Technology Pak

10 Mobile Apps for Movie Addicts

The Movie and Tech Series is supported by DVDVideoSoft. Discover Free Studio, a full collection of free software to process video, images and audio at DVDVideoSoft.com. Clean, free and user-friendly.

One of the greatest things about the burgeoning smartphone app market is all the apps, tools and games for movie lovers. Beyond just finding movie times and getting actor or director information, these apps can actually enhance the moviegoing experience itself by making it easier to manage your personal collections, rent movies online and even find out when it’s safe to skip out for a restroom break.
With several hundred thousand apps in the App StoreApp Store

and Android MarketAndroid Market

, it’s pretty tough to cover every app out there for movie fans. That’s why we’ve taken the time to try out and recommend 10 apps for movie addicts who want to get the most out of the movie watching experience.
We tried to stay as platform neutral as possible, picking apps (or alternatives) for iPhoneiPhone

, AndroidAndroid

and BlackBerryBlackBerry Rocks!

users. Feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments below.

1. Movies/Movies HD – iPhone and iPad, Movie Collection for Android

How big is your personal DVD/BluBlu

-ray/downloaded movie collection? If you’re anything like me, it’s pretty massive. My problem is, I often forget which movies or TV shows I actually own. This leads to me rebuying stuff I already have. I know, I know, First World Problem. Fortunately, with smartphones, there is a First World Solution, too. A number of apps help you manage and keep track of your personal library and access those libraries on the go.
Movies for iPhone [iTunes link] is $3.99 and it is as a great way to view your movie collection, plus it can use the iPhone camera to scan the UPC code from your DVD or Blu-ray discs. This will remind many Mac users of the fantastic Delicious Library app. You can even import your existing databases from movie collecting apps like Delicious Library, Collectorz or DVD Profiler.
At $4.99, Movies HD [iTunes link] is the iPad version of the app, which brings the feature set to a bigger device (sans UPC scanning, of course, due to the iPad’s lack of a camera) and makes it easy to add details or search your collection.
For Android owners, the $1.99 Movie Collection doesn’t have all the bells and whistles or database support types, but it’s a good start for movie collectors on the go.

2. Movies by Flixster – Android, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry

The FlixsterFlixster

movie community has apps for iPhone, Android, Palm Pre, BlackBerry and mobile web enabled phones.
If you’re not familiar with Flixster, it’s a great community for rating movies, getting showtimes, watching trailers, seeing what your friends think of movies, seeing the Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes

score and, on the iPhone and Android apps, managing your Netflix queue.

3. IMDb – Android, iPhone, iPad

The best movie database on the planet recently turned 20 years old, and it’s still just as young and spritely as ever before.
Last December, IMDbimdb

finally managed to release an official mobile app for iPhone, making the mobile browsing experience of finding “who was the guy in this episode of CSI: Miami” a little less painful.
When the iPad was released, IMDb made its iOS app universal [iTunes link], taking advantage of the new screen real estate on the iPad. This summer, IMDb for Android was released, completing the trifecta, so to speak.
The mobile apps offer a superior browsing experience while on a mobile device and also make it easy to get information about showtimes for movies or TV shows.

4. Turner Classic Movies – Android, iPhone, BlackBerry App World

When Turner Classic Movies released its iPhone app at the beginning of the year, we were really impressed by the $2.99 app.
In the ensuing months, TCM has managed to release the app for Android Market and BlackBerry App World as well. The app is $2.99 on each platform but offers the same solid experience of schedules, photos, trivia, movie history, photos and more. If you love classic movies, definitely add this one to your collection.

5. Get Glue – iPhone, iPad, Android

We’re big fans of GetGlue, the social sharing and recommendation service. Its mobile apps for iPhone, Android and iPad add to the overall experience by letting you check in to various types of media, including movies.
For movie fans, the great thing about the GetGlue apps is that you can get recommendations from the service based on your likes, see what your friends like and also earn points and stickers toward upcoming movies.
It’s a great way to augment the movie-watching experience.

6. LOVEFiLM UK for iPhone, droids LOVEFiLM for Android

In the United States, we have Netflix. In the UK, LOVEFiLMLOVEFiLM

is the movie rental service of movie rental services.
If you’re looking for a way to manage your LOVEFiLM queue on an iPhone or Android phone, you’re in luck.
The iPhone has an official LOVEFiLM app [iTunes link] that lets you manage your queue, rate titles and watch trailers. The unofficial droids LOVEFiLM isn’t as pretty and it doesn’t let you manage your rentals unless you buy the paid version, but it still does the job.

