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| The New HBO NOW service exclusively on AppleTV starting in early April. |
Amongst the announcements made Monday March 9th at the Apple Spring Ahead media event is the partnership between cable-movie channel Home Box Office (HBO) and Apple. Announced as a new channel on AppleTV, "HBO Now", the popular cable and satellite movie channel has decided you no longer need a cable or satellite subscription to get HBO, and has partnered with Apple EXCLUSIVELY (albeit for the first 3 months) to offer its service to anyone who has an AppleTV streaming unit and willing to ante-up $14.99 a month for the service. This service is squarely aimed at consumers who don't have a cable or satellite subscription--but want HBO ala-carte. While HBO Go allows existing subscribers of Comcast, Dish, DirecTV, etc., to access HBO programming on the go, HBO Now allows you to watch LIVE on the go, not just old programming. And you can do it on just about any Apple iOS device (iPhone, iPodTouch, iPad). The service will launch in early April 2015 ahead of the premiere of the fifth season of "Game Of Thrones" and AppleTV subscribers will get their first month of HBO Now FREE! Other streaming devices like Amazon FireTV, Chromecast, Roku, etc., will eventually get HBO Now, but not until the 3-month exclusivity on AppleTV is complete. In conjunction, Apple also announced a 30% price cut of it's existing AppleTV Streaming unit down to $69 from $99 which could signal that a newer more powerful AppleTV is eventually coming Kids! But isn't that always the case with technology?
