Peel Announces AllPlay TV, A Remote Control For Netflix, DVR, And (Eventually) More

Social TV startup Peel is at the Google I/O developers conference today, showing off an upcoming Google TV integration called AllPlay TV.

VP of Marketing Scott Ellis demonstrated AllPlay TV for me earlier this week. He says it’s fulfilling “the vision that we’ve been aspiring to for a long time —
live TV, DVR, and web-based content, multiple sources all brought together in the app experience.” In other words, when you want to watch something, you should able to find it in one interface, regardless of the delivery method.

So after AllPlayTV goes live, Peel users will start out with the app’s familiar Top Picks menu of TV recommendations tailored their tastes, but it won’t be limited to live TV anymore — you’ll also see content from Netflix and recorded on your DVR, with a little label indicating the source. There will also be new sections in the app limited specifically to Netflix and DVR content.

Once you find a show that you like, you can select it on your phone and it will start playing via Google TV. You can rewind, fast forward, or adjust the volume using Peel. Or if it’s a program that hasn’t broadcast yet, you can use the app to record it via DVR.

One additional benefit — the Netflix search interface in Peel makes it much easier to type things in than the hunt-and-peck you may be familiar with if you’ve tried to use Netflix on your TV.

The company plans to update its Android app with AllPlayTV in July, with an iOS update coming later. One issue that’s still being figured out: Netflix recently revised the terms of service fo its API, so that could have a minor effect the way that Netflix content is presented in the app, Ellis says. He adds that Peel plans to add other online video sources in the future.

And if your response is, “This sounds cool, but Google TV? Really?” Ellis also says Peel is looking to bring this functionality to other connected TV platforms.