7. iPhlix for iPhone, iPhlix HD for iPad, NetQ or PhoneFlicks for Android

Netflix’s Watch Instantly service is on practically every consumer electronics device on the market today — including Blu-ray players, TV sets, Apple TV, Roku, Xbox 360, Wii and PlayStation 3. However, the queue management experience is not universally awesome. If you have a Roku, Apple TV or PS3, it’s pretty solid. The other systems make managing your queue and searching and adding movies less easy to do via the TV interface.
Fortunately, there are tons of Netflix queue management mobile apps on the market. I’ve tried most of them for iPhone and my favorite continues to be iPhlix [iTunes link]. At $2.99, this is just the most consistent app, in my experience, and it makes it easy to manage your discs or Instant Queue, while also letting you rate movies, see new releases and more.
The iPad version is $4.99 and really takes advantage of the larger screen size by making it easier to rate movies, view rating and add various films to your queue.
On the Android side, again, there are lots of options. PhoneFlicks (free) is pretty similar to its iOS counterpart and isn’t a bad app for basic management. NetQ is $0.99 for the ad-free version and it also lets you search YouTubeYouTube

for a movie trailer, which is a nice touch.

8. Redbox for iPhone, RedBoxer for Android

Closing out the DVD management apps is Redbox. Redbox is the uber-cheap kiosk rental service that has turned Hollywood on its head.
The official iPhone app [iTunes link] is free and actually quite awesome. You can see which movies are available in your area and where, and you can reserve a movie and access maps to nearby Redbox locations near you.
RedBoxer for Android is $1.99 but it lets you bookmark movies, locate kiosks on Google MapsGoogle Maps

and reserve movies from the app.

9. Scene it? Series for iPhone and iPad

The Scene it? series [iTunes link] of apps for iPhone and iPad are really fantastic. The apps feature tons of high-quality movie clips, are available in a variety of different categories and — at $1.99 for iPhone and $4.99 for iPad — are pretty inexpensive.
If you are familiar with the Scene it? board game, you’ll know how this game works. Get a question based on a movie clip and race to give the right answer. On the iPad especially, this is a great party game.

10. RunPee for iPhone and Android

RunPee is an interesting idea for an app. It alerts you when it is “safe” to run the bathroom during a movie. This is convenient for those times you down too much movie theater soda during the 40 minutes of commercials and previews and find yourself needing to use the facilities or play the waiting game.
I’m usually not a fan of leaving the movie theater during a movie, but sometimes the alternative can be equally unpleasant. You could wind up having to use the men’s room after seeing SexSEX and the City: The Movie (the first one, not the sequel) because the line for the ladies was around the corner. True story.
RunPee is frequently updated and is a free app for both iPhone [iTunes link] and Android. You can get alerts when it’s safe to run and when you need to be back, but be aware, the break descriptions can sometimes spoil elements of the movie, so try not to read too much in advance. Additionally, be a good movie goer and keep the iPhone or Droid time to a minimum so that your seatmates don’t get distracted.

Your Picks

What are some of your favorite apps to enhance the movie watching experience? Let us know in the comments!

Series Supported by DVDVideoSoft

The Movies and Tech Series is supported by DVDVideoSoft, which offers a collection of safe and reliable video, audio and image freeware programs. DVDVideoSoft Free Studio is a collection of more than thirty different utilities designed to go beyond the limitations of the standard WindowsWindows operating system and provide you with new ways to enjoy music and videos the way you choose. Learn more here.

Nokia C3 Review in Detail

Nokia's C3 is a companion to the recently launched, and well-received, C5 and a lookalike for the perennial favourite E72. But don't, for a single moment, labour under the illusion that it is a direct competitor for, or update of, the E72.

With an asking price of £119 direct from Nokia and as little as £80 elsewhere SIM free it's obviously a budget buy.

Our review sample came from Vodafone, where it costs £80 on PAYG. The E72 still costs over £250 SIM free by comparison.

The E series is definitely aimed primarily at the business community, though E handsets have found favour elsewhere. The C series is aimed at people who want a budget handset and also want good communications features, hence the mini QWERTY keyboard that adorns the front and built-in Ovi Maps and Ovi Chat.

