iTV Shows 2 is a handy app for keeping track of your favorite TV shows across all of your iOS devices. It has an improved interface, a slick new icon, local notifications for shows about to air, and it supports iCloud sync just to name a few of its features.

The user interface in iTV Shows 2 is extremely well done; the developers definitely hit the mark with this version of the app because not only is it gorgeous but it is also easy to use and contains all the features one would expect from an app dedicated to informing you about TV shows. To use the app, one needs only to search for (and add) some TV shows to the “My Shows” list. I immediately noticed an improved performance when simply searching for a few TV show titles. iTV Shows 2 definitely seemed snappier and more accurate with its search results. After adding my favorites “How I Met Your Mother” and “The Big Bang Theory”, I jumped back to the main screen and noticed the large beautiful icons separating out the shows. These are simply categories to help the user visualize when the TV show is going to air, if it has already aired, or if the next season has yet to announce a specific start date.

Another feature I enjoyed in iTV Shows 2 was the Genius tab which displays TV shows it thinks I might also enjoy watching. It was extremely accurate with its selections, however I am not entirely sure how it derives these suggestions. Perhaps I just enjoy very common and popular TV shows. Some of the shows it suggested that I happen to truly enjoy include “Dexter”, “Breaking Bad”, and “New Girl”. These are very different shows, but the app was spot on suggesting that I check them out.

Other features include a handy calendar view in which you can tap around and view episodes throughout the month. It also supports all of the latest iOS buzz words including universal, Retina Display ready, local notifications, and iCloud synchronization. I know people have come to expect iOS apps to be universal but I still appreciate each developer that decides to essentially give away two apps for the price of one. The iPad app seemed to have all of the love and detail that went in to the iPhone version. The iCloud sync worked flawlessly during my brief test, all of the shows I added while setting up the app on my phone were already added to the iPad version after simply launching the app on the second device.

The only issue I experienced was with the local notifications. I had received my first notification for an episode of “How I Met Your Mother” exactly 1 hour late. I immediately assumed it was a time zone setting issue in the app. Sure enough, I figured out that I had to go in to Settings > Preferences > Time Zone > and enable “Perform correction”. The note by the developers state to only use this setting if the app fails to automatically perform the time zone, so perhaps you readers will experience no issues at all. Other than this small hiccup the first day using iTV Shows 2, it has been very reliable.

I have to admit, at first I questioned whether or not I needed an app to remind myself to watch a TV show since 90 percent of the time I don’t watch TV shows live anyway, I use a DVR or stream the show on a network-connected device. This touches on what I feel is an industry wide shift in how consumers are interested in viewing TV shows – many of which are opting out of standard cable television services in favor of web services like Hulu Plus, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video on Demand. I actually have traditional cable service but still subscribe to all three of these services (don’t ask me why), yet I was surprised to find as much value in iTV Shows 2 as I did. My wife and I enjoy watching entire seasons of TV shows at a time so checking off episodes as we watched them was a useful feature. I would be nice if the app eventually added some statistics about the number of TV shows I watch: maybe it could calculate the number hours I spend on TV (I am a statistics geek). Furthermore, I enjoyed the supplied information per show, e.g. what TV shows have seasons coming up, like HBO’s True Blood which is starting soon. iTV Shows 2 even has Twitter integration to share episode details with friends which was a pleasant surprise.

Overall, iTV Shows 2 has a sharp new user interface along with some pretty unique features. It may not be my most used app but it does serve a specific purpose and has definitely earned a permanent spot on my iOS devices.

iTV Shows 2 is available on the App Store for $2.99

Owners of the Apple TV in Australia, Canada and the UK were given a nice surprise today with an over-the-air update enabling TV Shows to be purchased and watched directly on the device. It was a curious absence from the Apple TVs in those countries because although users could purchase TV shows from iTunes and on iOS devices (even stream it to the Apple TV with AirPlay) – until now they couldn’t purchase TV content directly from the Apple TV.

Apple hasn’t made any announcement about the update, but prices remain the same as they did previously. The update also introduces the “cloud locker” feature that was introduced with version 4.3 on the US Apple TV. If you are unaware of this feature, it allows you to play previously purchased TV content (the same feature is available for music, apps and books) – all thanks to iCloud.

[Via Engadget]

According to a report by Reuters, the iPad app of the Year 2010, Flipboard, might add support for movies and TV shows by the end of the year. If the company and its CEO, Mike McCue, will manage to cut deals with studios and other content providers, Flipboard will expand beyond aggregating articles from social networks such as Twitter and Facebook or RSS services like Google Reader, becoming an all-in one solution to read, share, and watch.

Flipboard mixes articles from a growing list of brands like Oprah.com and the Economist with social media feeds from sites like Facebook into a personalized online magazine. It has received $60.5 million in venture capital funding and its app has been downloaded 3 million times.

Chairman and Chief Executive Mike McCue said he will tackle the video project at the end of the year. He declined to say which studio partners he has approached. He also hopes eventually to cut deals with publishers to sell electronic books through Flipboard.

Just when the concept of “consuming content” starts making less sense now that the iPad has turned into a full-featured platform and device capable of doing things like reading, writing, sharing news, and watching movies, the evolution of Flipboard towards broader audiences and media seems appropriate. The app was launched in 2010 featuring direct Twitter and Facebook integration to display stories from these networks, visualized through an elegant layout with beautiful typography that made great use of the iPad’s screen to present multiple stories at once, and allow readers to re-share them or comment of them without opening a separate client. The app went through a series of updates to further refine the interface, add more services like Google Reader for RSS feeds and Instagram for photos, recently receiving another major revamp to introduce visual search, a popular section, and a completely new UI to browse popular articles and get recommendations from the Flipboard team’s curated list of stories and sources.

