Virgin Media New TV Anywhere iOS App – Coming Soon
We were recently invited to Virgin Media’s Head Office in London to take a look at their brand new Virgin TV Anywhere service. We were incredibly impressed, most notably with the new iOS app that integrates seamlessly to create a unique viewing and organizing experiences.
Virgin TV Anywhere is a brand new app for your iOS device (it has not been launched yet but will be available within the next few weeks). This app allows the user to view available channels wherever you are. This will include around 30 channels available from launch and around 60 channels on the PC version.
Integration
One particular aspect that we really liked was how it allowed the user to integrate and manage their TiVo box. You can record and delete programs from your TiVo within the app, whilst another person is watching an alternative program on it. This way, you can be organizing the hard drive effectively and leave the viewer uninterrupted. You don’t even need to be in the same room and can even do this remotely.
Yes, the app also works as a very efficient remote control, we found it to be very B&O esque and particularly liked the swipe function, where you literally swipe the program from your remote on to the TV, and it was just like finding the force.
Profiles
If you like to find out more about the program, presenters or actors in any particular program that you have watched, then this app allows you to do that and more. If there’s one particular actor that you enjoy watching you can also search for all the other programs or films that they’re in allowing you to watch those too.
This app will be completely free for all Virgin TiVo customers, while other Virgin TV Customers will be able to access much of the same functionality online. Unfortunately it is not yet available for Android users but this is in the works.”
Social Interaction
This is the first app developed for this service and will be developed further, allowing for additional social interaction. You will be able to let your Facebook friends know what you’re watching and view their recommendations too. There’s a lot more to be done to this already very competent app and we’re very excited for the future, it might just be time to say goodbye to Sky…
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter is a British photographer, photography journalist, editor and curator and the founder and editorial director of TheAppWhisperer.com, an independent international photography publication established in 2009.Her journalism, criticism and commentary have appeared in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, BBC, Vogue Italia, LensCulture, Popular Photography, Android Magazine, NikonPro, DPReview, Which Digital Camera and Which Camera. She has lectured internationally on photography and mobile art, served as a juror for international photography awards, and exhibited her own photographic work across the UK, Europe, South Korea and the United States.Alongside her editorial work, Joanne's photographic and postgraduate research explores death, grief, memory, representation and social inequality through contemporary photography, participatory practice and visual research methods, with the longer-term aim of developing this work through doctoral research.Through TheAppWhisperer, she continues to publish independent photography journalism spanning contemporary photographic practice, mobile imaging, photographic apps, computational photography and emerging imaging technologies.Joanne is available for editorial commissions, photography projects, judging, curatorial work, speaking engagements, consultancy and selected collaborations.
