Comments on: TV Forecast 1.0.1 Now Pending Approval

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:43:04 +0000

Hi there…

First of all i’d like to say that TV Forecast rules.. so far i only used the web based interface and it is awesome.. now i got the app (v1.0.1) for my iPhone. At first i was amazed by it but after i disconnected the WiFi and wanted to open the app again all the shows stated TBA…

It’s disappointing to see the the app doesn’t cache the data about the shows and you need an active internet connection everytime you want to use the app. As i see it the app should cache the data whenever there is an active internet connection and work with that data until the next update…

Anyways… don’t get me wrong i don’t want to criticize, i just want to point out my opinion. Maybe you haven’t thought of it before and hopefuly the next version will have this feature too. Without this feature the app is less appealing (to me) than the safari/web option… with Safari i only have to load the page once, disconnect the WiFI and everytime i open safari there it is.

in closing i’d like to say that the app is great it just needs some more tweaks here and there
kind wishes and keep up the good work

By: Manu

Manu — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:51:51 +0000

Great work on TV Forecast! One feature that might be useful would be a way to have automatic email reminders of all upcoming shows in our list (rather than having to select each one individually to be emailed). In addition, a cool feature would be to get a text message reminder for an upcoming show an hour before it’s air time (the advanced warning can be customizable, for example).

By: marciton

marciton — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:37:13 +0000

Hello,
for me 1 thing miss : Yesterday show!
we’ve today/Tomorrow and the next week , but it’s quite interesting to know the one show yesterday…
what do you think?

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:49:44 +0000

Very readable at work, but when I downloaded it at home, the font looks weird and like an outline. Did something change?

By: Casper

Casper — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:18:44 +0000

I saw an old post where you said you’d consider porting this to yahoo widgets or something so it can be used on PC’s is this ever likely to happen? Or can someone recommend something? I can’t find anything like it

By: drbashir

drbashir — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:33:42 +0000

first I had the dashboard widget, then used the iPhone web version and now I got iPhone app. This developer is simply amazing… Love these apps… Still use all three but this new app us the killer!

By: Mike Piontek

Mike Piontek — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 04:43:19 +0000

Thanks Matt! After a lot of digging, I DID finally figure out how to view and add alternative listings for shows:

- Search for a show and click the link to view its Home page
- On the left side, click Episode Contribs
- Click Alternate Airdates

From there it’s relatively straightforward, you can choose the country you’re adding air dates for and pick the date and time. I went through and added the Sci Fi airdates for Gurren Lagann… They’re currently waiting for approval. Hopefully that will allow them to show up in TV Forecast? Perhaps not though, if it’s seeing that the series has “ended” and then disabling it.

I can definitely appreciate the advantage of having feeds and services you can hook into! Keep up the great work.

By: Matt Comi

Matt Comi — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 04:17:51 +0000

@Mike Piontek Yep, I see your point. I don’t know this show but I see that it ran to completion in Japan and is now airing in the US. In these situations, I think TVRage usually includes a separate listing, something like Gurren Lagann (US) – but not this time.

I will certainly separate the search results into “Airing” and “Ended” so as to make it obvious why a particular show can’t be added.

The main reason for the switch to TVRage is that it is third-party friendly, (providing feeds, web services and the like) unlike TV.com that requires scraping. Cheers for the feedback and congratulations on the success of your app.

By: Mike Piontek

Mike Piontek — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 03:56:35 +0000

If I do a search for Gurren Lagann, the iPhone app brings up “Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann”, which is the full Japanese title for the show. It’s dimmed out though, which is very confusing. I kept tapping it, looking for an “add” button, etc… It looked like perhaps it was disabled, but with no explanation it was not clear at all. Later when I searched for another show, I saw both enabled and disabled results, so it made more sense. But it’s still a bit odd that it would bother to show a result I can’t do anything with!

Now that I look at TVRage.com, I understand a bit more what’s going on: they have an entry for the show, but no US listings. Disappointing, since it’s currently airing on Sci-Fi (for the first time in the US), and has been for several weeks now.

I found this all particularly frustrating since the show came up perfectly fine in the widget. If you do continue using different databases for the two, I’d recommend at least making a note that TVRage.com is used in the description for the app. For two products with the same name from the same developer, I’d at least expect the same data. It looks to me like TVRage is pretty useless for pretty much anyone that watches foreign TV shows. The site only lets you select a single air date for an episode.

It’s a shame because I love the app otherwise, but it isn’t very useful to me if I can’t keep track of all the shows I’m watching.

By: Matt Comi

Matt Comi — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 03:51:59 +0000

@B. Erdik Version 1.0.1 just hit the store. This version fixes the problem you’re talking about.

@AgentSmith Yep, the next episode of Desperate Housewives is marked as TBA at TVRage also. It can take them a little while to update the listing after an episode airs.