Comcast's Xfinity App Turns iPad Into TV Remote

Xfinity appComcast's new iPad app for its Xfinity TV digital/online video service makes for a more complicated TV device industry -- a mobile app able to turn the iPad tablet into a TV remote.

Calling its new app a "TV guide and mobile video player," the mobile app enables Comcast's Xfinity customers to change TV channels from the iPad, search for programming and access Comcast's On Demand service. It also controls all time-shifting devices.

Plus, it will allow consumers to access social-networking sites -- share what they are watching. Other new remote control/TV features will be added as well.

"This Xfinity TV app is part of a much larger effort to reinvent the way consumers interact with their televisions by transforming the way they search, navigate, discover and share entertainment," stated Neil Smit, President of Comcast Cable.

Previously, other providers and software makers have offered more limited functions for mobile apps in making the iPhone and other devices into TV remotes.

Comcast said the new app, which will be available this week at the iTunes Store, is the first in a series of scheduled app releases it will deliver for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Comcast expects to launch several Android apps this year, in addition to apps with similar functionality on different devices.

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