Amazon’s LoveFilm starts adding Watchlist feature to its streaming apps, kicking off with PS3
Amazon’s LoveFilm has announced a new version of its streaming app for connected devices, kicking off today in the UK and Germany with the PS3.
The new incarnation of LoveFilm Instant, version 2.0 for the PS3, is available to download now and you will be prompted to perform the update when you try to launch the LoveFilm app.
LoveFilm Instant 2.0
The updated app features a refreshed search function and recommendation engine, designed to surface more content, a new Watchlist feature and a new interface that’s geared towards improving the way users browse the latest films and TV shows.
These features now mirror the update that was rolled out to the Web-based version of the app last year, when it announced it was getting a search makeover, before adding the Watchlist feature similar to what already existed on Netflix.
With Watchlists, users can create an unlimited streaming playlist, and will obviously be synced across devices which is particularly useful for those who like to watch on their tablets, laptops and consoles.
To add a show to your Watchlist, you hit the ‘Select’ button on the PS3 controller when browsing, or hit the ‘Add to Watchlist’ button on the page itself.
Your Watchlist can be accessed from the homescreen.
The app also makes revisiting content a little more easy, with a new homescreen display that tracks what content is currently being viewed, and the last location reached in that specific video – this makes it easier to resume viewing on a different device.
In very related news, movies and TV shows are now available in HD on the PS3 for the first time, but only in the UK and Germany.
Amazon acquired LoveFilm in January 2011, though the company has been operating since 2002 – originally as a DVD mailout service similar to Netflix. It’s now moving more towards the streaming realm.
While it is largely a UK-centric company, it has started operating in other European countries, serving Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.
LoveFilm Instant is available for PC, Mac, Nintendo Wii/Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire, iPad and a range of Web-enabled TV sets and Blu-ray players.
Though this latest update is hitting the PS3 first, the new app will be rolling out to all platforms shortly.
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TNW Pick of the Day: Timeless is a beautifully simple timer app for iPhone
A quick perusal of the App Store reveals no shortage of timer apps. Some are a little more complex and intricate, such as Timer, others focus more on being beautiful and simple…like Timer.
Yet another iOS timer app has hit our radar, however, going by the name of Timeless. And we think you’ll like it.
Timeless
Timeless is an incredibly simple app for iPhone and iPod touch, allowing you to set multiple timers using nothing but taps and swipes. This could be for if you’re cooking a meal, waiting for something to come on TV and everything in between.
When you get past the opening intro screen, the first thing you’ll see is the countdown timer, set to 00:00.
Each column, for hours and minutes, is scrollable and takes seconds – if you’ll pardon the pun – to set your desired time.
Given you can set multiple countdowns, you can add a tag manually to each one, so you know what is what. It’s probably worth noting the one obvious flaw here too – you can only set hours and minutes. It would be good to set a countdown for, say, 90 seconds.
For each timer, you can pause or resume at any point via the small button at the bottom center, while clicking the ‘bell’ icon lets you tweak vibration and audio alert settings.
You can also double-tap anywhere to start/stop each timer, which is a nice touch.
You swipe right to start a new timer, and swipe left/right to navigate between the various ones you’ve set up.
When a timer expires, you get a notification on your homescreen, as well as any audio alert you’ve set up.
Oh, and while this app has been out for a few weeks already, the latest update also sees a stopwatch feature brought in. To enable this, you simply have to hit the ‘Play’ button when the timer is at 00:00.
There’s a settings menu that lets you set the default sound/notifications and sound effects. And crucially, for an app that relies heavily on looks, you can change the color themes too.
Timeless is really all about the usability and the ‘look and feel’, and on this front it delivers. It’s the latest in a line of apps that combine simplicity and aesthetics to deliver something really great – check out Currency Converter too.
Timeless is available to download from the App Store now, costing $0.99 or your local currency equivalent.
Feature Image Credit – Thinkstock
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TNW Pick of the Day: Apps Notifier is an easy way to create a watchlist for iOS app updates
Some of the most useful apps out there are also the simplest. That’s why I’m quite taken by Apps Notifier, which lets you monitor Apple’s App Store for specific updates, including versions, price changes, ratings and more.
You create a watchlist of apps and, when they’re updated based on the criteria you specify, you receive a notification.
How it works
You don’t need to create an account or anything – when you first launch the app, you’re good to go. Simply enter the names of some apps you particularly want to keep your eye on.
Hit the little ‘Cross’ icon next to the app, and it’s added to your watchlist. You can only monitor 10 apps at a time, which is a bit of a drawback, but not a deal-breaker.
