Have an iPad? Want to watch TV on it? We are the bearer of good news if you are a Verizon FiOS subscriber. The linear television that you currently watch will be rolled out to your iPad early next year.
Verizon is planning on having all current content partners on board with the new tablet TV application. That alone is impressive; Verizon expects to be able to garner their entire line of content providers, and corral them into a new delivery option in less than a year.
What about if you are not a FiOS Verizon subscriber? Well, bad news for you, Verizon (they call themselves ‘Big Red’ these days) seems to be pushing the envelope on this front. How does it work legally? According to NewTeeVee:
At first, subscribers with an iPad will only be able to watch linear programming within their own home, which allows Verizon to authenticate and make certain that the users have access to whatever content they have paid for… [T]he iPad app takes advantage of Verizon’s architecture, which [is] characterized as “cloud TV.” The experience is similar to what’s available today on FiOS set-top boxes, and takes advantage of the same software that Verizon uses for its set-tops. As such, Verizon says it should already have rights to stream the content, as it’s just another screen in the home.
If you were sitting in your chair doing a fist pump, you are dead on. Verizon has streaming rights, and your iPad is just another screen that you want to use. Translating that to English, it seems that in the future TV to your iPad is going to be free, provided that you already pay for it on your regular television.
This could have come out much worse than that. For the rest of us non-Verizon subscribers, we have to wait for everyone else to catch up. It seems that the wait won’t be so long, especially if more serious tablets hit the market.
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