Reliance Jio Archives

This is the second in the series of post related to Jio Apps. The first one covered about Jio Mags app, which is an Android App for reading magazines on the go.

Jio Play is the app offering from Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited for watching Live TV. With high speed Internet offering via 4G, watching TV on the Go is a breeze. And to complement the high speed Internet service Jio has launched many entertainment app to take advantage of 4G network. Recent entry of Netflix in India has intensified the competition of streaming service. But if we talk about competition, Jio Play remains at the top in terms of content and quality. So lets have a look at what is in store for us.

Download and Installation

Jio Play is not yet launched for Public (available as limited beta via Play Store) so can not be directly downloaded via Play store. However you can install it by getting the .apk file from someone else and installation will continue without any hassle. Like all other Jio Apps, Jio Play needs a Jio ID and password to be usable.

Channel List

Jio Play has the highest number of channel availability. Currently there are 301 channel available in Jio Play and Hotstar too is available inside Jio Play. Out of the 301 channels , 27 are HD channels but only 24 HD channels as mentioned below are operational in Jio Play.

jio-play-channels

Quality and User Experience

Jio Play is having a very clean and intuitive user Interface and offers a very immersive TV watching experience. During our usage most of the time the default video quality appeared in HD and channels played without any lag. But if the bandwidth availability is low the player automatically switch the video quality to offer a non stop viewing experience. The sound quality is also quite good.

The most beneficial aspect of Jio Play is you can use it to stream the Live TV to your capable HD TV set and watch all your favorite channels on the TV. (For this to work you need to have wireless display capability on your phone and Wi-fi on the TV. )

Another nice feature of Jio Play is Catch Up TV function. So if you have missed your favorite TV program from yesterday or from last week, you can watch those by dragging the slider to that particular date and time. And yes, you can even pause the Live TV if you have an important call to attend or finish your cooking in the evening.

Jio Play Screens

As of now with trial offers, all the Jio apps subscription are free and in future we expect either a very economical tariff plan or free offer with certain recharge plans for Jio Play. So this will be the best choice to watch TV on the go while using your mobile to stream live TV on your TV when you are at home. With as much as 25 HD TV channels in the offering it is quite good option to have a HD TV viewing experience.

Jio Play offers a blissful TV viewing experience and you can watch your favorite program at your own comfort and schedule.

Reliance Jio is all set to launch 4G Services across India. As Internet speed over 4G network is high, it will facilitate entertainment on the go. To complement their 4G services they are also going to launch many apps to let the users glue to the device. As the 4G service is already launched for the employees and Channel Partners and I am being a Channel Partner of Reliance Jio, I got access to many Apps like Jio Mags, which are still not released to mainstream users (though many apps are already in stable build). Following are the list of Android apps by reliance Jio which I have been using and I will cover each app in a separate post.

Note: As Jio Chat and Jo Money are launched I am not going to cover those.

Jio Mags (App for reading magazine on the go)
Jio Play (App for watching TV on the go)
Jio Beats (App for streaming music on the go)
Jio On-Demand (App for watching on demand content)
Jio ExpressNews (News reading app)
My Jio (One stop app for managing your Jio services, recharge and bill pay)

So here we go with our first look of Jio Mags Android app.

Download & Installation:

Jio Mags like all other Android Apps from Reliance Jio is not available to download directly from Play store. As the availability is limited to Employees and Channel partners, one need to be signed up as a beta tester to get hold of the download via Play Store. For this a Jio ID is required.

All the Jio apps are login protected, so if you get hold of the apk and can install the apps, as of now you might not be able to use it unless you get a Jio ID.

After the Jio Mags app is installed via playstore and opened, you will see the login screen where it will ask for Jio ID and Password. There is an option to Signup as a new user, which takes to Employee portal and ask for RIL domain ID. The main thing to notice is that, without a JIO ID, you will not be able to use the service.

Jio Mags screens

Jio Mags has virtually all the Indian magazines and many international magazines available in digital format. You can view and search the magazines based on category and language. You can even set language preference to show only those language magazines which you understand.

You can even select magazines to put into favorites. You can download any magazines to the device and can access that offline. All the downloaded magazines can be accessed from My library section. In order to read full magazines, you need to have an active subscription to Jio Mags, without which you can only see the preview.

As of now I am totally glued to Jio Mags and it is proving a real money saver for me as I read lots of magazines. One thing I noticed that with a bigger screen like 5.5 inches the Jio Mags will have a better experience as compared to my 4.8 inch screen. As I need to do a little zoom which brings scrolling.

Overall Jio Mags is a nice app and it is almost bug free and ready for public launch.