Danny Gorog11 August 2008, 5:00 PM
Users of the electronic TV guide IceTV can now schedule recordings at home via their iPhone, thanks to a slick app.
The app, called
IceTV and available via the App Store, lets
IceTV subscribers 'remotely manage their TV recordings on their
IceTV Interactive compatible device'. If you're familiar with the powerful
IceTV widget for OS X, then you'll feel right at home on the iPhone app.
As well as the TV guide, familiar categories, like 'Favourites', 'Upcoming' and 'My Shows' are also available via the app.
Remote record functionality, called
IceTV interactive, is an additional service available to
many different
PVRs and media centres and lets users schedule recordings via the Internet. I use it at home with a
Beyonwiz PVR and
Elgato EyeTV and it works well.
While an
IceTV subscription costs $99/year, the free iPhone app lets anyone view a daily TV guide for free.
Setting up the
IceTV app is easy and took me less than 2 minutes. If you're not already a registered
IceTV user you'll need to
register. On first launch,
IceTV requires you input your
username
and password. If you're a full subscriber the app presents you with the
TV guide. To see another day or time simply tap the date arrow in the
top left hand corner and specify another time. Icons along the bottom
let you move between the different categories.
Because the app gets its data live from IceTV, it's always up-to-date. For instance, I scheduled my
PVR
to record the Olympic Opening Ceremony and this event appeared
with a red dot in my TV guide on the iPhone without me having to do anything. Scheduling an event on the
iPhone also lets you add it as a favourite, record it once, or record
the entire series.
In its short time on the App Store,
IceTV.app has already received 13 reviews, and might just be the first third party app lucky enough to crack the first page of my iPhone home screen.