Review: TV Show Tracker

Overview

If you watch a lot of TV shows, you know how difficult it can be to remember exactly when they're on. TV Show tracker solves that problem by giving you an easy to read schedule as well as suggesting shows based on what you already watch. Think of TV Show tracker as your personal assistant. But remember, it won't pick up your dry cleaning for you.

Features

- See all past and future episodes - Genius suggestions - Viewing schedule - Time zone correction - Data available without an Internet connection once added To start using TV Show tracker, you need to add some of your favourite shows. Simply search for the title of the show, select it from the list and it is added to your favourites. Once you have done this for all the shows you want to track, simply hit 'done'. Each show you added has it's own page so you can swipe between them to see when the past and next episodes are. You can view information about the episode if you're interested or if you need to work out if you have already seen it or not. Flip you iPhone on it's side and you will be shown a thumbnail view of all the shows you have added. If you want to find something new to watch, simply shake your iPhone and TV Show tracker's 'genius' feature will kick in. You will then be shown a suggested show and can choose to either disregard it, or add it to your collection. You can do this as many times as you like and keep adding or removing shows depending on your tastes. Obviously, the more show you have added, the more accurate your genius suggestions will be. Once you have finished shaking, adding and ignoring shows, press the calendar icon in the bottom left. This brings up the viewing schedule showing the most recent episodes of all your shows, and all the upcoming ones. Clicking any of them will take you to that show's page in your library.

The Breakdown

The Good: Because TV Show tracker uses the database over at TVRage, there is data for every show that you could possibly think of. The genius suggestions are generally quite useful, although like genius in iTunes, you will get suggestions for show that are of no interest to you every now and again. Your favourites list is easy to add to and edit, and the viewing schedule is great for a quick look of what you'll be watching on any particular day. The Bad: For everything good about TV Show Tracker, one problem really stands out as something to completely turn me off this app. The searching is ridiculously slow and results can sometimes take up to a minute to show. Now I assume that this is probably a problem with the TVRage database, but this really lets the app down.

The Verdict

If the searching was faster I would be recommending this app to everyone who watches TV. The interface is nice, information is easily accessible and the schedule is great. But you have to get past the slow searching to really enjoy this app. It's a shame that something as simple as search lets down an otherwise great app.

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