You'll need to upgrade to a new set-top box or smartphone to keep watching
If you watch exclusive shows, live sports, or movies via streaming service NOW — formerly NOW TV — there's some bad news. Parent company Sky TV will cull support for several older smartphones, set-top boxes, and tablets later this month, cutting off viewers from the exclusive content included with their subscription.
Every device has a lifespan, with ageing hardware unable to keep up with the latest software.
And with a finite number of resources, it doesn't make sense for Sky to focus its teams on NOW apps for devices with a dwindling install base. As such, companies regularly cut off older devices to focus on launching new features.
If you own one of the devices that'll lose software support, then you'll need to upgrade to a newer model to keep streaming from NOW. There are a couple of different deadlines, depending on the device that you use.
First up, NOW will drop support for older versions of iOS — the operating system that powers iPhone and older iPad models — later this month. NOW will require a minimum of iOS 16 to work, which means abandoning any devices that can't upgrade beyond iOS 15 — the final version of the software for some models.
The iOS devices that'll no longer be able to stream via the NOW app:
From August 3, Sky will retire support for some of the oldest NOW-branded set-top boxes. Based on hardware designs created by the teams at Roku, these NOW set-top boxes were designed to be a simple plug-and-play solution for those who wanted to bring Sky TV live channels, on-demand boxsets, and sports to any television via HDMI.
Flip over the box to find the model number listed on a sticker on the underside – if it reads 4500SK, you’re affected. NOW isn't the first streamer to ditch support for this set-top box, with Disney+ ditching the same hardware in 2023.