Facebook and Twitter feeds can be delivered live to the main screen, and Wi-Fi helps you keep a handle on data usage. You'll need that, actually, because this handset lacks 3G. You'll be relying on GPRS and EDGE for all your network based data comms.

The Nokia C3 comes in three colours. Our review sample was the slate grey option, which is really more blue than grey and a nice enough shade. There are also hot pink (eek!) and golden white versions.

The outer shell is shiny and we found it rather attractive to greasy fingermarks. The back has a matt finish, which is easier to grip and less prone to smears.

The dominant feature of the Nokia C3 is its QWERTY keyboard, which occupies the bottom section of the front fascia. There is a good array of nicely-spaced buttons sitting above this.

The D-pad is large and easy to use and there are two raised silver buttons. On our Vodafone-provided Nokia C3, the right-hand one can be customised immediately – you are walked through the process the first time you hit it.

The left-hand one takes you to Communities – a collective noun for Facebook and Twitter. More on that shortly.

Sitting inside these buttons on the flat fascia of the handset are two icons. You'll need to be precise, but pressing the one marked with the Messages icon took us to MyWeb (Vodafone's 360 service), while the other dropped us into Contacts.

There are also soft menu buttons and the Call and End buttons in this area, the latter doubling up as the on/off switch.

As is often the case, Nokia has made a very good job of the key quality and layout. We really find it difficult to fault.

The sides are fairly minimal in terms of buttons and connectors, though the elements present are where you'd expect to find them. The 3.5mm headset connector sits happily on the top edge alongside the main power connector.

On the left side are mains power and PC connectors (micro-USB) and microSD card slot, both of which are protected by hinged covers. Towards the bottom of this edge is a quick release catch for the backplate.

The right side is black apart from a second quick-release catch, and the bottom edge, which is rather more curved than the top edge, is also blank.

All is not sweetness and light, though. This isn't a small handset, yet the screen is compromised. The Nokia C3 measures 115.5 x 58.1 x 13.6mm and it weighs 114g.

With those dimensions you might expect more than a 2.4-inch screen – we think technically Nokia could have run to larger but the budget probably held things back. Delivering 320 x 240 pixels it is far from ideal for media-rich activities like web browsing.

Nokia C3: Interface

The Nokia C3 is a Symbian handset, which won't come as a big surprise to anybody. However, it runs Symbian S40, which, rather like the unfortunate younger brother in a Jane Austen novel who has to go into the church to make a living, is a far, far lesser thing than its S60 sibling.

And we're afraid S40 doesn't have the saving grace of being morally sound, lovely to be around and generally a good egg.

No, Symbian S40 feels cut down, hampered and, well, quite simply less than its big brother.

If you've never experienced S60 then you probably won't mind this, but to us the whole thing feels out of step.

Still, the Home screen offers a range of information and application shortcuts so that it looks quite busy and is very useful.

The first row of information is a set of shortcuts to contacts. Five are visible at any one time, with little thumbnail pictures of them. Beneath these is the Communities area.

Before you sign in to Facebook and Twitter there's a blank space here. Sign in to one or both of these and you can see updates, but only for whichever you select as the main account.

You use the D-pad to see older updates. Click the centre of the D-pad to go to a proper app for each service. Multiple accounts for both Facebook and Twitter are supported and it's easy to flick between them to choose different ones as the main account.

It is also easy to go to the Facebook and Twitter apps themselves. It's all very slick and on its own makes the C3 a great handset for social networking.

Beneath this is the Shortcut bar which shows shortcuts to five different apps. You can personalise these so that they show the apps you access most frequently.

And, in fact, you can personalise all three areas, so that they show other things instead of the presets. Options include calendar data, Ovi Chat, notifications and WLAN status.

On the main screen the two softkeys are mapped to the Web and a quick Go To selection of more shortcuts, while the centre of the D-pad takes you to the main apps menu. The whole thing is, as you'd expect from Nokia, extremely slick.

Nokia C3: Calls and messaging

Making voice calls is a breeze. If the person you want to call is not on your favorites list you can tap the aforementioned front fascia shortcut to get to your full contacts listing.

Alternatively, simply start tapping out a number on the keyboard. The handset assumes you want to enter letters and not numbers, and off you go.

