Topic: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
Please post about anything you think will make the app better. All criticism is welcome 
- santah
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- toidol
- Man with too much money...
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
I have to say, you made one awesome app. Barney Stinson would be proud.
That said, I have a few thoughts:
1. In Stuff To Watch, the same [stop tracking] function as on the site.
2. In Stuff To Watch, when you select a show, it could go directly to the appropriate season. Say, I'm watching Buffy and I've just finished S02E20, when I click on Buffy in Stuff to Watch, I'd like it to go straight to Season 2, skipping the Season select.
3. The app seems a bit sluggish when it fetches something online for instance getting episode info takes up to three or four seconds. (This can of course be do to my connection / technical restrictions and additional optimization is impossible. If so, just ignore this part)
That's all I got for now.
3 2010-03-21 09:48:22 (edited by Salocin 2010-03-21 09:49:56)
- Salocin
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
There needs to be a setting for username and password to make linking with an existing account easier and more intuitive.
toidol wrote:
1. In Stuff To Watch, the same [stop tracking] function as on the site.
I second that
“Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind.” – Rincewind
- santah
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
toidol wrote:
2. In Stuff To Watch, when you select a show, it could go directly to the appropriate season. Say, I'm watching Buffy and I've just finished S02E20, when I click on Buffy in Stuff to Watch, I'd like it to go straight to Season 2, skipping the Season select.
It already does that. It doesn't do it only when you have removed seasons from Buffy, and haven't reloaded the stuff to watch (haven't navigated out and in). You'll notice that this will happen fairly rarely.
For the rest:
1) will add in the next update
3) shouldn't be slower than any other loading in the app, but will investigate
- karenbear
- Always Right
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
Any chance of the calendar view being more like the calendar on the site? It's one of my fav features here, and would be more useful to me than the 7 day list type view that is on there at the moment.
6 2010-03-21 10:22:44 (edited by Zyx 2010-03-21 10:44:34)
Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
karenbear wrote:
Any chance of the calendar view being more like the calendar on the site? It's one of my fav features here, and would be more useful to me than the 7 day list type view that is on there at the moment.
I agree, the only reason I use the calendar here is to see beyond the next 7 days and I love it.
Edit: now I've had a look around and the "what's next" works well enough as a calendar for me, if anything the "what's next" and calendar seem switched out with each other but I'm happy. I don't know about stuff to watch, I don't use it on the site very much but maybe I'll start using it now that all I have to do is pick up the phone. 
- toidol
- Man with too much money...
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
santah wrote:
toidol wrote:2. In Stuff To Watch, when you select a show, it could go directly to the appropriate season. Say, I'm watching Buffy and I've just finished S02E20, when I click on Buffy in Stuff to Watch, I'd like it to go straight to Season 2, skipping the Season select.
It already does that. It doesn't do it only when you have removed seasons from Buffy, and haven't reloaded the stuff to watch (haven't navigated out and in). You'll notice that this will happen fairly rarely.
For the rest:
1) will add in the next update
3) shouldn't be slower than any other loading in the app, but will investigate
I'm not sure what you mean with removed season, but I have navigated repeatedly in and out of stuff to watch. I noticed it goes automatically to the right season when there's only one season with unwatched episodes but when you have more (like I have with Buffy, 2 episodes of S2 and all of seasons 3-7) you have to select season when you select the show in stuff to watch. Or am I just doing it wrong..?
- santah
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
How would it know where to go "automatically" if you have more than 1 season? It should assume you wanna go to the first season available?
- toidol
- Man with too much money...
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
That's what I was thinking. One usually watches episodes in order. but if possible, it could work with a similar setup to to the site. One 'active' season and rest hidden.
- Wizard
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
Fantastic app santah.! Now I can see what's coming up without firing up my laptop.
Here is what I have found so far...
1. Then viewing a shows details (use "Stargate Universe" for this example) the Similar shows links disappear off the screen rather than wrapping round.
2. The top coloured bar for episodes is black instead of orange. Should be orange I think.
3. The "Summary" button for a single episode goes to a page that does not fit with the rest of the app. Like it has been forgotten. 
Font size/type, black bar at top.
