Sky+ iPad app can be used as hoity-toity remote control

Sky is set to update its Sky+ iPad app so you can use your tablet as a really opulent remote control. Due later this summer, the upgrade will let you pause and rewind merely by swiping your decadent finger. Marvellous.

If you're plutocratic enough to own a Sky+ HD box, you'll even be able to see the planner on your iPad, and add and delete recorded shows with a disdainful twitch of your snooty paw. The app currently lets you see the TV guide and select things to record, even if you're out and about, but you can't do much more than that.

The company's also adding eight children's channels to its on-demand service Sky Go, with the Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon all on hand to distract fidgety toddlers when the nanny needs to get some ironing done.

That brings Sky Go's tally to 32 live channels you can access on smart phone or tablet. Earlier this month the Sky Go Android app added on-demand movies and other TV, but initially failed to include Ice Cream Sandwich phones -- the latest droid-powered blowers you would expect moneybags Sky subscribers to own. That's now been fixed, however, with ICS phones now able to get Go-ing.

Sky's new Now TV service also shuns Ice Cream Sandwich, which is something of a boo-boo as its shiny commercial features the ICS-toting Samsung Galaxy S3. Clang!

But in an absolute masterstroke -- and frankly I can't believe I haven't put this higher up the story, such is the staggering importance of this news -- Sky Anytime+ is adding Channel Five's catchup service. That's right, no matter the time, day or night, you'll be able to watch Extreme Fishing with Robson Greene. That is a load off my mind, I can tell you.

Sky also unhooked the stats hose and gave me a good soaking. Here's what I managed to swallow, spluttering and gasping, from the torrent of facts. Over 4 million people have Sky HD now, and a similar number use Sky's broadband service, with 3.4 million buying phone, TV and Internet from the company. In total, one in six of us -- some 10.6 million -- now bung the company some cash every month.

Are you a Scrooge McDuck-style money-swimming Sky fan? What do you think of the company's mobile and tablet efforts? Should it be doing better on Android? Have your butler navigate the captcha to leave a comment in the box below, or if you want to mix with the common people head over to our egalitarian Facebook page.