Cool Stuff: iPhone Movie Apps Reviewed
Later this morning I will wait in the lines to get my hands on Apple's next generation iPhone. But yesterday Apple released the iPhone 2.0 software online, which includes the launch of the new App store. Over 500 little applications to download, about a quarter or so free. After spending some time distracted by the new goodies, I was able to test out the movie related applications that were released at launch. Let's take a look.
Box Office by Cyrus Najmabadi might not be the best app for movie times, but it offers a great feature that Movies.app is sadly missing. You can check movie scores from Rotten Tomatoes, which to me makes this a must have. You can browse theaters by distance using the iPhone 3G's new gps. Box Office gives you access to movie theater phone number and addresses, in case you want to get directions in Google Maps. The app also downloads the movie and theater information to your iPhone so that you can check back later even without an internet connection. But at the end of the day, this app is just a browser for movie showtimes.
Movies.app by Jeffrey Grossman is a slicker movie ticket application which focuses more on the movies than the showtimes. In addition to the standard features, you can watch movie trailers for most of the movie selections, take a look at last weekend's box office winners, and even preview a wide selection of movies coming soon in both limited and wide release. The movie profile pages also feature a lot of useful information not found in Najmabadi's Box Office app, like the running time, MPAA rating, and even a link to the IMDb page. As with most every iPhone app, Movies.app also features Google Map integration.
Avantar's OneTap Movies is the clear winner in the presentation category, but is it worth $1.99? Not compared to Box Office and Movies.app, both which are available for free. OneTap gives Geolocation local search results complete with posters, movie trailers, times, critic ratings, google maps intergration, imdb links, and more. Avantar is working on a free feature-lit version of the application called Showtimes.
Bruji's Pocketpedia keeps track of your collections, be it DVDs, Blu-ray discs, books, CDs, or Video Games. If you have a Mac, the program is able to sync your data from DVDpedia, Bookpedia, CDpedia and Gamepedia. The app also allows you to browse Amazon for price comparisons and reviews for those potential impulse buys. See something you want to buy next time you're at the mall? You can add the DVD to your Pocketpedia wishlist, for later retrieval. If you're a collector who needs to catalog your collection, then Pocketpedia is for you. And for the give-away price of $0.00, you can't loose much expect for your time.
And finally PhoneSaber is as fun as you might expect. You can swing your phone and make lightsaber sound effects. I swear I might have had fun for about 3 seconds, but not much longer. But you can't complain when it's free. I expect this app to disappear once LucasFilm learns of it's existence.
Sadly Amazon has not designed an app for IMDb.