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I'm not sure where to ask this but this seems a good place to start. I'm trying to get HBO Now but can't figure out how to do it on a laptop.
The site says I can use my laptop to watch but when I go to iTunes to download the app it's only for iPhone or iPad. I've downloaded both but then nothing happens.
I tried signing into the HBO site but there is no "register here" note. I tried signing in with my Apple ID and they don't recognize it. I can't find any real help on their site or Apple.
Has anyone else tried this? I'm going to ask this here and in Tech and Natter until someone answers.
It looks like the website is hbonow.com, rather than the main HBO website
And apparently you register for it here: [link]
Well, it let me register and then immediately told me my subscription had expired and that I needed to resubscribe from a device. So, I'm back to the same problem. I don't have a "device".
You may have already found the answer to this but my understanding (from a while ago when I was looking at it) is that you can use your device and its app to purchase a HBO Now subscription which you can then access through your laptop BUT if you don't have a supported device, then you need to call a HBO service provider and get a subscription through them. Honestly, that extra step is what dissuaded me from subscribing - I just couldn't handle a call to Comcast.
Hbo Now requires and apple, android, or Amazon device to sign up for some reason. Once registered you can watch through hbonow.com on your laptop. Very weird but that is how it works. Still no support for Chromecast or roku devices.
I managed to talk comcast onto giving me Hbo along with my Internet for a nice promotional price (50 a month for a year) so I am using Hbo Go (which requires a cable subscription to hbo) for now. Why they decided to roll a totally new service in Hbo now instead of piggy backing on the already perfectly functional Hbo go service is beyond me.
Why they decided to roll a totally new service in Hbo now instead of piggy backing on the already perfectly functional Hbo go service is beyond me.
Because describing HBOGo as "perfectly functional" is vastly overstating what it actually delivers? Their servers can barely handle paid subscribers and mooching family members, let alone a whole nother crowd of non-cable subscribers.
Seems like server side upgrades could fix that rather than an entirely new front end that requires entirely new front end implementation on dozens of already supported devices for Hbo go. But I admit to not knowing the back end details.
I have never tried to watch anything on Hbo go until 24 hours after release and it has consistently been as good or better quality than Netflix for me. The apps interface is odd (no clear way to easily binge watch a tv series) but it exists. Maybe starting over completely is easier than fixing it's issues but I find that odd is all. Like it is intentionally designed to discourage people who have already gotten used to Hbo go from switching...
Maybe HBOgo was not clean client server, meaning the interface and server side were integrated (which would be truly awful coding). Not saying they did that but most banks run legacy systems because of that very problem - their systems were designed before client servers, and when they upgraded to SQL backends, they resorted to all sorts of kludges to make it work with the existing code - which ended up with even less maintainable code than before.
