Comcast appears to be skipping Apple TV Xfinity app in favor of Roku

AppleInsider · February 1, 2019 2:08PM

Comcast is sidestepping development of an Apple TV app for Xfinity TV customers in favor of its plans for Roku boxes and technology based on Sky's Now TV service, a report claimed on Friday.

Comcast told Apple about its plans in December, shortly after buying U.K. broadcaster Sky, according to BESTAppleTV sources. Now TV is based in the U.K., Ireland, and Italy, but Roku already licenses its platform to companies like Sky, making it relatively simple to adapt that technology to the U.S. During a Jan. 23 earnings call, Comcast executives said they were planning to offer Comcast-branded Roku boxes to Xfinity TV customers sometime in 2020.

"At this time, we have not reached terms with Apple to bring our Xfinity Stream app to Apple TV devices," a spokesperson commented to BESTAppleTV.

Xfinity Streama promised zero sign-on app at the beginning of January. Effectively it turns an Apple TV into a cable box, giving access to every Spectrum channel and the provider's on-demand content.

Other companies using the Apple TV as a cable/satellite box replacement include France's Canal and Switzerland's Salt.

asdasd · February 1, 2019 2:10PM

Now is actually pretty good. Small payments for getting live sports etc for a day or a week out of contract is a good idea.

wood1208 · February 1, 2019 2:29PM

It is up to Comcast customers to put pressure on Comcast to make them offer Xfinity Apple TV App the way done to Amazon Prime video App. If it requires to work with Apple than so be it. Customers should say, Comacast make it happen when all other cable service provider has done it.

bsbeamer · February 1, 2019 2:31PM

Xfinity Stream on Roku works well as long as you're not looking to change the channel too often. It's delayed by about 45-60 seconds from "live" on the rest of X1 boxes (which are still usually delayed 30-45 seconds from true live). Almost an X1 cable box replacement if it had more DVR functionality. Perfect for a guest/spare room or office. Even better if you want to bring a TV outside in nice weather.

Roku's cheap sticks and cheap models are ok, but their more expensive models are fantastic.

X1 boxes are also becoming more like streaming boxes with apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime directly on the X1 box. No need to switch TV input to Roku. Will be interesting to see how this develops over next few months/years.

rob53 · February 1, 2019 2:38PM

It still requires a Comcast subscription to run on Apple TV so you might as well use Comcast’s box. Having Comcast streaming is useless and sucks compared to their cable delivery.

Apple needs needs to provide a service similar to Comcast not simply allow their streaming. Amazon Prime is different because they only stream.

rogifan_new · February 1, 2019 2:47PM

My smart TV is Roku. Not bad at all. Only thing I use my Apple TV for now is AirPlay and watching Apple keynotes.

benji888 · February 1, 2019 2:52PM

rogifan_new said:

My smart TV is Roku. Not bad at all. Only thing I use my Apple TV for now is AirPlay and watching Apple keynotes.

Your Apple TV is a 3rd generation or older? ATV 4th gen. & newer are way better than any Roku I’ve used.

jimh2 · February 1, 2019 3:26PM

Who needs Comcast for anything other than possibly a raw Internet connection. The large cable companies are going to die a slow death as more people move to streaming and away from TV packages. They won't go easy, but really what is the purpose or need of being able to watch Comcast on an AppleTV. My neighbor has Comcast at his apartment in Philadelphia where is kids live and he has Xfinity and got it with the promise of being able to remotely watch TV when he is away from home. He thought it would allow him to remotely watch the Eagles play when he was away, but surprise it won't. The app knows you are out of market and will not allow you to watch live TV or recorded shows if they out of market. I have Dish and I can watch any channel (or recording), anytime, anywhere in the world. Just another way Comcast craps on their customers. I am sure FIOS, Charter and others do the same to their customers.

Apple, Hulu, Google, Amazon and others will put the hurt on the cable companies and they will die a slow painful death. The same holds true for local channels. They stiff the cable and satellite companies for rebroadcasting their free channels. When the big boys take over they will be willing to give the channels away to stay alive and relevant. Looking at local channels they really offer nothing except hours of regurgitated news, talk shows, a few hours of network programming (most of which are crap) and sports.

gatorguy · February 1, 2019 3:58PM

rogifan_new said:

My smart TV is Roku. Not bad at all. Only thing I use my Apple TV for now is AirPlay and watching Apple keynotes.

Agreed. I have the Roku TCL 6 series in the living room and it's pretty darn good, convenient, and responsive, more so than the much older Roku TV (not TCL) in the upstairs loft. Even that one is pretty decent tho. I find myself rarely using my regularly updated and "quicker" Nvidia Shield TV anymore (hooked up to the TCL Roku) except for certain Android apps and the occasional game, and never my Apple TV which now resides in my son's room.

rogifan_new · February 1, 2019 4:00PM

benji888 said:

rogifan_new said:

My smart TV is Roku. Not bad at all. Only thing I use my Apple TV for now is AirPlay and watching Apple keynotes.

Your Apple TV is a 3rd generation or older? ATV 4th gen. & newer are way better than any Roku I’ve used.

4th gen. I only use streaming apps. Work just fine with Roku.

rogifan_new · February 1, 2019 4:01PM

gatorguy said:

rogifan_new said:

My smart TV is Roku. Not bad at all. Only thing I use my Apple TV for now is AirPlay and watching Apple keynotes.

