Comcast’s original Xfinity Mobile app for Android was a little disappointing. You could access your Xfinity email, schedule DVR recordings, and watch short clips and trailers, sure, but there was so much more to the Xfinity service that the app didn’t tap into. Now Comcast has a follow-up that helps fill some of those gaps, its Xfinity TV app for Android.

With Xfinity TV, you can use your Android phone like a remote control, changing what your cable box is tuned-in to in real time. Combine that with searchable TV listings, and you may have a replacement for your traditional remote.

The real promise of Xfinity TV isn’t quite here in this release, but Comcast assures us it’s in the works for a future version. Someday you should be able to stream full episodes of programming straight to your phone, as you can with the iPad version of the app. Better still, Comcast is hoping to offer live video, giving you something that works like Slingbox.

Comcast mentions that it’s waiting for “newer versions of Android OS” to add these streaming features, which kind of worries us that it’s thinking about a Netflix-like DRM implementation; if that ends up needing certified “secure” CPUs to work, like it seems like it will, that could mean that existing Android devices would never see this streaming content. Let’s hope we’re wrong about that.

Xfinity TV is available now, free, in the Android Market.

Source: Comcast