Aereo Switches Up Pricing: $8/Month For 20 Hours Of DVR, $12/Month For 60 Hours Starting May 15
Aereo users, listen up.
The company that has been bringing you access to 30 over-the-air broadcast channels on the cheap is switching up its pricing structure a bit to make things less complicated. Unfortunately, this switch also makes things slightly more expensive, but still highly competitive in today’s content streaming landscape.
Starting on May 15, the original five-tier structure will be boiled down into two options: The base $8/month fee will offer 20 hours of DVR storage, and a $12/month fee will get you 60 hours of DVR storage. Neither service requires a long-term commitment.
However, it’s worth noting that the $8/month plan changes the way you can record on Aereo’s DVR service, only letting users record from one channel at a time. At the same time, the $12 plan actually offers more than it used to, bumping up storage from 40 hours to 60 hours.
When Aereo first launched, it offered more levels of service, including a $1/day deal. This was a unique option for the service, as it let users tune into huge, national events without forcing them to buy into the service on a monthly basis. Events like the Superbowl, presidential election, or the Academy Awards instantly became accessible to people without cable, and also offered an easy, painless way to taste the Aereo service without making a commitment.
While dropping that plan may remove that taste-test-ability, in the end Aereo believes that simplifying the options will be a better experience for customers.
Here’s what founder Chet Kanojia had to say in a prepared statement:
We looked at our data and it was clear, consumers want a more simple approach to pricing. With our new pricing structure, consumers begin with one base plan and then have the ability to upgrade their membership to triple their DVR storage capacity. We want to make it simple and easy for consumers to access our technology and we believe this updated pricing plan accomplishes just that.
For current users of Aereo, your plan will remain the same until the end of your current membership period. For those on the $12/month payment plan, you will be automatically upgraded to 60 hours of storage.
Right now the service is only available in New York, but Aereo has plans to expand into new territories very soon.
Happy TV viewing, everyone!
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TNW Pick of the Day: Timeless is a beautifully simple timer app for iPhone
A quick perusal of the App Store reveals no shortage of timer apps. Some are a little more complex and intricate, such as Timer, others focus more on being beautiful and simple…like Timer.
Yet another iOS timer app has hit our radar, however, going by the name of Timeless. And we think you’ll like it.
Timeless
Timeless is an incredibly simple app for iPhone and iPod touch, allowing you to set multiple timers using nothing but taps and swipes. This could be for if you’re cooking a meal, waiting for something to come on TV and everything in between.
When you get past the opening intro screen, the first thing you’ll see is the countdown timer, set to 00:00.
Each column, for hours and minutes, is scrollable and takes seconds – if you’ll pardon the pun – to set your desired time.
Given you can set multiple countdowns, you can add a tag manually to each one, so you know what is what. It’s probably worth noting the one obvious flaw here too – you can only set hours and minutes. It would be good to set a countdown for, say, 90 seconds.
For each timer, you can pause or resume at any point via the small button at the bottom center, while clicking the ‘bell’ icon lets you tweak vibration and audio alert settings.
You can also double-tap anywhere to start/stop each timer, which is a nice touch.
You swipe right to start a new timer, and swipe left/right to navigate between the various ones you’ve set up.
When a timer expires, you get a notification on your homescreen, as well as any audio alert you’ve set up.
Oh, and while this app has been out for a few weeks already, the latest update also sees a stopwatch feature brought in. To enable this, you simply have to hit the ‘Play’ button when the timer is at 00:00.
There’s a settings menu that lets you set the default sound/notifications and sound effects. And crucially, for an app that relies heavily on looks, you can change the color themes too.
Timeless is really all about the usability and the ‘look and feel’, and on this front it delivers. It’s the latest in a line of apps that combine simplicity and aesthetics to deliver something really great – check out Currency Converter too.
Timeless is available to download from the App Store now, costing $0.99 or your local currency equivalent.
