TiVo continues to execute on their multiscreen strategy, having just cranked out a significant update to their iOS app. In addition to the requisite iPhone and iPad bug fixes, the revised app features:
- New design for iOS7
- New Facebook feed in “What To Watch”
- New YouTube video feeds in “What To Watch”
By linking both my YouTube and (wife’s) Facebook account, new panels of suggested video appear in the sprightlier What To Watch section… with options to playback video on your TiVo-connected television or directly on the phone. Also interesting is the “Shared by Friends” Facebook heading – as it leaves the door open for other means of pulling in social video. As I’m blogging from an airport terminal, I haven’t yet had a chance to fully explore the features… so consider this a community project and let us know what you’ve discovered in the comments below.
Oh, boy…
It is going to take me a moment to get used to this new look.
Yeah, I’d say it’s more Android-esque than iOS 7 flat. Assume it’ll look quite similar once Google Play is updated.
I do like the Facebook integration – that is really cool. I don’t have a personal Youtube channel, but I expect it would be a very similar integration and wouldn’t mind that either.
I like the concept of seeing what your friends are watching. It’s just that I’m not a Facebook user and likely never will be one. It would be nice if there was some other way of pulling in friends (maybe Twitter) but there probably won’t be. Oh well.
Unfortunately the app is still slow as molasses downloading. I’m downloading out of home over a very fast wifi network and it takes about 35-40 minutes to download a 1 hour show to my iphone on basic quality. I have 25 Mb download and upload with Fios so the upload shouldn’t be the problem. It’s only a 306 MB file so it really should be faster. Even at home it usually takes about 20 minutes or a little longer.
Could this be a precursor to a TiVo UI for YouTube subscriptions?
Seems similar to Qplay albeit with less supported sites. This does makes more sense vs. a standalone app / service though.
So “Android-esque” bounced my mind to the obvious “wait… what ever happened to that Android app?”
Last I heard, and this was several months ago, Android streaming was slated for late June. But it’s not even worth mentioning until it hits, Duke Nukem Forever!
OMG! Yeah… sometimes I kind of feel like that’s TiVo’s deal… keep stuff in development long enough that by the time it finally comes out, it’s not even that big of a deal anymore.
That’s SPAM above me there Dave! Feel free to delete this comment when you pull that too…