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First Look: i. TV brings schedules, trailers to your iPhone

by Michael Rose Oct 7th 2008 at 10:30AM

There are a lot of App Store submissions and works-in-progress that trigger anticipatory drooling here at TUAW (Sling Mobile! Sling Mobile!), among them the program guide and movie finder i. TV; we first saw it a few weeks ago and I've been checking every day to see if it's shipped. Now you can download this free tool from the App Store and see for yourself what's so exciting. (The promo video on the i.tv site borrows heavily from Apple's 1984 ad and the Apple TV intro, so clearly there's an effort to brand this app as 'revolutionary.')

The heart of i. TV (App Store link) is a TV listings browser, which connects to the free data feed from the i.tv site (registration is required), including synopses and cast info. You can select your zip code and programming provider (the app currently supports US and Canadian TV listings only) and the current schedules are there at your fingertips; you can rate, review, filter or flag shows as favorites and optionally share your feedback with other i.TV users.

Along with the TV content, the movies section of the app lets you browse by title or by nearby theaters, and watch streamed trailers of your selected films. Trailers and previews of TV shows are also included. The UI is clean and the app is easy to navigate; I was able to find show listings quickly for several series.

As cool as the initial version of i.TV appears to be, the development directions are exponentially cooler. Future versions of the app are planned that will include remote DVR programming (ooh!), IR blaster integration (yes!), DVD rentals (ahh!), movie ticket purchases and even the ability to watch full TV shows streamed from the programming source (hmm.).

Note that there is another app with a similar name, ITV, which provides French television listings and goes for $2.99 US.

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There are a lot of App Store submissions and works-in-progress that trigger anticipatory drooling here at TUAW (Sling Mobile! Sling...
 

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23 Comments

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Jim Danner

Thanks. I noticed it's also mentioned in the AppStore description of the application.

October 08 2008 at 7:46 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Michael Rose

It took a while to find it, but the US and Canada restriction is noted in i. tv's press release:

http://i.tv/news/press/

Post updated to reflect.

October 08 2008 at 6:23 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jim Danner

I'm fine with the US-only apps (they wrote stories about iPhone issues in other countries too, like the O2 subscription issues in the UK).

But is it really too much to ask for TUAW to mention the fact that an application is limited to a certain region? Why do we have to go to websites like i.tv, to find out that they don't mention it either? What a waste of time. Please update the article.

October 08 2008 at 6:03 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jash Sayani

Wow!! I hope it buffers fast with EDGE.... BTW, Is "In Plain Sight" listed...?

October 08 2008 at 5:00 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
khirbat

For TV listings, I have been quite happy with pointing Safari to iphone.television.aol.com/

October 07 2008 at 6:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
rumford

Michael,
This is very exciting. I am so glad to see this service. This is going to help me decide which movies to go see for sure. ;)

Sweetness!

October 07 2008 at 3:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Susan

I have used both What's On? and i.TV. What's On? is very unimpressive. Their interface is not professional at all. I MUCH prefer i.TV. I definitely think it will replace lots of apps out there.

October 07 2008 at 1:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Will Dorton

Hmmm...I've tried i.TV out and haven't seen ANY of the issues you are talking about. I also have What's On? and all I can say is that it is VERY suspicious that there are so many people commenting on What's On? i.TV offers so much more than What's On, has a better UI and from what I have seen is much, much cooler.

I think what we have here is a group from What's On? writing comments.

BTW...i.TV is available in Canada.

October 07 2008 at 1:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kirk

I have also been beta testing What's On v1.5 and the new interface is slick!

What's On is easy to us and most importantly, it works well.

I typically find apps that come loaded with every feature under the sun to not perform any one particular feature well. I'd rather use an app masters it's core purpose and then expand on that core functionality moving forward.. while the bells and whistles of the above app might sound good, I'm sticking with What's On because it actually does the job it's advertised to do.

October 07 2008 at 12:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
drew

I downloaded I.TV and played around with it for a bit. After about 10 minutes I was 5 crashes deep and wasn't real impressed. It seems like they're trying to do too much in one app instead of focusing on one simple idea. I have What's On and have beta tested version 1.5 and it blows i.tv out of the water as far as usability and UI...http://napkinstudio.com/apps/whats_on/1.5screenshots.php That gives you an idea of what's coming and I emailed support and they plan to add dvr recording and push notifications to remind me a show is starting. Did I mention they replied to my email in less than an hour on 3 different occasions?

October 07 2008 at 11:46 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to drew's comment
Jesse Stay

Drew, be sure to submit your feature requests on our UserVoice page - my e-mail's jesse@i.tv, and you can always submit your feedback at feedback@i.tv as well. You've got a real person on our end and we have much more coming. Our UserVoice page: http://itv.uservoice.com

October 07 2008 at 1:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jesse Stay

Drew, also, you can get push notifications already with i.TV's iPhone app. Click the "Watch" button and it will send you a link to add to your calendar. When Apple releases the push notifications API (which they haven't yet), we'll certainly be one of the first to implement it, I promise.

October 07 2008 at 1:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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