Hi everyone,
We're considering developing an official TVmaze app. (iOS & Android)
As a first step we think it's important to get some initial feedback from everyone. This will give us a better idea of the feasibility.
What are the features you think are a MUST to make a functional acceptable first version (alpha)?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Would love to have one, but definitely an easy to navigate watch list in which you easily can mark episodes as watched without really going into the series itself.
Also an option to customize your library by yourself of your followed show and integrate an option to sync your watched episodes with the site itself.
I would however refrain from allowing edits to be performed via app.
I liked the app TV Guide by Wesley, however it does not work properly when you have a large number of series you followed and this issue hasn't been solved over there for months.
Most important, ease of use. I'd want to be able to see information on my shows (when they air, episode synopsis, guest cast, and clicking that I've watched) as simply as possible.
Second Thomas' point that the app should be content only, not editing platform.
I second that it only should be content, no editing at all.
Maybe make the episode voting more prominent than on the webpage. Lets get those votes up!
I don't see the point. The website is already PWA, so why would you need an app ? It's useless
Cecile wrote:
I don't see the point. The website is already PWA, so why would you need an app ? It's useless
Well for those who still watch TV on any kind of schedule, and/or if the forum will be tied to the app; more comprehensive push notification settings. PWAs have push notifications, but their fairly limited by the notification settings available in the menu on the OS version you have.
And there are other features of a phone that a PWA really can't get to at all. Meanwhile, integrating new Android or iOS functions is generally a lot more work with a PWA than a regular app. Even if a site is built with app functionality, the actual interactions with your phone are limited if it's not either an OS-specific app or the website itself is designed to have ties to the OS that are as intricate and complicated as something like Facebook or Twitter. Plus, PWAs don't always work as well with legacy devices/browsers as they do with newer devices/browsers that are still under active support. And as someone who affords the phone/tablet she needs by buying devices a few years old, which may or may not be getting the latest OS updates (still crossing fingers on my Lenovo Tab 4 and Android 10), that legacy issue can be a real PITA. :)
And for the site admins, they can get better traffic data off of an app, which can help with website ad revenue.
In the OS-specific app vs. PWA-only debate there are pros and cons for both sides. But a PWA doesn't come close to entirely replacing an actual app, and I don't imagine it will do so in the near future.
If there was an app it would need to be able to read (and eventually push) datas with the database and working with notifications. No other app-like features would be needed. And those are already in place with the current website.
Notifications work perfectly with web app as long as the person who ask to get notif active them.
One thing that could be use more often is the web offline storage; not enough use in my opinion.
True, there are some currents developments wouldn't be done with PWA (not yet, anyway) but none of those would be useful for tvmaze.
