Sky Go and Virgin TV Anywhere Slammed for Lack of Android 5 Support

[Scubbie]

Sky Go and Virgin TV Anywhere Slammed for Lack of Android 5 Support - ISPreview UK

Customers of Sky Broadband with Sky TV, specifically those who enjoy accessing their TV content on an Android based mobile device via the Sky Go app, have criticised the operator for not updating their app to work properly with the latest Android 5.1 release. But it could be worse; they might be users of Virgin Media’s TV Anywhere service.

The latest release of the Android operating software began to spread at the end of last month and it’s been ramping up ever since, although several topics on the Sky Community Forum (examples here and here) have criticised Sky for failing to keep their Sky Go app up-to-date.

As a result Sky Go users who have updated to Android 5.1 are now being faced with an app that doesn’t work and which spits out the following message: “Sorry, Sky Go is not currently supported on this device.”

Ben, Sky’s Community Manager, said today:

“Thanks for your patience while we are dealing with this matter.

We attempted to put the update in earlier, however this had to be rolled back for technical reasons, we are close to fixing this now.

We’re working on this as a matter of great importance, and would really appreciate it, if you could bear with us for just a little longer.”

But if you think that’s annoying then spare a thought for customers of Virgin Media and their similar Virgin TV Anywhere app, which until very recently didn’t even support the prior version of Android 5.0.X, let alone 5.1, and that’s been a much complained about problem since as far back as November 2014. By comparison Sky’s little delay seems minor.

The good news is that Virgin Media finally updated their app to support up to Android 5.0.2 during the middle of March 2015, the bad news is that they did so exactly at the point where others were beginning to upgrade from 5.0.2 to 5.1. At the time of writing Virgin TV Anywhere doesn’t yet support 5.1.

Apparently Virgin Media are “currently looking to release another update which will either remove this OS restriction completely, or up it to include 5.1“. But unfortunately they don’t say when that will happen and naturally many customers are concerned that the wait might be as ridiculous as it was the first time around.

Technically speaking there’s no reason why these apps can’t be unlocked to different versions, so that they don’t stop working when a new OS update or device is released. But providers often like to maintain some degree of quality / support control and that desire can get in the way of offering the widest compatibility.

[gymno]

I was wondering why this official announcement popped up out of nowhere.

[Scubbie]

There have been a few 'moans' behind the scenes on this topic.

I don't know the specifics but I would hazard a guess that there was a last minute alteration to Android 5.1 when it was released to the public, compared to the pre-release version.

[lettice]

There have been a few 'moans' behind the scenes on this topic.

I don't know the specifics but I would hazard a guess that there was a last minute alteration to Android 5.1 when it was released to the public, compared to the pre-release version.

It has taken the sky go dev team by surprise. 5.1 has caused a few headaches for quite a lot of app developers across the globe and many broadcasting type apps, so sky are not alone.
Being part of the sky go beta, can assure you that the team are working very hard behind the scenes and testing.
Obviously cannot say much more than that.

Not actually testing anything for sky go on lollipop myself as none of the devices I use for sky go have it. Mine are all kitkat based.