News: Comcast to Bring Streaming to iPad

Kabletown—err—Comcast is working on a new service that will allow you to watch live television in your own home on an iPad. MacRumors first reported the new service, said to be dubbed “AnyPlay”. Cablevision and Time Warner, two of the other major cable companies have had a service like this for awhile, but have gotten into trouble legally.

The service is said to work similarly to the already existing products out there, but utilizes a special cable box instead of direct from the operators:

The product, called AnyPlay, allows Comcast subscribers to view live television on their iPad as long as it’s connected to their home network; users must have a special Motorola box which, apparently, takes the live cable stream and sends it directly to the Xfinity TV iPad app over a local wireless network. The service won’t work over Wi-Fi from other locations, or via 3G…

…Other solutions, like Time Warner’s, stream live video over an internet connection. Comcast’s AnyPlay appears to be a cable box that sends video to the iPad rather than to a television. Users can watch “most” channels included with their Xfinity TV service. Users can register up to 10 tablets, but only watch live TV on one tablet at a time.

There is no timeline for the launch, and the Comcast Xfinity app currently only allows access to On Demand programming, control your DVR, and view TV listings.

Honestly, we think this is a step in the right direction as far as the whole TV-meets-mobile. While we’d love to see a device that can work anywhere there’s an Internet connection and connect to your DVR, the legal issues faced from the content providers make this a good first step…for now.