Filed under: iPhone, App Store
Another way to get to the movies: Moviefone for iPhone
Hot on the heels of Fandango, AOL has released Moviefone [App Store link], a free application for the iPhone and iPod touch. Moviefone can find your nearest theaters, movie times, trailers, and in some cases you can buy tickets.The app is fast, and the trailers are nicely encoded for the iPhone. It has links to your address book, and you can invite friends to join you at the theater easily. It's a clever idea. You can touch a link and call the theater (good luck getting past voice mail) and there is some info on the stars of the movies. Like Fandango, it can display a map to your nearest theater, and that links out to MapQuest to get you directions.
Here in Southern Arizona, the app worked quickly and efficiently. The only caveats I have are the 'buy tickets' function was not available on many of the theaters I tried, and the closest theater to me was listed about the 5th nearest. It also did not understand my zip code (it's a fairly new one) but made an appropriate substitution.
Moviefone also contains a search function so you can search by movie title, and a favorites option so you can save your favorite movie palace to a list.
The app also has a feedback option, so I sent some along with my email address. It will be interesting to see if I get a response. Update: They did respond. I'm impressed. They said the 'buy' feature only works where Movietickets.com is supported. Moviefone is a nice app, and other than my inability to buy a ticket at some theaters, it looks pretty solid. The price is right, and competition is a good thing. It's certainly worth a download and a tryout. If it lets you buy tickets, you're ahead of the game. While you're at it, be sure to get a look at Now Playing, i.TV (which includes TV and DVDs), and Hot Popcorn. See you at the movies.
Gallery: Moviefone screen shots
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
honz12 said 6:32AM on 3-20-2009
Sounds great, pity it isn't available in the uk
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Colin ZeteBOy said 8:08AM on 3-20-2009
Not in Canada either
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Kevin Bachelder said 11:56AM on 3-20-2009
Another similar app that I use is 'Movies' from Flixster which is also free.
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284235722&mt=8
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scarabic said 3:48PM on 3-20-2009
Flixster also works in UK and CA
alansky said 11:55AM on 3-20-2009
I've tried several movie apps. Now Playing is definitely the best I've tried so far. Fandango was surprisingly slow and generally unimpressive. Will give Moviefone a try.
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khoobehi said 4:50PM on 3-20-2009
Does every website needs its own app now? What is the point of Mobile Safari?
Reddit, fandango, nytimes, etc, etc..... I think an iphone optimized website is good enough. There is little reason for all websites to release there own apps. If they can't do what they want with Mobile Safari, then the browser is the problem. Enough of all these single website apps!
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Rudy said 5:09PM on 3-20-2009
they, along with fandango, took way too long to come out with an app.
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Edwin A said 3:42PM on 3-21-2009
As @khoobehi points out, Moviefone continues to have a robust webapp that a lot of people use to access the service. But as users started working with apps, they wanted something more convenient than the webapp and wanted us to take advantage of SDK only features like Core Location.
So we were later to get started, we wanted to nail the performance and usability issues, and it also took us a little while to make sure that the trailers we made available were well-optimized for playback on the device.
You'll see the pace of updates increase as we get more feedback on how to make it a better app. Help us by hitting the Feedback link and sending us your comments.