In-flight Entertainment

Last night I took a flight from San Diego to San Francisco and noticed they had free entertainment available. I was on one of those small regional jets and so there wasn't a screen embedded in the seat in front of me. They simply had a video server on the plane with a number of movies or shows that you could stream to your electronic device. This is something that Southwest has provided for a number of years but I have never bothered taking advantage of it. I was on a different carrier last night and wanted to make sure I wasn't bored so I gave it a look.

The flight attendants were kind enough to let me know that I needed to download the latest app from the airline carrier while we were still at the gate. I pulled out one of my smartphones, the one with the largest screen, and downloaded the app. It was rather large but finished a few seconds after they closed the front door. Once it was done installing, I put my phone in airplane mode in order to comply with the flight attendant instructions. This automatically turns off WiFi capabilities which I could over-ride and turn back on. Nothing really worked until the plane got above 10,000 feet. Then I could browse the available movies and television shows.

At first glance I thought I would have plenty to keep me entertained. Then I realized the flight was only an hour. That means a movie was out of the question. I didn't want to start a movie only to have it stop as we dropped below 10,000 feet to land. So I started looking at television shows. I actually stopped watching television a while ago and so nothing looked interesting. Eventually I forced myself to pick something and tried to watch a single episode. I was instructed to turn off USB debugging on my device or the video wouldn't play. I browsed a few menus on my phone but ultimately decided that I really wasn't that interested in watching the show. Instead I picked up a paper ham radio magazine and read during the flight. Before I knew it the flight was over as was the need to entertain myself.

I think it is great that airlines have started including video servers on their flights and am glad they allow us to bring our own electronic devices to use. No matter how large the seat in front of me is, my laptop or tablet has a screen that is significantly larger. This is even true with a larger number of smartphones. While I didn't bother with a movie or television show on this flight, I'm sure others took advantage of it.