IPhone owners generally have to resort to hackerish gimcracks to control their televisions with their iPhones (unless they use a Tivo or Slingbox, which can be controlled by a WiFi-connected iPhone or iPod Touch). For Android smartphone owners who subscribe to the Verizon Fios fiber-optic television service, there will soon be an easier way.
Verizon announced the impending availability of the Android remote control app for Fios on its blog, specifying that only two Android smartphones are supported: the Motorola Droid and the HTC Imagio. We’re not sure why Verizon says the app is restricted to these two phones because an app that works on one Android smartphone generally works on another one — and especially because Verizon itself offers another Android model, the HTC Droid Eris.
“Verizon plans to add other devices going forward,” said Verizon Fios spokeswoman Deidre Mulcahy Hart. “They are proceeding with the most popular Verizon Wireless smartphones first, but haven’t announced any additional details beyond that.”
Whichever phones will eventually support this app, which Verizon says will be available later this week (we guess that means Friday), the people who get to use it will be able to enjoy some of the finest remote controls known to man. Most of us wouldn’t spend $500 or so on a touchscreen remote, but a simple mobile app can turn any smartphone into the equivalent. In addition, this app can display a supported phone’s photos on the television screen.
For most people, however, there’s a dearth of easy ways to control their televisions by smartphone. AirRemote demonstrated a similar app for the iPhone at the CEDIA UK conference, but it’s not yet available, according to the company, because it’s currently in acquisition talks. That device uses a hardware box to convert the iPhone’s Wi-Fi commands into IR commands for your cable or satellite box, but a more elegant solution would be to add an IR transmitter dongle to phones, as the developers behind UIRemote intend to do. Meanwhile, iRedTouch has an app that’s already available, and works with IRTrans’s modules.
Of course, the whole thing would have been much simpler if phone manufacturers managed to squeeze IR transmitters into their phones, because they make such natural universal remotes — or even better, if cable and satellite providers would follow Tivo’s and Verizon’s example by adding Wi-Fi connections that support remote control by mobile apps.
Here’s Verizon’s video demonstration of the app:
