The developers of the Channels app have announced that their app will now permanently be free for iPhones and iPads. The app was originally designed for Apple TV, so the extra effort required to port it to mobile devices necessitated charging for the iOS version. As Channels launched on other platforms, including the Fire TV, purchasing the single app made it available on both TV and mobile devices. Since there is no easy way to backtrack and combine the now separate iOS and Apple TV apps, the developers decided to keep things simple and make the iOS version free for everyone.

If you’ve never tried the Channels app, either because it seemed too expensive or because you didn’t want to sign up for a trial of the DVR service to use the free Channels DVR app, now you can use the app completely for free if you have an iOS device. The Apple TV version of Channels is still $24.99, as it is on all TV platforms, but the iOS version of Channels is free.