There is a sneaky extra here too. If you want a countdown timer, you can just type in the countdown time you want in the format hhmmss and then choose this from the Options menu on the left softkey. If you want a three minute timer, for example, just enter 0300 for 03 minutes, 00 seconds. Leave a note if you want, then start the timer running.

You can send SMS messages to hand-entered numbers too, of course, though it's more likely that you'll want to do that for people in your contact book via the messaging app or direct from their contact data.

Entering contacts by hand is a multi-step process. First you enter a number, first name and last name on consecutive screens. Then you can add a photo and what the handset calls 'detail'.

One level of detail is additional phone numbers – mobile, home, work and in a rather old fashioned way, fax (we can't remember when we last sent a fax), as well as a 'general' number category.

Another level of detail is internet contact info which amounts to URL and email address. No Twitter handle, Facebook name or any other online moniker is catered for.

Next you can assign calling tones images and videos to a contact, and finally you can add what the Nokia C3 calls personal info (like the rest of the info isn't personal!).

That amounts to postal address, birthday, any note you may want to make, formal name, nickname, company, and job title.

It takes ages to enter a new contact using this multi-layered system, and it's a real pain. Nokia really should have just given one long screen on which we could choose to enter the data we want.

SMS creation is straightforward and if you sign up for them Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat are included in the package of what's available under messaging.

With Ovi Chat you can access Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Nokia's own Ovi Chat.

The best news of all with regard to messaging is that that the keyboard is superb. Nokia really does know how to make mini QWERTY keyboards. The keys are well designed, individually domed, and have a good return so they feel great under the fingers.

It is easily as good as the keyboard we remember from the Nokia E72, and with separate @ and . keys entering email and web addresses is a breeze.

Nokia C3: Internet

With 3G missing from the specs line-up Internet access has to rely on Wi-Fi or the GPRS/EDGE connection. We'd really advocate the former wherever possible. In fact, if you want to download any kind of data, such as for Ovi Maps, direct to the handset, using Wi-Fi is a must.

The real problem with the Nokia C3 as far as internet access is concerned isn't the lack of 3G, though – it's the small screen. As already noted, it measures 2.4-inches across diagonal corners and delivers 320 x 240 pixels.

Quite simply, that isn't enough. There's barely enough space to get the TechRadar home page header on screen let alone view any content without scrolling. Cutting the zoom level down to 50 percent enables you to you see more, but text is too small to read.

It takes rather a long time for larger pages like the TechRadar home page to be zoomed into and out of, too, leaving you with a tedious wait. And no, there's no way to get the screen into tall format. No accelerometer and no manual page swivel either.

Other sites fare little better unless you go for the mobile versions and even then the lack of height on screen means you can't see an awful lot at once.

Nokia C3:Camera

The Nokia C3's camera shoots at a mere 2MP, and is another area where the relatively low cost of this handset is immediately apparent.

There are almost no settings to play with. You can fiddle with effects choosing between greyscale, sepia, negative and normal, and choose between four white balance settings: automatic, daylight, incandescent, fluorescent.

It has quite a slow shutter speed, so you'll have to hold the camera steady to get non-shaky shots of your subject. The time lag between clicking the centre of the D-pad to shoot and your photo being taken is mercifully short but you'll still need a steady hand, and if you want to photograph moving subjects you could be in trouble.

It is very, very much basic stuff, and the video camera is no better, shooting to just two resolutions of 320 x 240 and 176 x 144, either with or without sound.

The default setting for video length, incidentally, is for MMS messages, so your first capture may cut off disappointingly early – as ours did!

It is easy to change the setting to the maximum length your memory medium can support, though.

CRUSHED WHITES: The sun was bright on the day we took this photo, and the camera really struggled to balance its colours. It decided the trees were most important, and so the building right of shot is a photographic disaster.

DETAIL: There is a lack of definition in this fairly close-up photo of flowers, but the colour is pretty close to what it should be and the focus is reasonable unless you look at the top-left edge of the picture, which for some reason is all squiffy.

MID-RANGE: With mid-distance shots, the camera copes reasonably well, and the quality of the detail here is more impressive than we'd anticipated.

LACK OF VIBRANCY: The camera has done the right thing here by focussing on the playground apparatus rather than the fence in the front of the photo, but the image itself is not particularly vibrant. Another victim of a sunny day!

For its low-resolution, video shooting was surprisingly good. The camera compensates for changes in light pretty well – and except when it was pointing directly at the sun it did a passable job.

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Sunday, December 26, 2010