i.TV

I wanted to post and update: There is now the ability to uncheck all the channels and theaters and then add only the ones you want. (I’m not sure but it may have been there all along).

The one thing I did notice that will keep it at a 4 is that the movies listed at my theater, not one of the major theater groups, sometimes does not show a move that is in fact showing there. But still useful for a free program.

This program has turned out to be a very nice and handy TV and Movie guide for the iPhone / iPod. I gave it a 4 star rating because there are just as few things that could be better and I’m sure in the next version or two they will get them fixed… more on that at the end.

The program runs nice and fast on 3G and Wi-Fi, functional on EDGE. It has some nice pictures and a nice interface for checking / finding shows and movies. The setup was a snap, with a zip code and TV service to enter and it gets the channeling right and even has the theaters in the area all right there to go. There is a quick online registration part but nothing more then others out there for full function of the service (free also). The information about each show is nice and to the point. It will let people search and sort a number of handy ways (sort by Channel, Title, Genre, Content rating, Star rating.. the last two are based on what the user puts in over time) so it’s easy to find the shows one is looking for. There is a thumb up button which will place a show in a My Media section which will start a library of the shows for easy reference later. All shows when selected will show the next time and channel the show is on and give a quick description of the show.

The Theater section is also handy and works well. The trailer downloads are not very clear but work in a pinch. (Not sure what a movie trailer pinch would be) The movies can be in alpha or by theater sort. When a movie is selected, it will show where it is playing now in the local area and what times the next showings are. There is a star rating system for the movies based on peoples reviews as in most of these types of things and it’s a easy thing to get to them and see what others say about the movie.

Now for the 1 star draw back. Their channel preferences feature is a bit rusty now. One can “hide” the channels they don’t want to have show in the TV mode but they have to select one at a time, so if someone has 500 channels counting all the XM things, PPV and Premium channels they don’t get or want to see on their phone, it’s a bit of a mess to have only the 10 or 15 channels normally viewed show up. It would be nice to have a select all and then unhide the ones that people want rather then the other way around. I think that would be a good add.

It would be nice if the movie trailers were a bit higher quality and also for upcoming movies as well, there only appear to be current running movies that show up.

It would be nice if the shows somehow indicate if it is a first run or a re-run and the My Media could be limited to showing the times for the shows on a specific channel. For example, it will now show the times for all the Law and Orders even if they are not on the channel you want, it appears to just show them all new and re-runs together based on the next time the show is on any channel.

That’s about all for now but it’s a real good program for Free.