If you’re still streaming NOW on a box or a phone you bought a few years back, this summer brings some unwelcome news.
Sky has confirmed that the NOW app is being pulled from a batch of older devices, and there are two separate cut-offs to keep an eye on – one hitting a group of ageing Roku-based boxes on August 3, and another affecting older iPhones and iPads from mid-July.
This one could catch out a fair few people. NOW’s own boxes were hugely popular until a few years ago, precisely because they were such a cheap way to get the app on your telly – and I’m always surprised at how long some of you hang on to a streaming box that’s still doing its job.
So while the very oldest kit on the list is truly niche now, the original NOW Smart Box sold in big numbers at the time, and there’s a decent chance one is still plugged in behind a good few tellies out there.
If that sounds like the box gathering dust behind your telly, read on.
NOW’s Own Streaming Boxes
Some may have forgotten, but NOW used to sell its own streaming boxes and sticks. Back when the service was still called NOW TV, these were a common sight in UK living rooms, and for a lot of people they were the first streaming device they ever owned.
They were Roku devices at heart. NOW worked with Roku on the hardware, but the boxes ran a custom NOW interface that steered you towards NOW’s passes and channels, rather than the standard Roku menus and app store. Most buyers thought of them as NOW boxes, not Roku ones.
The appeal was the price. NOW sold these boxes and sticks cheap, often for a few pounds with a month or two of passes thrown in, which made them one of the cheapest ways to get NOW onto your TV. That kept them selling in big numbers for years.
NOW stopped making them in 2021, switching its focus to the NOW app on other companies’ devices.
The boxes already in people’s homes carried on working, which is why some are still plugged in today – and why this round of cut-offs affects more people than you might expect.
The NOW and Roku boxes Losing the App on August 3
From August 3, the NOW app will stop working on the following devices:
- NOW TV Smart Box (model 4500SK)
- Roku Streaming Stick 3500X
- Roku box models 2700X, 2710X and 2720X
Once that date passes, you won’t be able to open NOW on any of them. The box itself may still switch on and run other apps for now, but NOW is off the menu.
The three Roku models are unlikely to catch many people out. They were fairly niche in the UK and are getting on for well over ten years old at this point, so few readers will still be using one. If you own an especially ancient Roku stick or box, though, it’s worth a quick check.
The NOW Smart Box is the one that could sting. NOW sold plenty of these, and given how many of you keep a working box in service long after everyone else has moved on, I suspect this cut-off will land on more than a few living rooms.
You can confirm which model you have by looking at the sticker on the underside – if it reads 4500SK, you’re affected.
Why this is happening
As mentioned, NOW’s own hardware was always built on Roku’s technology, and Roku is ending support for its older devices. The NOW Smart Box (4500SK) runs on one of those now-retired Roku platforms, so it has been swept up alongside the Roku-branded kit.
If that feels familiar, it should. This isn’t the first app to abandon the 4500SK – the same box lost the Disney+ app back in 2023.
That was Disney’s doing rather than NOW’s, but the underlying pattern is the same: it’s old Roku hardware, and one by one the apps stop supporting it. Disney+ went first, and now NOW is following.
And, it’s the same story as with the original NOW White Box in 2020: retired once it was too old to keep up.
The NOW boxes that keep working
The good news is that most NOW hardware is completely unaffected. These will carry on exactly as before:
The NOW TV Black Box (model 4200SK) – the chunkier one. Confusingly, it’s also black, so don’t go by colour: check the model number. The 4200SK is fine, the 4500SK is the one being retired.
- The NOW TV Smart Box with 4K and Voice Search
- The NOW TV Smart Stick
So if you upgraded to the 4K box or the stick at any point, there’s nothing to do.
It’s only the original Smart Box (4500SK) that’s being retired here.
Older iPhones and iPads are losing NOW too (from mid-July)
The second cut-off is a quieter one, and it’s a question of software rather than hardware.
Support for iOS 15 is being wound down: from mid-April, the NOW app on iOS 15 stopped receiving updates, and from mid-July the app will stop working on that version altogether. The same applies to older iPads still running an equivalent, unsupported version.
On the face of it this is less of a worry, because most iPhone owners keep their software up to date and will already be on something far newer than iOS 15. Update your iPhone to iOS 16 or later and the problem disappears.
The catch is that some older iPhones can’t move past iOS 15 at all. Apple dropped support for a handful of models when it released iOS 16, and those handsets are stuck. Specifically, the following can’t upgrade beyond iOS 15, so they’ll lose the NOW app from mid-July:
- iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus
- iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus
- iPhone SE (first generation, 2016)
If you’re watching NOW on one of these, there’s no software fix – the phone simply can’t run a version of iOS that supports the app.
It’s a similar situation to when NOW dropped older Apple TV boxes a few years back, where the only real answer was newer hardware.
What to do if you’re affected
The straightforward fix, in both cases, is to move NOW onto something more modern. If it’s the Smart Box you’re losing, any current streaming device will do the job – a Fire TV stick, a games console, or a smart TV with NOW built in.
If you’d rather stay with Roku, the current line-up is a lot more capable than the boxes being retired. The entry-level Roku Streaming Stick is £29.99, the Streaming Stick Plus is £39.99, and the Streaming Stick 4K tops it off at £49.99 – and there’s more detail in our Roku streaming stick comparison if you’re weighing them up.
For the iPhone side, if your handset can take iOS 16 or later, just run the update and carry on. If you’re on one of the stranded models above, NOW will still work perfectly well in a web browser or on any newer phone, tablet, TV or streaming device you have to hand – so you don’t necessarily need to rush out and replace the phone itself.
None of this is a disaster, but it’s a reminder that streaming kit doesn’t last forever, and the older your device, the more likely it is that an app quietly stops working one day.
If you’re running any of the boxes or iPhones above, mark August 3 and mid-July in the diary and plan your move before NOW disappears.
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