We’re big fans of Flipboard here at MacStories, and I believe choosing to diversify the app’s offerings to include more content is step in the right direction. Obviously, as Reuters says, this may never materialize if deals aren’t reached with studios, but it’s reassuring to know Flipboard has been considering video as the next major addition to their social magazine. In the same report, Reuters also says the iPhone version of Flipboard is expected to hit the App Store in a few weeks, although no further details are available.

You can read more about Flipboard and our thoughts on it in our previous coverage, and check out the fantastic original promo video featuring Adam Lisagor below.
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Apple has just released a new version of iOS for the Apple TV second-generation — iOS 4.3 with build number 8F455. Whilst there is no official changelog for the update yet, a series of tweets from Daring Fireball’s John Gruber suggests iOS 4.3 brings the possibility of streaming purchased TV Shows, including all the shows you’ve already bought in iTunes. Since the introduction of iCloud at the WWDC in June, Apple rolled out new features in iTunes to let users re-download every single purchase they made with their Apple IDs — this applied to music, apps, and books. With a new tab in the same Purchased section, Apple now allows you to re-watch TV Shows you’ve bought through iTunes. The “Purchased” option in iTunes was announced alongside iCloud (which will launch this Fall) and the broader iTunes in the Cloud initiative — in spite of iCloud still being a “beta” for developers, every Mac, iPad, iPhone and Apple TV can benefit from these re-download functionalities now. (more…)

After today’s press release that confirmed Apple will hold a WWDC opening keynote on Monday, June 6, to officially unveil Mac OS X, iOS 5 and iCloud, Cnet reports the launch of the new cloud service from Apple next week may see a last-minute surprise that will make movies and TV shows available on the online “locker”. No details on how users would be able to upload, stream or purchase films and TV shows they don’t own have been posted, but it sounds like iCloud would provide a solution to store files on Apple’s servers to stream them later to a variety of devices.

Feature films could be part of Apple’s iCloud launch next week.

In the past several weeks, Apple executives have stepped up their attempts to convince some of the major Hollywood film studios to issue licenses that would enable Apple to store its customers’ movies on the company’s servers, two sources close to the negotiations told CNET. Apple began discussing a cloud service with the studios over a year ago.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

Cnet also reports content providers and Hollywood studios will be harder to convince than record labels and publishers, mainly because of the deals that in the US tie some studios exclusively to a cable company that airs films and shows. For instance, Warner Bros. Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and NBC Universal have an exclusive distribution deal with HBO that would prevent Apple from making their films available through iCloud immediately. As Time Warner’s CEO Bewkes (Time Warner is parent company of HBO and Warner Bros) has made several positive remarks on the new Ultraviolet video standard in the past, however, industry sources claim a deal with Apple and other cloud services could get done, and the exclusive HBO deal reworked to accommodate more distribution methods.

So if Bewkes is a believer what is the holdup? Film-industry sources have say that there’s nothing to worry about, that a deal with Time Warner to relax the HBO window will get done. But can something be completed before June 6?

Whether it can or not, Apple could still roll something out with the other three studios that are without HBO blackout agreements: Disney, Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures.

Apple has officially announced the iCloud name today, referring to it as “upcoming cloud services offering” that seems to suggest it will go beyond music to offer a broader set of tools for online sync and storage. With the launch of the Apple TV 2nd-gen last September, Apple began offering rentals from ABC and Fox at $0.99 only through streaming, as the Apple TV doesn’t allow for local movie storage.

Back in November, IMDb released an improved version of its official iOS app introducing a major redesign and several new functionalities like ratings, entertainment news and international showtimes. Today IMDb is releasing another update to the app, which reaches version 2.1 and adds several new features like the much-requested AirPlay compatibility.

The IMDb app can now beam movie trailers from your iPad or iPhone to the Apple TV, or to another iOS device using an app like the AirTuner receiver. Being AirPlay one of consumers’ favorite features in the latest versions of iOS, it’s nice to see IMDb has adopted the streaming technology as a way to share content in a local network. IMDb 2.1 also improves several aspects of the previous update: there’s a ratings history menu now that lets you see all the movies and TV shows you rated on IMDb and entertainment news have been improved to display more content.

IMDb 2.1 introduces a watchlist to keep track of the movies and TV shows you’re interested in: from now on, instead of maintaining a text note with the shows you want to follow, you can just do it with the Watchlist on the iOS app. This update brings other enhancements as well, such as search results as-you-type and possibility to purchase movie tickets in the US, UK, Canada and Spain.

IMDb for iOS is available for free in the App Store.

Episodes, a new iPhone app by developers Nial Giacomelli and Benjamin Gordon, provides a great-looking solution to track your favorite TV shows with air dates and world premieres, and also offers a list of shows you might be interested in. (more…)

Over the past few weeks there has been quite a back and forth discussion on the possible inclusion of a Retina or high resolution display on the iPad 2. Facts seemed to solidify when Engadget ran an article suggesting the second-generation iPad would have a high resolution display, though they did not specify the exact resolution. But then John Gruber yesterday seemed to disagree with that suggestion citing cost issues, uncovered UI graphics of an iPad camera app that are not optimized for a high resolution display and his own sources.

So why has there been so much doubt and to and fro-ing over whether the iPad 2’s display is high resolution? Well put simply, because there are so many barriers that would have to be overcome and issues that Apple would have to resolve.  Click through to read the full article.

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