The Moviefone Movies App For iPhone Goes Through A Well Needed Renovation

When the Moviefone app for iPad was released April 2011, we really enjoyed the user interface. I'm happy to report that the iPhone and iPod touch version is now using a very similar design that's less cluttered, yet offers more content. Dressed in an iconic theater black and red color scheme, Moviefone Movies for iPhone contains the same clean and easy to navigate very visual-focused appearance which debuted on the iPad. The movies section is separated into four horizontal image-based lists: in theaters, top box office, coming soon, and DVD. Next, there's the Theaters and Videos sections with traditional sortable lists, and a gallery-style News section. To finish off the tour, you'll also see a More section to access app settings, send feedback, and ways to help promote the app. If you're thinking there must be differences, you're absolutely correct. I won't go into those features on the iPad version that exist because the larger screen allows for extra convenience, such as the theater browsing map, or the obvious lack of the blade, movable overlapping UI panels, system. The main difference between the iPhone and iPad is the iPad has favorites while the iPhone has a new feature called "Playing Now Near Me." Playing Now Near Me is sort of like a live radar and an arrival / departure board for movies. Instead of showing a static list of all showtimes, Playing Now Near Me displays the movie name, theater name, the distance to the theater from your current location, the very next showtime for that movie, and a countdown timer. To be blunt, I did find it strange at first that favorites was left out of the iPhone version. However, it made sense to me the more I thought about it, even if it would have been possible to offer both favorites and the Playing Now Near Me features. The iPad is your mission control, where you'll find, organize, and fully manage your movie-related content. On the other hand, you'll be using your iPhone to get to the movies, whether pre-planned or a spur of the moment choice. Basically, I feel the trade-off is fair and I'm certainly happy about the UI overhaul. Moviefone Movies is designed for iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 4.0 or later, and available in the App Store as a free download.

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