UPDATED: Users looking for the Android app for Peacock, the NBCUniversal streaming service that made its national debut in the United States on Wednesday, were left empty when they tried to find it in the Google Play store.
In fact, the Peacock app for Android is currently available on Google Play at this link. But for much of the day, the Peacock TV app didn’t appear in searches or on other pages in the Google Play store, causing confusion about how to get it.
In response to user questions on Wednesday morning about why the app was not available in the Google Play store, Peacock’s Twitter account was responding with the same message: “Stay tuned to our page for updates. about when the bird landed! “
At 3:15 pm ET, according to a Google representative, searches for “Peacock” were returning listings correctly. (A few hours earlier, searches for “Peacock” did not return listings for the app, while searches for “Peacock TV” and “Peacock app” did.) It is unclear why Google Play did not show listings for Peacock’s Android app. A Google spokesperson said the Peacock TV app was released on the Google Play Store on Tuesday night (July 14), but it took the company several hours to fix the search problem.
According to Peacock, the application of the service is compatible with Android versions 6.0 or higher, as well as Android TVs (with the Android 5.1 operating system). It’s worth noting that when developers submit their apps to Google Play or Apple’s App Store, they don’t control the exact time when the apps are activated.
Meanwhile, Apple’s Peacock app for iOS on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV was also available on Tuesday night. As of Wednesday morning, Peacock was trending as the # 10 app in the app store’s entertainment app ranking, and had peaked at # 1 in the category by mid-afternoon.
Peacock is available on two main levels: Peacock Premium, with more than 20,000 hours of programming (compared to NBCU’s previous goal of 15,000), and Peacock Free, which will include a subset of that with more than 13,000 hours.
Under the NBCU agreement with Google, users who download the Android app and Android TV via Google Play are eligible to receive three months of free access to Peacock Premium with ads (i.e. until October 15, 2020), which is normally $ 4.99 / month.
In addition to the Android launch, Peacock is absent from Roku and Amazon’s Fire TV devices due to disputes over distribution terms (similar to WarnerMedia’s HBO Max). Peacock is also not available on Samsung smart TVs, another major video platform overblown. In addition to Apple and Google platforms and devices, Peacock is available on Microsoft’s Xbox One, Vizio, and LG Internet TVs, on the web at peacocktv.com, and on Comcast and Cox set-top boxes. Support for Sony PlayStation 4 will begin the week of July 20.
NBCU, as the last major media company to take the OTT field with Peacock, is leaning toward the ad-supported free version. With Peacock’s motto “free as a bird,” NBCU is trying to take advantage of consumer “subscription fatigue” in the saturated US broadcast market.
Peacock Free is available to anyone in the US, what NBCU promises is no more than 5 minutes of ads per hour. The Peacock Premium tier (with ads) costs $ 4.99 per month (while included at no additional charge to Comcast and Cox cable subscribers). The ad-free premium tier is $ 9.99 per month, available for an additional $ 5 per month for Comcast and Cox subscribers.
Click here to see the highlights of the content available in Peacock Free and Peacock Premium, in addition to the originals and other television shows, movies and sports that will come later.
