Xfinity TV Mobile App

The Xfinity TV Mobile App is a nice little add on for the Xfinity Mobile App.   Not sure why they couldn't have added all of the functionality into one app but I am sure there is a good technical reason.  The app has the following features:

• Watch OnDemand shows on your iPhone, iPad or iTouch
• Search OnDemand and TV Listings
• Use the App like a remote to change the channel on your TV or schedule your DVR
• It's Free!!!

I have been playing around with this app a bit over the past few weeks.  The quality of the OnDemand content is good.  I didn't experience any buffering while watching using wireless.  I have not yet tried to watch anything using the 3G connection.  I do have a tough time going from watching content on my 55" HDTV to watching something on a 3.5" screen.  But in a pinch it will suffice.

The big issue that I have is that the remote scheduling app does not work with the Comcast TIVO cable boxes.  It would be great to be able to schedule programs remotely but the functionality just isn't there.  I don't think it will ever work with the TIVO boxes as I read a while back that Xfinity will eventually end support for TIVO.  Might be time to go back to the standard Comcast DVR.

Xfinity Mobile App

Well I finally got rid of my old run down Blackberry and upgraded to an iPhone 4S.  Pretty impressive piece of hardware this iPhone is, the greatest thing is all of the apps that I can now play around with.

Xfinity offers two Mobile apps for the iPhone, the Xfinity TV Mobile App and the Xfinity Mobile App.  I will be be discussing the latter in this post.  The Xfinity Mobile app provides the following functionality:

• One place to view all email and voicemail messages
• View Xfinity voice call logs
• Access your Xfinity Address book
• Send and receive text messages
• It's Free!!

This was one of the first apps that I installed on my iPhone and I was a bit disappointed when it locked up on the login screen and would not go any further.  My wife was able to install the app on her iPhone without a problem though.  I eventually reinstalled and was able to get in.  It is a nice little app but it turn out to be a little overkill for me.  I have a bunch of different email addresses on GMail, yahoo and hotmail that I have set up on the iPhone.  It seemed a bit silly to use one app to get my comcast email and the iPhone mail program to get the rest of my email.  So I ended up installing the app.  We dropped our land line this month so maybe if we still had xfinity voice the app would be more useful to me. 

My wife on the other hand loves that app.  She only has one email address so the app works great for her.  One of her complaints with the iPhone mail software was if she deleted a message from the iPhone it still remained in her Xfinity account on her PC.  With the Mobile app once she deletes the message is is gone from the phone and her account on the PC.

Overall a nice little app even though it is of no use to me.

Showtime Free Preview on Xfinity

This coming weekend, January 6, 2012 through January 8, 2012 Xfinity will be having a Showtime Free Preview. Based on the Showtime website it looks like this free preview will include On Demand Content.

Xfinity Readable Voicemail

I got a service announcement email from Xfinity the other day that they added a new feature to their voice phone service called Readable Voicemail.  It basically takes a voicemail that has been left, converts it to text and sends it to you in an email message.

To enable this feature:

1. Sign in to XFINITY Connect
2. Click on the Email button
3. Click on the Preferences tab in the top navigation bar
4. Click 'Notifications' from the Preferences box on the left
5. Input your email address into the email notification box
6. Check 'Send transcripts via email'

The first time I tested it it sent me an email saying that the audio quality was to low to convert but it has been working pretty good since then.  You also can have the emails sent to multiple addresses.  Pretty cool.

 

Xfinity Internet Speed Increase

Got an email from Xfinity yesterday that they have increased my Internet speed by 25%.  Haven't really noticed that it is any faster but it is nice to see that they are still investing in their network to make things faster.  According to the fine print my new download speed is 15 mbps.

I did a quick test on speedtest.net and it registered 16.17 Mbps.  So even better than they claim.

Xfinity Mobile App for Blackberry

Xfinity announced today that they are releasing a version of their Mobile app for Blackberry devices.  To download the app and get additional information click the below link:

Xfinity Mobile App for Blackberry

Xfinity released their Mobile app for the iPhone and shortly after released a version for the Android.  Nice to see they are supporting the Blackberry (which I use).  Unfortunately the app will not run on my two year old Blackberry 8330 so I cannot review the app here.  I guess it is time for an upgrade.

In order to run the app you need to have Blackberry OS 4.6 or higher and the app will run on the following devices models:

• Curve 8900
• Curve 8520
• Curve 8530
• Curve 9300
• Curve 9330
• Bold 9000
• Bold 9650
• Bold 9700
• Storm
• Storm 2
• Tour
• Torch

The App seems to  include the same features on the Blackberry, iPhone and Android versions of the app.  These features include

• Access to your email inbox and voice mail messages
• Schedule DVR Recordings
• View and filter TV listings
• Synchronize your Xfinity address book with your Blackberry contacts

Now I just need to get on the phone with Sprint and see if I am eligible for an upgrade so I can actually check this app out.

Xfinity Connect

I got an email a couple weeks ago from Comcast that they would be upgrading the existing SmartZome Communication Software Email software to something called Xfinity Connect.  When I logged in to check my email this weekend I was connected to the new interface.  I was surprised that at first glance it looked very similar to the old interface.  This is good thinking on Xfinity's part as they won't get a lot of calls from customers wondering where their address book button has moved to.  There are some new features though that some will find useful.

• New Homepage with an inbox preview and calendar interface
• Homepage also has in interface for social networking which allows you to connect directly to Facebook and Twitter
• You can also view all of you external email accounts from the homepage
• As I  mentioned the email interface looks very similar to Smartzone.   A couple small changes; they changed the coloring of some of the buttons and fonts styles.  The major difference that I have noticed is that Xfinity Connect appears much faster.  Not just loading but when scrolling through, reading and deleting emails there is a huge improvement for me.

Most of the new features on Xfinity Connect like the calendar and social networking stuff I probably will noit use.  Bust I am happy to see the performance improvement on the new interface.