Filed under: iPhone, App Store
First Look: i. TV brings schedules, trailers to your iPhone
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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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Markito said 10:50AM on 10-07-2008
While not quite as overloaded as the mentioned "I. TV", I LOVE an app called "TV Forecast". I have used its Mac widget for a long time and now they have released the mobile app. Check out "TV Forecast" I am hooked on it.
-'kito
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johnedwards said 11:15AM on 10-07-2008
Ditto to the above comment.
I tried itv and its a bit slow n I had to keep touching the icons to get something to happen at times.
Ben K. said 11:12AM on 10-07-2008
Yes! TV Forecast is awesome. This won't replace it, I don't think; not for me. It'll be a companion app, though.
Eric said 11:10AM on 10-07-2008
This may just replace 3 apps on my iPhone: What's On?, TV Forecast and Movies.app. Im not 100% sure if I want to get rid of those yet. I like the landscape view of Whats On? and being able to scroll down multiple channels at a time. Not super excited about the interface of i.TV either. But Ill definitely give it some face time before deciding. It is very promising though.
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Ross said 11:10AM on 10-07-2008
yeah, I guess I should read the full article before I post comments. I just get so excited over good, useful apps like this
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Kory said 11:36AM on 10-07-2008
The features seem promising, but the interface is nothing special and it's pretty slow. It crashed three times inside of a few minutes when I downloaded it. I still think What's On is the most functional and the interface for their upcoming version blows everything else away. i.TV is just too busy and clunky. I'm sticking with What's On.
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Jesse Stay said 1:37PM on 10-07-2008
Kory, be sure to leave your feature requests for anything you'd prefer to see in future versions on our UserVoice page at http://itv.uservoice.com - we're quite proud of our interface, especially as a 1.0 version. Stay tuned - we have much more up our sleeves.
jopari said 1:36PM on 10-07-2008
Have you restarted the iPhone? Often when you install apps they're unstable unless you restart the phone before using it. I restarted my iPhone and it hasn't crashed in five minutes of use, although it is being kinda slow — I blame the 1.0 status of the app. I also wish that it was easier/quicker to change the time of day you're looking at. Finally, I wish it was easier to choose the order in which which channels were displayed — my college has a different channel order than the default Comcast one.
gear said 11:39AM on 10-07-2008
slingmobile, slingmobile, slingmobile, slingmobile, slingmobile, slingmobile, slingmobile, slingmobile, slingmobile, slingmobile, slingmobile, slingmobile, slingmobile, slingmobile, slingmobile.
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David said 11:41AM on 10-07-2008
As a beta tester of What's On?'s 1.5 release, I tried this app and am sorely disappointed. i. Tv does have some neat features like show graphics, but it is slow and the browse is very clunky compared to the beta of What's On?
I prefer a quick and clean interface to this ad-cluttered junk. It does have movie listings, but Movies works just fine for me and is also free.
Also, it crashed on me several times, and I can't figure out how to get favorites to work like i'd expect. It is free, but I guess you get what you pay for.
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Franklin McMahon said 11:46AM on 10-07-2008
This looks awesome..I just downloaded it. Please keep the reviews of iPhone apps coming!
Frank
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Neil said 12:22PM on 10-07-2008
Less US only apps please TUAW - there is a world (and indeed you have an audience) outside of those seemingly tall borders.
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Jim Danner said 6:04AM on 10-08-2008
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.
Michael Rose said 6:23AM on 10-08-2008
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.
Jim Danner said 7:46AM on 10-08-2008
Thanks. I noticed it's also mentioned in the AppStore description of the application.
Kirk said 12:52PM on 10-07-2008
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.
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Will Dorton said 1:41PM on 10-07-2008
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.
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Drew said 1:51PM on 10-07-2008
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?
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Jesse Stay said 1:48PM on 10-07-2008
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
Jesse Stay said 1:48PM on 10-07-2008
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.