First Look: Sky Mobile TV iPhone App

Sky's Mobile TV iPhone App might seem like a snip for £6 per month when it lets you watch live programming from all of the Sky Sports channels, ESPN and Sky News too, but some lucky O2 customers have got an even better deal.

The first 150,000 O2 iPhone customers to sign up for the app were able to get the first three months for free and given the quality of the service, we'd reckon that many of these are likely to stay on.

Picture quality is really impressive - you can quite clearly make out what is going on even in sports such as cricket where the ball can be hard to see and moves very quickly.

It is a 'live' service, though slightly delayed, but no more than any other live video-streaming service. There was no buffering when we tested the app, though if your Wi-Fi signal is weak then you could potentially see it hang once in a while.

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But overall it is the content that's on offer that is the killer part of the deal. Live Premier League football games, international cricket - all the usual fayre you'd expect from Sky Sports.

One drawback is more to do with the iPhone itself than the app, but battery life on the handset has never been great, despite what Apple might say. So you might just about get through a football game but you'll probably need to recharge straight afterwards.

Also, despite the picture quality, watching on a screen this small is an activity that can only really be enjoyed by one person, yet it'll mostly be used on a home Wi-Fi network. So if you've got a family of four who want to watch a Champions League game of a cold Tuesday evening, it isn't a great solution.

However, if the rest of the household have their hearts set on watching something else while the big game is on, it's a great solution for the outnumbered sports fan.


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