You can view details about the update directly from the watchlist, without clicking through to the actual app.
For each app, you can easily specify which features you wish to track – it could be ratings, file size, languages, description, price and, importantly, version. When an app gets an update, you’ll see a message on your homescreen.
Prior to this latest update, Apps Notifier didn’t let you specify which elements you’d like to monitor – so it was difficult to tell from looking at an app whether it had new images, a new price, description or what.
With this latest update, what we have is a genuinely useful app. Developers can track competitors, journalists can track companies and consumers can track updates for price-drops and more.
Apps Notifier is the handiwork of Canada-based Pretzil Inc, which produces a couple of other app-discovery apps. But Apps Notifier is a nice addition to its armory of apps, given it strips out all the noise and just lets you monitor specific elements of an app.
Apps Notifier is free to download now.
Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service.
Feature Image Credit – Thinkstock
Originally posted here: TNW Pick of the Day: Apps Notifier is an easy way to create a watchlist for iOS app updates
Facebook’s Home On Android Could Give You A Sixth Sense For Your Social Life
Constant, close contact with your friends. That’s the promise of a “Facebook phone.” The modified Android OS and mobile homescreen replacement that sources tell us Facebook will unveil April 4th pushes your social life to you so fetching it isn’t interruptive. The news feed brought us ambient intimacy, but Facebook’s homescreen could turn that social graph awareness into a sixth sense.
While it only takes a quarter of a minute each time, reaching for your phone, waking it from sleep, firing up the Facebook app, and loading your latest notifications does pull you out of the present. Checking the news feed for the latest photos and stories from your friends is a conscious decision. You’re either living your life or reading Facebook. The social network would surely prefer those to be one and the same.
If that data automatically fed right into your homescreen, every time you opened your phone you’d be instantly up to date on conversations with friends and get a peek into their lives. And if Facebook can pipe this content into the lock screen, it’d be even more immersive, like a true heads-up display. It’s a deeper way to plug in, where the shell disappears and you gain a more visceral connection to the people you care about.
This is the purpose of what Facebook plans to launch next week, which my sources got me the scoop on right when the big press event was announced yesterday. It’s a Facebook-ified homescreen that will be shown off on an HTC handset running a version of Android modified by Facebook, similar to what Amazon did to create the Kindle operating system.
Making Facebook an indigenous resident of your phone’s homescreen could accelerate your social life. It might reduce the time it takes you to respond to messages or continue a comment thread. If a friend is down the street, Facebook could have a better chance of advising you to join them. Giving Facebook a way to tell you more directly about what’s going on in your immediate vicinity could be important as it focuses more on local discovery.
If this all seems like Facebook overload to you, you probably won’t buy the HTC phone just to sport this new homescreen. In the past, sales and surveys of sentiments about a Facebook-integrated handset have shown little demand of a ‘Facebook Phone’ with a capital P.
But if it didn’t interfere with or detract from your other apps and overall smartphone experience, but just augmented it with live social info, a ‘Facebook phone’ with a lowercase ‘p’ and its social homescreen could become something you wouldn’t mind having. Maybe it wouldn’t be a priority when buying a handset, but “Facebook Home-enabled” could be another feature in a device’s “Pros” column. And if Facebook made a more basic version of the homescreen replacement available as a traditional app download for all Android phones, I think a fair amount of hardcore social networkers would install it.
After all, it would put you on the cutting edge of Facebook’s technology. Similar to how Facebook uses its standalone apps like Messenger and its new Android beta club to field test new features with a set of guinea pig early adopters, Facebook Home could let people experience the next wave of social before it trickles down to iOS and the rest of the world.
That, combined with the immersive, non-interruptive experience I describe above are why I see Facebook’s new “Home On Android” as its version of the iWatch or Google Glass. It might not appeal to everyone just yet, but some will want to experience Facebook’s vision for the future of friendship.
[Image Credit: Iron Man / Marvel / Disney, Haxters Lab]
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#10: Emergency Recovery Boot Disc for Windows XP, Vista, 7 (Disk Compatible with Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Professional and Ultimate) – [2013 Latest Version]
Emergency Recovery Boot Disc for Windows XP, Vista, 7 (Disk Compatible with Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Professional and Ultimate) – [2013 Latest Version]
by SharpShades LLC
(3)
Date first available at Amazon.com: January 14, 2013
Buy new: $19.99 $7.99
(Visit the Hot New Releases in Software list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)