone and iPad for years. Last December, Apple's own TV+ app rolled out to Sky Glass TV and Sky Q set-top boxes, allowing subscribers to access Apple TV+ movies and shows on Sky's platform.
I had Sky and left them for many reasons (in no particular order of importance):
[LIST=1] * It is not possible to watch something I recorded on my Sky box on the go (ie out and about my mobile phone) with the Sky Q app. And watching recorded content from home was only enabled in Sept 2019, years after I got Sky Q installed! * It is not possible to watch UHD content I recorded on my Sky box either on the go or at home with the Sky Q app * The video quality of the Sky Go and Sky Q Apps is average at best. BT Sport apps have a much greater video quality and features. Even Virgin's TV GO app has now better quality than Sky. * Lack of dedicated TV guide button on the Sky Q box remote control forces me to go via Home option which is a waste of time. This is clearly intentional to force users to see the Home screen which people may like but I hate. I know what I want to watch and I don’t want/need to see ads of others things available on Sky. * Talking about ads I think paying for a subscription service which gives ads all the time makes me sick. There are no product ads on Apple TV, Netflix and Prime Video. It seems Sky is stuck in the past. * The never fixed Sky Q box blank screen issue when switching inputs. Known issue that Sky seems to ignore, multiple threads on this on the web. These two show dozens of customers affected: https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Q/I-keep-having-to-reset-my-Sky-Q-box-to-be-recognised-by-my-TV/m-p/3067302 ('https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Q/I-keep-having-to-reset-my-Sky-Q-box-to-be-recognised-by-my-TV/m-p/3067302') https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Q/Sky-Q-blank-Screen/td-p/2920912/page/25 * UHD content being treated second rate #1: Lack UHD dedicated channels makes finding UHD content cumbersome. This is premium content that seems to be treated like second rate content! I don't want to go to the sports section, I don't want to have to search for content, I want UHD content visible in the TV Guide as channels like all other SD and HD content is. BT Sport has a 4K channel, why can't Sky Sports have 4K channels? * UHD content being treated second rate #2: Certain Sky Q "basic features" don't work properly when watching UHD content. For instance going to the previous channel feature does not work when watching UHD content. It will all be a lot better if there were proper UHD channels... * UHD content being treated second rate #3: I can't tell my Sky Box to start watching the current Premier League match in UDH directly. I have to go to the HD Channel first and then switch to the UHD vwrsion. This is slow and annoying. Also it makes integration with home automation systems impossible. It's also not clear to customers which channel will have the UHD option, for instance PL games could be on PL channel or main event channel. Another UHD channel issue... * UHD content being treated second rate #4: UHD Content often doesn't have subtitles which is available for the same content in SD or HD. * UHD content being treated second rate #5: UHD option for some live content is not available, the show has to be downloaded first. Apple TV, Netflix and Prime Video can easily stream 4K content on the fly, why is Sky unable to do it? Another UHD channel issue... * UHD content being treated second rate #6: Lack of series link on UHD content ie Premier League. While this has been fixed this season it was infuriating that I couldn't record UHD games automatically for so many months and years after getting my Sky Q box and UHD subscription! Another UHD channel issue... * UHD content being treated second rate #7: Unable to send remote record requests for UHD content with the Sky Q app. Did I mention the UHD channel issue??? * Lack of dedicated TV grid option on the Sky Q app. The Sky Q app is so basic that a lot of customers like myself continue to use the Sky+ App instead. Other missing options are search for future content (>1hr), channel numbers not matching App and Sky Q box * Constantly rising prices but constantly diminishing football content (La Liga, Champions League, Europa League, Italian League, etc, etc). I don't want to have to call for a better deal. I am (or was) a loyal customer and I should be rewarded for that not penalised with higher prices. I seriously hope Sky and all the others doing this get penalised as part of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ongoing investigation about Consumer loyalty 'rip off': https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45664985 * Arbitrary arrangement of channel numbers in the TV Guide. Why is BBC1 HD not channel 101? A customer that pays for HD channels should not need to see the SD channels or they should be an option to remove them. * Value for money not there, I was paying £ 79 for Sky Sports UHD but I can get Sky Sports HD and Sky Cinema HD for an additional £ 25 on my existing Virgin plan with all the other channels. £54 (£79 - £25) just for UHD is outrageous not even considering that I will get Sky Cinema HD and BT Sports UHD on Virgin so the £25 makes so much value for money * I can get BT Sport 4K in Virgin, but I can't get Sky UHD anywhere else. That's anti-competitive and I very much dislike anti-competitive companies that can’t or won’t compete fairly. Win on price or quality not by cheating or reducing customer choice * Lack of customer focus: I can add services/channels to my account online but when I want to remove them or cancel the service I have to speak to customer services which takes ages. You should look at how easy is to cancel Netflix, one click on the account page. And they don't hold customers ransom for 18 months, you can leave any time you want. That's customer focus! * Occasionally with very bad weather I will not be able to watch Sky. This doesn't happen with Virgin or BT Sports channels on BT, which come via the internet connection
Abysmal , over priced and very unreliable with terrible customer service , avoid
The boxes never worked properly either and all the recordings tied to the damn things so when they went kaput ( which was often ) you lost everything
Their customer service only seems to care when you're either cancelling your subscription (in which case they try to convince you to stay) or upgrading it. And don't forget their convoluted website which makes it hard to get humans to talk in customer support.
