In-Flight Movies with United Airlines Coming Exclusively to iOS This April

Apple customers looking to book a flight with United Airlines at any time after April are in for a special treat if they bring their mobile devices along for the ride. United Airlines announced that it will be launching a personal device entertainment system on select aircraft that will stream movies and TV shows to iPhones and iPads running iOS 7, free of charge.

United seems to have plans for expanding this program in the future, but come April the service will only be available to Apple products with iOS 7 installed. As of yet, there is no word on when or even if other operating systems or other company’s products will be added to the roster. It is likely that they will be, but United is probably using the initial run in April to gather metrics on how many passengers actually use the service and for how long. If it proves popular, service will almost assuredly be expanded. The airline industry seems to be improving as a whole recently, so it is unlikely that the service will suddenly and inexplicably vanish from a financial cut.

The personal device entertainment system will offer passengers over 150 movies and almost 200 TV shows to select from to make their in-flight experience as enjoyable as possible. At first the system will only be installed on Airbus A319, Airbus A320, Boeing 747-400 and Boeing 777-200 aircraft, but United plans to expand the service to all United-operated flights by the end of 2014.

The App is already available for iOS 7 users to download and install on their mobile devices. Laptop computers will be able to avoid installing the app since they can just use the in-flight Wi-Fi to access the programming directly, but mobile users will have a more streamlined experience if they install the app and charge their device before stepping onto the plane. After that users simply click on what they’d like to watch, with full controls over starting, stopping, rewinding and more.