TiVo brings 'What to Watch Now' feature to its iPad app
TiVo, the company that made its fortune by making you forget about live television, is now attempting to revamp the traditional TV guide with a new content-discovery feature for its iPad app. The feature, called "What to Watch Now," is similar in concept to TiVo's existing Discovery Bar, though the layout is different. Here, you get seven columns of tiles showing what's currently airing or what you've previously recorded. So whether you're in the mood for sports, prime time, movies, kids programming or whatever happens to be playing on your favorite channel, you're a tap away from watching it on your TV -- or directly on the iPad if you have a TiVo Stream. And of course you don't have to watch it right now; you can just as easily schedule a recording or season pass and watch it later.
The new feature does seem handy, but configurable options are minimal. Basically, you're limited to rearranging the columns into a different order and filtering out specific sports you have little interest in -- no, you can't remove sports completely. Speaking of sports, thanks to TiVo's partnership with Thuuz, some sporting event tiles have a number between zero and a 100 assigned to them to help draw your attention to the most exciting matches currently in play. The new feature is available immediately via the App Store as an update to the existing TiVo application.%Gallery-188567%
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TiVo Launching Customized Content Viewing Dashboard for iPad
"What to Watch Now" Combines Personalization with Bringing Viewers the Content They Want as Soon as They Turn on Their TV
TiVo is preparing to launch "What to Watch Now" for iPad. Part of TiVo's whole-home, multiscreen solution, "What to Watch Now" significantly improves the tablet experience by offering users content "feeds" based on viewership data and personal preferences.
Using "What to Watch Now," TiVo users are immediately presented with the programing they would most enjoy without surfing channels or browsing a guide. "What to Watch Now" assesses live programs airing within the next 30 minutes against real-time, regional viewing trends and user-defined preferences, to offer tailored entertainment recommendations categorized by genre, in easy to use format.
"What to Watch Now" users select movies and shows from six "feeds" that create a unique, personal and easy-to-use view of what matters most to them that they can watch immediately:
· Popular on TV
· Sports on Now, Powered By Thuuz
· Movies on TV
· Kids
· My Shows
· Favorite Channels
TiVo has further enhanced the "What to Watch Now" discovery experience for sports enthusiasts by partnering with Thuuz, a sports metadata provider that calculates the "excitement factor" for live sporting events, based on a zero to 100 scale. Games ranked as more exciting are denoted and listed with higher numbers, helping TiVo users immediately identify the must-watch sports game of the moment. Future releases of the application will add new feeds and information including social feeds, critic recommendations and more.
The TiVo App for iPad features a high-definition user interface, enabling users to view the guide, search, browse, explore and share their favorite entertainment – all without interrupting whatever is playing on their TV. Users can set and modify recordings, season passes and see where content is available between recordings, live TV and apps including NetFlix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video. The iPad app also provides access to explore the cast and crew of TV shows and movies extending the opportunity for discovery.
This update to the TiVo App also includes incremental changes that will further improve the user experience on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Access will be simplified, with a standalone login for users, as well as local storage of usernames and passwords. The inclusion of technology that can self-analyze the optimal connection state will make the TiVo experience faster, and background running will guarantee users' ability to re-engage their session where they left off, eliminating the need to restart the app or login at every use. The TiVo App is available for free from the App Store on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, or at www.itunes.com/appstore. To access "What to Watch Now" and the full spectrum of TiVo App features, users must have a TiVo Premiere or TiVo Premiere XL and an existing account with TiVo.