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...
Top Rated Comments
Abysmal , over priced and very unreliable with terrible customer service , avoid
The boxes never worked properly either and all the recordings tied to the damn things so when they went kaput ( which was often ) you lost everything
Doesn’t that make this pointless?
[LIST=1]
* It is not possible to watch something I recorded on my Sky box on the go (ie out and about my mobile phone) with the Sky Q app. And watching recorded content from home was only enabled in Sept 2019, years after I got Sky Q installed!
* It is not possible to watch UHD content I recorded on my Sky box either on the go or at home with the Sky Q app
* The video quality of the Sky Go and Sky Q Apps is average at best. BT Sport apps have a much greater video quality and features. Even Virgin's TV GO app has now better quality than Sky.
* Lack of dedicated TV guide button on the Sky Q box remote control forces me to go via Home option which is a waste of time. This is clearly intentional to force users to see the Home screen which people may like but I hate. I know what I want to watch and I don’t want/need to see ads of others things available on Sky.
* Talking about ads I think paying for a subscription service which gives ads all the time makes me sick. There are no product ads on Apple TV, Netflix and Prime Video. It seems Sky is stuck in the past.
* The never fixed Sky Q box blank screen issue when switching inputs. Known issue that Sky seems to ignore, multiple threads on this on the web. These two show dozens of customers affected: https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Q/I-keep-having-to-reset-my-Sky-Q-box-to-be-recognised-by-my-TV/m-p/3067302 ('https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Q/I-keep-having-to-reset-my-Sky-Q-box-to-be-recognised-by-my-TV/m-p/3067302') https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Q/Sky-Q-blank-Screen/td-p/2920912/page/25
* UHD content being treated second rate #1: Lack UHD dedicated channels makes finding UHD content cumbersome. This is premium content that seems to be treated like second rate content! I don't want to go to the sports section, I don't want to have to search for content, I want UHD content visible in the TV Guide as channels like all other SD and HD content is. BT Sport has a 4K channel, why can't Sky Sports have 4K channels?
* UHD content being treated second rate #2: Certain Sky Q "basic features" don't work properly when watching UHD content. For instance going to the previous channel feature does not work when watching UHD content. It will all be a lot better if there were proper UHD channels...
* UHD content being treated second rate #3: I can't tell my Sky Box to start watching the current Premier League match in UDH directly. I have to go to the HD Channel first and then switch to the UHD vwrsion. This is slow and annoying. Also it makes integration with home automation systems impossible. It's also not clear to customers which channel will have the UHD option, for instance PL games could be on PL channel or main event channel. Another UHD channel issue...
* UHD content being treated second rate #4: UHD Content often doesn't have subtitles which is available for the same content in SD or HD.
* UHD content being treated second rate #5: UHD option for some live content is not available, the show has to be downloaded first. Apple TV, Netflix and Prime Video can easily stream 4K content on the fly, why is Sky unable to do it? Another UHD channel issue...
* UHD content being treated second rate #6: Lack of series link on UHD content ie Premier League. While this has been fixed this season it was infuriating that I couldn't record UHD games automatically for so many months and years after getting my Sky Q box and UHD subscription! Another UHD channel issue...
* UHD content being treated second rate #7: Unable to send remote record requests for UHD content with the Sky Q app. Did I mention the UHD channel issue???
* Lack of dedicated TV grid option on the Sky Q app. The Sky Q app is so basic that a lot of customers like myself continue to use the Sky+ App instead. Other missing options are search for future content (>1hr), channel numbers not matching App and Sky Q box
* Constantly rising prices but constantly diminishing football content (La Liga, Champions League, Europa League, Italian League, etc, etc). I don't want to have to call for a better deal. I am (or was) a loyal customer and I should be rewarded for that not penalised with higher prices. I seriously hope Sky and all the others doing this get penalised as part of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ongoing investigation about Consumer loyalty 'rip off': https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45664985
* Arbitrary arrangement of channel numbers in the TV Guide. Why is BBC1 HD not channel 101? A customer that pays for HD channels should not need to see the SD channels or they should be an option to remove them.
* Value for money not there, I was paying £ 79 for Sky Sports UHD but I can get Sky Sports HD and Sky Cinema HD for an additional £ 25 on my existing Virgin plan with all the other channels. £54 (£79 - £25) just for UHD is outrageous not even considering that I will get Sky Cinema HD and BT Sports UHD on Virgin so the £25 makes so much value for money
* I can get BT Sport 4K in Virgin, but I can't get Sky UHD anywhere else. That's anti-competitive and I very much dislike anti-competitive companies that can’t or won’t compete fairly. Win on price or quality not by cheating or reducing customer choice
* Lack of customer focus: I can add services/channels to my account online but when I want to remove them or cancel the service I have to speak to customer services which takes ages. You should look at how easy is to cancel Netflix, one click on the account page. And they don't hold customers ransom for 18 months, you can leave any time you want. That's customer focus!
* Occasionally with very bad weather I will not be able to watch Sky. This doesn't happen with Virgin or BT Sports channels on BT, which come via the internet connection
The italian Sky Go is still limited to iPhone and iPad only: