United Airlines is launching a new entertainment system for onboard attendees to stream free movies and TV shows on personal iOS-based devices, starting April.
United Airlines passengers will soon be able to stream and watch movies and TV shows from a personal iOS device during a flight. The new in-flight entertainment service will be installed in most of its domestic and international fleet, starting with United's Airbus A319, Airbus A320, Boeing 747-400 and certain 777-200 aircraft in April. The staged roll-out will be carried out throughout this year, covering most of its fleet by the end of 2014.
With the new addition, sponsored in part by MileagePlus Explorer Card, United Airlines' on-board passengers will have access to a wide range of over 150 movies and nearly 200 TV shows for free streaming on personal iOS devices, Patently Apple reports. The free access to the movies and the TV shows will be made possible via United's existing mobile app in App Store.
According to United's announcement last month, laptop users will also be able to access the media while on-board by installing an additional browser plug-in. Some programs will be available through the United Portal without the need to install a plug-in or the app, but if users want to use their iPad or iPhone for movies and TV shows, the app can be downloaded any time during the flight.
The new change is not available for Android and other platform users like Windows Phone or Nokia X. But the airlines did not rule out the possibility of bringing the support to other platforms in the future.
United advises passengers to download the latest version of the United app from Apple App Store and charge the device fully. It is unclear if the internal modification will also include in-seat power, which would become a necessity for passengers traveling for more than 10 - 15 hours.
The United app will give a list of movies and TV shows and users can click to watch, start, stop, rewind, pause and change the movie or TV show anytime.
