Why hardly any smart TV apps for American cable networks?

[matty032]

I see a constant flood of new apps, and since the addition of Starz, and Showtime, there has been nothing added.  Samsung has almost all of the American cable network apps, and LG has almost none.  What gives?

[George Hofmeister]

4 hours ago, matty032 said:

I see a constant flood of new apps, and since the addition of Starz, and Showtime, there has been nothing added.  Samsung has almost all of the American cable network apps, and LG has almost none.  What gives?

Market share may well have a lot to do with it, Samsung's sales far outstrip those of LG so content providers may just concentrate on providing apps for the biggest platforms. It could be Samsung has the budget to liaise with content providers and write the apps themselves.  Or, it could be LG are not good at getting across how easy the webOS platform is to programme for, or the content providers backend systems are not gears towards open standards and just cannot cope with web 2.0.

In short probably 101 reasons.  If you want an app for the platform then you need to make a concentrated effort to badger content providers in to producing them.

[wxman2003]

WebOS is a small platform compared to Android or iOS. Android is available on a lot of devices such as phones, streaming devices, blu ray players, tv's, etc.  WebOS is really only found on LG devices.  I would bet more and more will abandon WebOS.  MLB TV has already done it. Who knows, Netflix, Amazon, etc., may all abandon support in the future forcing LG to switch to Android.   

[ajmboy]

3 hours ago, wxman2003 said:

WebOS is a small platform compared to Android or iOS. Android is available on a lot of devices such as phones, streaming devices, blu ray players, tv's, etc.  WebOS is really only found on LG devices.  I would bet more and more will abandon WebOS.  MLB TV has already done it. Who knows, Netflix, Amazon, etc., may all abandon support in the future forcing LG to switch to Android.   

I doubt that will happen, they sell so many tvs that have webos baked into them. The reason LG and other manufacturers don't use android because there a licensing fees and they can't fully control it. Its beneficial for a manufacturer to have their own system.

However, I was just thinking the same but have Verizon Fios, which noone has an app for and they don't even have a streaming service. Comcast was supposed to have something  

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What's your guys cable companies?