Longtime readers of this blog know I’m bullish on DIRECTV and its corporate parent AT&T. That company is also the parent of WarnerMedia, which counts Cinemax as one of its properties. It’s not often I take a controversial stance and hold AT&T accountable, but this time I think it’s justified.
Here’s the simple truth: There’s no MaxGO app for streaming devices.
There’s an HBO GO app. There are apps for CNN, TBS, and other WarnerMedia properties. You can even stream Cinemax as an addon in Amazon Prime Video. There’s a MaxGO app for phones and tablets. But there isn’t one for streaming devices, and I want to know why.
Cinemax has great stuff. There’s a lot of older content, original series, and great recently-run movies. Content often comes to Cinemax after it leaves HBO, giving you another chance at it.
What I don’t understand is why the streaming aspect of Cinemax isn’t up to speed with other Warner streaming apps. Even the phone app fell so far behind on updates that the company had to issue a maintenance update to fix compatibility with new operating systems. This update was about 3 years late.
Yes you can get stuff on demand through DIRECTV.
Cinemax content is available on demand through DIRECTV. That’s great and it’s worth checking out. However, when I’m looking for something to stream, here’s what I have to do now:
- Search for the program.
- See that it’s “available” on Prime.
- Try to play it on the Prime app
- Find out it’s “really” on Cinemax, a Prime add-on.
- Change over to DIRECTV.
- Search again.
- Get the program on demand.
As opposed to the same situation if the content is available on HBO GO:
- Search for the program.
- See that it’s available (no quotes) on HBO GO.
- Play it.
And keep in mind I’m lucky. I have DIRECTV Satellite connected to the same TV I use to stream. Not everyone does that. Some people will have a TV in the bedroom and just use it for streaming, for example.
Is it just a matter of time?
For all I know, AT&T engineers could be working on a revamp of the MaxGO streaming experience that will include apps for all popular streaming platforms. But I haven’t heard anything like that. Maybe I’m all upset over nothing. Maybe everything is going to be great and the folks at AT&T just haven’t gotten around to it.
I guess that seems pretty unlikely considering that they have been able to work on it all this time. But then again, priorities change all the time. Let’s hope they change again, and that MaxGO becomes one of the new priorities.