Feature Image Credit – Thinkstock
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From The Hackathon, HangoutLater Helps Find A Good Central Location To… Hang Out Later
After 24 hours of hard work at the Disrupt NY Hackathon, Michael Kolodny, Jingen Lin and Ricardo Falletti demoed us HangoutLater, a nifty hack built on top of the Foursquare API. When you check in and a friend is close to you, it will ask you if you want to hang out later. Then, it will automatically find you a central location to meet.
Kolodny and Lin already knew each other before the event. They met Falletti at the Manhattan Center. As they already knew what they wanted to work on, they started developing right away.
Over the past 24 hours, the team has not slept a single minute to deliver this hack built in Python using the Django framework. They certainly needed Red Bull and coffee to keep going during the wee hours of the night. Yet, The team had a great time and will certainly take part in other hackathons.
When asked whether Kolodny will hang out later with fiends that were not at the hackathon, he said that he wouldn’t use the service this afternoon. It’s time for them to celebrate, or more probably to finally rest.
Stage demo coming soon.
Read the rest here: From The Hackathon, HangoutLater Helps Find A Good Central Location To… Hang Out Later
Hack Team’s Voice-Guided Learn To Drive App Makes Learning With Mom & Dad Less Domestically Disruptive
Jared Zoneraich and Nick Joseph are two high school students who’ve spent the night here at the Disrupt NY 2013 Hackathon coding an in-car app for learner drivers using GM’s API. The pair got a great reception on stage during their presentation for Learn to Drive – not least for the in-car dashboard app’s killer feature: a voice warning that booms out when a learner is going too fast — which saves having a blow-out argument with mom/dad over who is right about the speed. Update: Learn To Drive has just been announced as runner up in the Disrupt NY 2013 Hackathon competition.
The basic idea is to provide voice guidance to help learner drivers when they are practising with a driver other than their instructor, providing easy to follow voice instructions for a variety of driving manoeuvres including parallel parking and perpendicular parking.
The app also keeps a count of how many times the learner has performed each of the manoeuvres, based on how many times they have requested voice guidance, and tracks other data — such as how many hours and miles of driving the learner has clocked up, and at what time of day. Using this data, the app also indicates how much more practice they need as they work towards taking their test by displaying a progress bar plus percentage to show how close they are to hitting the minimum required amount of hours.
During a back stage interview the pair told TechCrunch they hope to submit Learn To Drive to GM’s app store once they’ve added a few finishing touches — such as the ability to pull driver data off to Microsoft SkyDrive. Learn To Drive is actually a four-strong team: the two other members are Kenny Song and Jemma Issroff.
Back stage interview follows below:
Follow this link: Hack Team’s Voice-Guided Learn To Drive App Makes Learning With Mom & Dad Less Domestically Disruptive
Scaffold Wants To Bring Financial Advice To The People Who Need It Most
Financial advisory services often aren’t targeted at the people at the lower end of the economic spectrum — and arguably, those are the folks who really need money advice the most.
That’s where Scaffold, an app built over the past 24 hours at the TechCrunch Disrupt NYC Hackathon, wants to help out. Scaffold aims to be a financial advisory platform that can give actionable insights to lower income users who are particularly vulnerable to financial risk, such as people just coming out of homeless shelters or single mothers who are coming out of battered women shelters.
As you can see in the video of the one-minute onstage demo embedded above, Scaffold lets people set up web video meetups with financial advisors to give them targeted, personalized metrics about their financial risk. The site will also show in plain English the client’s biggest risks through “stress tests” that show what would happen if he or she lost a job, or had an accident — these make it clear to people who aren’t necessarily money-savvy just how important it is to get their financial houses in order.
It’s a somewhat more serious-minded app than you might expect to come out of an overnight hackathon, so it’s not as fully baked as others launching here today: Scaffold’s creators Gabe Kneisley and Kevin Wolkober told me that at the moment the app does not actually let you fill in your financial information, since they haven’t had the time to make sure it’s completely secure. But it’s fun to see a big idea that’s aiming to have an important impact taking root here in a matter of hours.
I talked to Kneisley and Wokober backstage, and you can watch that in the video embedded below.
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