For a good year or so I’ve been using Sky’s mobile service on my phones – in particular their Remote Record function that allows me to browse the Sky EPG and set my Sky+ at home to record the programme I want. But it’s not been the easiest thing to use. Not because the service doesn’t work, but because Sky has seemed to make it as hard to use or find as possible. I’d end up in recurring loops chasing around the Sky website looking for a downloadable application, or a mobile web address I should go to.
On the first N82 I had (before it was damaged), I had to hunt high and low to find the Sky application, eventually getting it from a forum somewhere – certainly not a sky.com website. When I needed to reinstall the application, the same hunt across Sky’s website revealed precisely nothing. I ended up with an inferior Java based application which still worked. It allowed me to log-in and set remote record reminders.
Sky seemed as keen as anything to get me to take out a mobile TV subscription, but I find Remote Record the most useful application.
Remote Record is also available via a texting mechanism which is fine, as long as you can remember the format that Sky wants date, channel and programme title:
Programme Title. Channel name. Two-digit day/Two-digit month. 24-hour time
Send this to 61759. Sky’s example would be: ‘Simpsons. Sky One. 22/03. 18:45’
That’s fine, although I’ve struggled in the past with programmes like Match of the Day, which can be frustrating.
Their PC implementation is fine. But mobile is surely the most useful. Indeed Sky’s recently launched an inevitable iPhone application to do this. The number of people who’ve got excited about something that other mobile users have had working for the last two years is extraordinary.
Which makes it all the more curious that yesterday Sky sent me a text to let me know that from November 29, their application would no longer work.
“We regret to say our Sky App will no longer work from 29 Nov. If you have Mob TV you can still watch via VF Live. For our latest Mob services visit sky.com.”
To say this is disappointing is an understatement. Here’s a service which works – and works well. What’s more it’s something that only Sky offers in the marketplace. So quite why non-iPhone users should have this functionality removed is bizarre. Does this cost Sky an awful lot to administer?
Someone I know who used to work at Sky once mentioned that hardly anyone used their mobile application service (this was pre-iPhone). I pointed out that this was probably because it was practically impossible to find on their website, and install. With the advent of the (flawed) Ovi store, Blackberry World, and Android store et al, people know about installing applications on phones more than ever.
A scan over at Digital Spy reveals similar consternation to my own, with the same confusion.
The text suggests that I visit sky.com to learn more about their mobile services. But I can’t see anything on their main site or their mobile site to suggest a replacement service is coming. Indeed the Sky Mobile landing page currently pictures a Nokia N95 running the very app that is due to die next week.
In summary, I’m at a loss. Perhaps I’ve missed something obvious. But if I have, Sky has communicated this information very badly.
[Update] A further Google reveals this. There’s a new Sky App for more Nokia phones! If that’s the case, then why doesn’t Sky say that we’ll need to update our applications and not just say that they’re all finishing?
In fact, having now installed and played with Sky’s new Nokia application, it’s actually pretty decent (although I’ll wait to see if the programme I’ve just set to record did indeed record when I get home later).
Poor communication from Sky then?
How about this time, they make it a bit easier for people to find and install the application at sky.com? It’s a shame to invest in developing a product and then not tell people about it properly.
[UPDATE 2] Sky responded to an email I sent them and are now directing customers to http://d2c.wecomm.com/sky to download the latest version of the application, which as I say above, is a welcome improvement.