Just ahead of this year’s season premieres, NBC has finally joined ABC in offering full episodes on their iPad app. Didn’t know there was a free NBC iPad app? That’s probably because there were no full episodes available for streaming until this week, when you can watch the last five episodes.

Mashable is reporting that NBC pushed out an upgrade to their iPad app on Thursday, finally enabling users to watch full episodes on their tablets. The free app was first released in June, which many of us installed and immediately deleted after discovering that it contained only show clips and not full episodes, like offerings from competing networks such as ABC have from day one.

The iPad app will still be limited to only the five most recently aired shows, which as of right now means the last five episodes of the previous season. But according to NBC Universal Digital Entertainment president Vivi Zigler, the app will include “pretty much everything” on the network -- and thus far that seems to include even popular shows like Community, which can be found on Hulu.com but, perplexingly, not the paid Hulu Plus service (here’s hoping that changes soon enough).

Zigler explains that the network “wanted to understand the business model mechanism” of the iPad prior to offering full episodes, which is why the NBC app launched earlier this summer with short clips. According to Mashable, the app also “offers customization features that let you follow a show and have it automatically update in the app, rather than having to search for a new episode.”

The fall television season is fast approaching, so the timing of NBC’s move couldn’t be better. What will you be firing up the iPad app to watch this month?

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