So it's been a little over a week since HBO Now went live, and I've now sat through exactly one episode of Game of Thrones through it, so I figure thats enough data to actually say something instead of just regurgitating the press release like half the sites out there did on launch day.
Quick recap for anyone who missed it: HBO launched a standalone streaming service on April 7th, no cable subscription required, $14.99 a month, first month free if you sign up before the end of April. This is the thing cord cutters have been begging for since forever, because up until now the only way to get HBO Go was to already be paying some cable company for a package that included HBO, which is a little like needing a Blockbuster card to use Netflix.
Heres my complaint, and its not a small one: at launch this thing only works on Apple stuff. iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, or through Safari on a Mac. Thats it. No Android, no Roku, no Chromecast, no plain old web browser if youre on a PC. I dont own an Apple TV. I have an old iPad mini that mostly lives in a drawer charging itself back up every few weeks, so thats what I used, propped against a stack of books on the coffee table like its 2009 and Im watching a DVD on a laptop.
I get why they did it, probably some deal or exclusivity window with Apple, but it feels backwards to launch a "cut the cord" product that only works great if you already own $600-1000 worth of Apple hardware. My roommate has a Fire TV Stick and was completely locked out. He ended up just watching over my shoulder on the iPad, which defeats kind of the entire point of a personal streaming subscription, but whatever, thats a very 2015 household compromise.
The Game of Thrones premiere itself, "The Wars to Come," aired last Sunday the 12th, so that was really the actual test. Sound and picture were both fine once it got going, HD looked genuinely good on the iPad screen, no complaints there. But I had two buffering hiccups in the first ten minutes, right as everyone was still logging in probably, and the app crashed once about forty minutes in and I had to reopen it and it dumped me back to the beginning of the episode instead of remembering where I was. Small thing but genuinely annoying when youre trying to avoid spoilers scrolling past on Twitter while you fix it.
Is it worth $15 a month just for this one show? Honestly, no, not by itself, and I think a lot of people signing up right now are doing exactly what Im doing: using the free month to catch the premiere and then deciding in May whether its worth keeping around for the rest of the season. Ten episodes at fifteen bucks a month for two months comes out to about three bucks an episode, which isnt crazy compared to buying it on iTunes, but it does feel a little different when youre paying for a subscription instead of owning something.
Its funny watching HBO and Tidal both try this same trick within a few weeks of each other, going straight to a monthly subscription and skipping the middleman, though Tidals launch a few weeks back was a much messier show, all those artists on a stage looking uncomfortable answering questions about ownership stakes. HBO Now at least had the decency to just quietly turn a switch on and let the product speak for itself, bugs and all.
Anyway. Episode two is this Sunday. Well see if the app holds up better once its not opening night traffic. If youre thinking about signing up just to watch along, do it, its genuinely nice not needing a cable login for once, just budget for the fact that youll be squinting at an iPad on your coffee table if you dont already have the right Apple box sitting under your TV.