4. When loading take and taking a while a large box with the timer spinner saying "please wait" or "loading" might be an idea. A box similar to the volume box (semi-transparent and large)
Please don't think I am being awkward and nit-picking, just want a perfect app for you and us.
DRM "manages access" in the same way that Prison "manages freedom".
http://xkcd.com/488/
http://xkcd.com/488/
- santah
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
1. try swiping in there, it'll scroll horizontally that's a feature, not a bug
2,3,4, sure, design can be tweaked app-wide. Will try to improve it for the next version
Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
I just want to point out that for me loading each page takes less than half a second on 3G and slightly longer on wlan (the wlan where I happen to be right now is horrible though). The only thing that takes a few seconds to load is all the show icons in any long list with them but they don't seem to take much longer than e.g. icons in the store either, so not really a problem in my opinion. I did notice once that it didn't load the last 3 icons but it hasn't happened since so I don't know.
I just wanted to point out that it isn't slow for everyone, might not be the app itself that makes it slow? I don't know, all I really know isn't slow for me.
- Caboto
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
First of all, great app! The look and feel is great, the design is nice, the hints are nice (and very beginner-friendly), the navigation is intuitiv and it's really fast! A very well-done app!
Nevertheless, some suggestions (and one bug I already found):
- As for the "Jump directly to a season": It's a bit strange like it is now. I have 3 seasons of Mad Men in my watchlist and I have watched the first episode of the first season. The app doesn't jump directly to the first season, but to the season overview.
- It would be nice, to be able to edit the navigation bar items. I only need "My Shows" for adding new ones or deleting an existing one. But I would like to have "Top shows" instead at my fingertips. So something like rearranging just like in the iPod App from Apple would be really nice.
- As said: Linking the App should be done in the settings, of course. At the moment I don't even see, that my app is link with my account.
- A "stop tracking" feature just like on the site, would also be nice. But you already said, it will come.
- In my Stuff to watch, I have three weird entries, that won't show on the site. "Virtuality", "Prison Break: Cherry Hill" and "Boardwalk Empire". All of them don't have any episodes information available and all of them are dated Sat Nov 11, 2006. Don't know, why they show...
- I have the feeling, that the app very often reloads. Even when I don't close the app and go to the calendar again (after checking something off my watchlist), it sometimes reload. It don't take long, quite the contrary it's really fast. But it bugs me, when nothing was changed and after 2 minutes, the app just reloads again.
- A splash screen would be nice instead of an empty UI after starting the app. For example just the App icon on a black background and with Next-Episode beneath it.
- When you navigate with the "Similar" links of a show through two or more shows, and you tap fast enough the back button (which is currently named "Details", what is a bit confusing), it sometimes accept the tap on the button and show the next button, but don't actually navigate to the right site. Here's what I mean happens: http://twitpic.com/19zw3w (notice the "Recent/Calendar" at the top).
Again: I'm really happy how this app turned out. It's really nice, fast and intuitiv. I hope, that many other people will find and use your app and you can benefit from the money a little bit! :-)
Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
Too many hints! Santah, I just baught the app
as soon as i started using it...in 1 minute I got like 15 hints...I know it's good for usability but you have to consider user experience also, with this many hints, maybe it's smarter to hide them in some kind of "about" or "faq"
15 2010-03-21 11:36:25 (edited by toidol 2010-03-21 11:42:14)
- toidol
- Man with too much money...
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
In what order is the stuff to watch? Most recent episode first? Alphabetical by show(like on the site and in My Shows -section) could be better.
Edit: sorry, didn't mean to sound like a brat, just wanted to point this out and forgot to read my
text to check for tone before posting.
Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
Is there an option to import my account from the site to the apps? I have lots of apps already in the selected in the site.
- karenbear
- Always Right
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
Altryne wrote:
Is there an option to import my account from the site to the apps? I have lots of apps already in the selected in the site.
Read the news item on the front page. 
- santah
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
Caboto wrote:
- In my Stuff to watch, I have three weird entries, that won't show on the site. "Virtuality", "Prison Break: Cherry Hill" and "Boardwalk Empire". All of them don't have any episodes information available and all of them are dated Sat Nov 11, 2006. Don't know, why they show...
Fixed, you shouldn't see those anymore
Reloading of data should only occur when it's needed. Please let me know if you detect that a screen reloads when you're sure nothing concerning the reloading screen has been modified ...