Agreed. I have the Roku TCL 6 series in the living room and it's pretty darn good, convenient, and responsive, more so than the much older Roku TV (not TCL) in the upstairs loft. Even that one is pretty decent tho. I find myself rarely using my regularly updated and "quicker" Nvidia Shield TV anymore (hooked up to the TCL Roku) except for certain Android apps and the occasional game, and never my Apple TV which now resides in my son's room.

I wish Apple and TCL would work out a deal to support AirPlay.

anantksundaram · February 1, 2019 4:02PM

Idiots. They'll come around. Think CVS.

That said, Apple continues to do a less-than-optimal job of playing well with others. Think of how long it took to get Amazon video on there (that's when they lost me to my smart TV and Roku). This needs to change, and fast.

gatorguy · February 1, 2019 4:04PM

rogifan_new said:

gatorguy said:

rogifan_new said:

My smart TV is Roku. Not bad at all. Only thing I use my Apple TV for now is AirPlay and watching Apple keynotes.

Agreed. I have the Roku TCL 6 series in the living room and it's pretty darn good, convenient, and responsive, more so than the much older Roku TV (not TCL) in the upstairs loft. Even that one is pretty decent tho. I find myself rarely using my regularly updated and "quicker" Nvidia Shield TV anymore (hooked up to the TCL Roku) except for certain Android apps and the occasional game, and never my Apple TV which now resides in my son's room.

I wish Apple and TCL would work out a deal to support AirPlay.

I would think Apple would consider a Chromecast like dongle and avoid the whole Airplay compatibility thing, especially for the millions of older but still good TV's out there.

tommikele · February 1, 2019 4:17PM

Good old Comcast ... as usual, they could not care less about their customers. To call it easy to create the app that will run on TV OS or any other platform would be too generous. It's an easy code writing exercise. The real reason, as we all already know, is MONEY and some exclusivity deal Comcast entered into with Roku. They probably get a cut that they think will help them replace revenue lost from rental of current cable boxes. Comcast just pissed on at least ⅓ of their customer base. The vast majority of their base bears little resemblance to those of us who follow tech news and read articles and comment here. They bought an AppleTV to go along with all their other Apple gear and will not be happy and are unlikely to buy a Roku unit.

rob53 · February 1, 2019 4:27PM

anantksundaram said:

Idiots. They'll come around. Think CVS.

That said, Apple continues to do a less-than-optimal job of playing well with others. Think of how long it took to get Amazon video on there (that's when they lost me to my smart TV and Roku). This needs to change, and fast.

Or think Home Depot who still hasn’t turned Apple Pay back on. Apple plays fine with and for others. It’s the others who demand things Apple won’t allow.

magman1979 · February 1, 2019 4:46PM

Well guess what? If I was in the US, and Comcast was my provider, and they pulled this, they'd get the big'ol bird from me, and off I'd go to a more progressive competitor, one who doesn't partner with a company self-admitted for structuring their business model around harvesting data and not providing good hardware and software UX first:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/20/17595384/roku-ceo-anthony-wood-ads-hardware-business-interview-business-model

AppleExposed · February 1, 2019 4:56PM

I have to laugh when people pretend Roku is better than Apple TV.

After using the "horrible" Siri remote and Apples simple interface, going back to clicking for every damn option/gesture/letter feels like going back to a flip phone.

Also I have a 2017 TCL TV and the Roku function is an absolute nightmare. After calling Roku and TCL all they did was blame each other and I never got the Roku part to work. Apple TV was plug and play.

Notsofast · February 1, 2019 5:08PM

anantksundaram said:

Idiots. They'll come around. Think CVS.

That said, Apple continues to do a less-than-optimal job of playing well with others. Think of how long it took to get Amazon video on there (that's when they lost me to my smart TV and Roku). This needs to change, and fast.

You've got it backwards. Apple had no reason to not allow the Prime App as it made the Apple TV box essentially "complete," as it was the last major service that you couldn't get on the Apple TV and had to stream with Airplay. The delay was entirely on the part of Amazon, which they admitted. They withheld their Prime App for almost two years to hold Apple TV back and use as leverage in negotiations with Apple, even though their customers were clamoring for it.. Remember during this time they even refused to sell Apple TV on Amazon,

anantksundaram · February 1, 2019 5:11PM

Notsofast said:

anantksundaram said:

Idiots. They'll come around. Think CVS.

That said, Apple continues to do a less-than-optimal job of playing well with others. Think of how long it took to get Amazon video on there (that's when they lost me to my smart TV and Roku). This needs to change, and fast.

You've got it backwards. The delay was entirely on the part of Amazon, which they admitted. They withheld their Prime App for almost two years.

Why? What reason did they give for the delay?

bwh1248 · February 1, 2019 5:17PM

With Apple TV being at the bottom of the list for market share is going to really start causing problems if Apple doesn't figure out how to market the produce better. I have 2 Apple TV 4's running DirecTVNow, Hulu, and Netflix as well as a bunch of the individual channel apps and love it. I also have an old ATV3 that runs everything except DTVN and it works well enough. But if providers start deciding it isn't worth it to support the Apple TV because of lower market share, its really going to start becoming a problem in the long term. I'm about to install a 4th TV in a room we just remodeled, and, by default, I was going to buy another ATV4 for that room. But the $150 price point definitely makes me pause and consider whether that's the right option or not.

supadav03 · February 1, 2019 5:24PM

At first I was upset but then I realized this is Comcast we’re talking about, so whatever.

Comcast appears to be skipping Apple TV Xfinity app in favor of Roku

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