Quibi appears to have now stepped back even further from its mobile-only approach with the release of apps for Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, and Apple TV. This comes at a time when the ‘quick bites’ service is struggling to make its presence felt in the market.
Quibi launched in April of 2020 and had been a highly-anticipated streaming service, due to the talent the company has struck deals with for new shows and movies. Its big selling point was the service had been built from the ground up with mobile devices in mind. This not only meant that content was optimized for, and only available on, mobile devices, but even the videos were broken down into bite-sized episode lengths, with none running longer than ten minutes.
Now, Quibi has updated its help pages to confirm that it now also offers apps on Android TV, Apple TV, and Fire TV. Likewise, the various app store listings have been updated to show device support has expanded beyond mobile devices. For example, the Android version can now be downloaded on any living room device, including both streaming players and TVs that are powered by Android TV.
Another step backwards for Quibi
Whether right or wrong to focus exclusively on mobile devices, the approach clearly has not worked for Quibi. Of course, the timing of the service’s arrival didn’t help matters much. With so many operating under stay at home orders, streaming video while away from home wasn’t exactly a priority for many at the time.
Still, the focus on mobile-only was always going to be a gamble in general. One of the big issues with streaming services is device support and it is clear that consumers want access to their favorite services on as many devices as possible. While a mobile-first strategy is fine, launching without the ability to access on any other devices was always going to be a hard sell, with or without the pandemic.
Since launch, Quibi has tried to rectify the situation by slowly expanding the device support. This initially started with the adding of support for AirPlay and Chromecast to allow mobile users to stream content from their phones to their TVs. Now, with the addition of apps for Android TV, Apple TV, and Fire TV, consumers do have far more options to access Quibi, if they still want to.
Source: Quibi
