Never Miss Your Favorite Shows Again With iTV Shows 2

Most people don’t watch television in real time. These days practically every home has a DVR, and many families have cable TV and media streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. These services can be accessed through set-top box devices like Apple TV and Roku, and there is a serious need for television tracking apps that can figure out which shows we’ve seen and which ones we’ve missed. The makers of iTV Shows has improved upon their already-amazing TV show tracker with iTV Shows 2, which is universal and can be synced between devices.

When you first open the app, you’ll be asked to start adding your favorite shows. The impressive database holds thousands of television shows, so the likelihood of you not being able to find your favorite program is slim. There is even a fairly comprehensive anime database. I searched for "Naruto" and, not only did the original series show up, but the series follow-up, "Naruto Shippuuden," and the manga spinoff, "Rock Lee and his Ninja Pals," were listed as well. I was also able to add some of the more obscure British comedies like "Garth Marenghi’s DarkPlace" to my list.

Once you’ve added all of your shows, you can easily mark the ones you’ve already watched by selecting a specific show and tapping on the most recent episode you’ve seen. The app will ask if you would like to mark all previous episodes as “watched” and you can start keeping track from that moment forward.

You can tap the “To Watch” feature to see what is coming up this week, next week and next month. You can also see which shows have yet to have their new season release date set under “To Be Announced” and keep track of shows that have ended. Some shows will already have their upcoming season listed so you will know whether it has been renewed. For example, ABC’s "Once Upon a Time" shows three episodes listed under season 2, so I know it has been picked up for another season.

There is also a feature that lets you discover new shows. Tap the”Genius” button and you will see a list of shows that have been generated based on the shows on your list. I found the Genius section to be less than adequate. I added a couple of shows and then checked the section to see what was recommended and the list was OK. But after I added a bunch more shows that covered a wider variety of genres, the recommendations never changed. So, it really didn’t do much to help me find new shows.

The app is well organized and the user interface is intuitive and attractive. Being able to sync between your iPad and iPhone makes it even more useful. While $2.99 is a bit pricey, this app is perfect for anyone who follows multiple television shows and wants to keep track of which ones they’ve seen or need to catch up on.