As for the rest - good suggestions
- Salocin
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
It's not really related to the app, but since the forums aren't included in it, could you maybe create a "mobile skin" for them so that they're easier to navigate with mobile safari (and other mobile browsers)?
“Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind.” – Rincewind
- BlackBox
- Back from Black
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
First things first - awesome app santah! I never spent 0.79 Euro more willingly 
Now let's cut to the chase:
As mentioned before:
- account linkage should be in the settings
- stuff-to-watch feature needs the stop-tracking feature!
- stuff-to-watch feature has chaotic ordering - should be alphanumerical
- menu button order should be configurable
- hints should be manually available - like a help function
- creating an account should be possible through the app
- I also don't find the "similar" buttons slide is intuitive, why not implement it with the spinning wheel widget?
What I find should also be changed:
- images have a wrong AR - we added them in 1.365:1 and not 1:1 - and there is enough space in the app
- in the settings the "My shows only" should be activated by default
- the recent list doesn't show one list if a list is empty - there should be a small notice like "no shows (today|yesterday|tomorrow) on (the|your) watchlist"
- it's not intuitive what the calendar shows. It should be configurable in the settings for past and future days (max 7) and the list should say "last" or "next" infront of the weekday
- stuff-to-watch feature is not intuitive if you want to mark an episode as watched and there is more than one episode (or season) left. If you swipe then ALL seasons and episodes are marked as watched. IMHO in this case the swipe to mark as watched should be disabled. You should have to tick once more to get to the season or episode overview of that show. Then you can mark an complete season or a single episode as watched.
- the show details don't include the manual show infos - this would be extremely useful for the inactive shows! At least there should be a hint "No information available" if there is no next episode scheduled. Completely ommiting this part is misleading.
- the "seasons / episode listings" button is not intuitive. The design should be like a big orange button as for the episodes in the season view (after you clicked this button)
- why is there no "summary" button for the next episode???
- the channel and airtime should be present in the details of a show
Bugs:
- some hints have typos, or have completely redundand text like the one for "Manage Watched"
- the episodes in the Manage Watched feature have no air date at all it's always "Thu Jan 01 1970". Also missing episode titles should be filtered, it's somtimes empty and the details lead to an empty page. (check Caprica 1x00)
Finally I don't get the "Top Shows" feature. Are these the shows most user have on their watchlist, are best rated?
Anyway - great app! And maybe soon the ancient shoutbox could be implemented as part of the "Social" page
21 2010-03-21 17:14:48 (edited by Nick 2010-03-21 22:51:30)
- Nick
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
1. I agree, hints are useful for beginners but annoying for others! Should be able to enable/disable in settings.
2. When I visit the page for a specific show I'd rather see info on the NEXT episode rather than the previous episode (or just show both).
edit: Ok nevermind its just shows that dont have definite dates for, any chance we could have the "our latest info" bit on there too?
3. In the My Shows list I'm getting several shows with 3/4+ duplicate entries. eg, the big bang theory is listed 4 times.
4. In the My Shows section, how about having the alphabet down the side like on the phonebook to easily scroll through the list?
- proteinnerd
- Revolutionary
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Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
Looks good Santah, I'll get back to you, and write a review for itunes when I've had a chance to play with it and work out what I'm supposed to do with it lol
Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
The app looks real good,well done
things i would like in future updates
1. The option to have no thumbnails on the recent/calendar pages so that you can see more without having to scroll alot if, like me, a user has many shows on a daily basis.
2. Just like KB I would love to see the calendar resemble something like whats on the webpage where you can see the whole month or maybe like the next two weeks on a grid. i regularly look at the calendar from the webpage on my iphone horizontally viewing about 10-12 days on screen (granted my eyesight is very good)
Keep up the good work, looks great and runs smooth on my wi-fi. Will need to give it a 3G test in the next couple of days but I am sure it will perform well.
Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
hmmm what about a summary of the next ep?
right now I can see summary of the last aired app
how about adding a suymmary for the next sheduled app antah?
Re: Criticism, comments, suggestions, requests?
I just want to say thank you to santah, I've been waiting for this app since I got my iPhone Just bought it and it's really really really GREAT!
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