A handy new update to the Sky+ app now lets you use your iPhone or iPod touch as a remote control.
You'll need to have your Sky+ box and iPhone or iPod connected to the same Wi-Fi network to change channels, pause, play and rewind TV and set up or delete recordings on the box.
The iPad was already capable of controlling Sky+ in real time but the other iOS devices were languishing in administrative control only.
So while you could arrange recordings from afar on the Apple handset, you were stuck using the old-fashioned remote control to actually change channels. Nightmare.

Popularity

The Sky+ app has proven popular with the broadcaster's customers; it has been downloaded over 5 million times since it launched in 2009, with around 1.2 million people using it each month.
This doesn't surprise us all that much, given that Sky is a premium broadcasting service and Apple's iDevices are premium mobile devices.
No word yet on when the Android equivalents will get the same remote control functionality, although Sky tells us that it hopes to bring the features to Android handsets "in the coming months".