tvGuide in Australia
Changes to data feed
Many of the channels we previously made available for Australian cable tv users will not be displayed within tvGuide beyond this week. We are hoping to secure a more extensive data feed that goes way beyond our previous catalog of content, but for now those listings will not appear. Sorry for the inconvience but we are hoping to resume normally services shortly. :-)
Australian users still have all these Free to Air channels to choose from: 7TWO, ABC2, ABC3, Aurora, C31, Christian, Australia, Eurosport News, GO!, Imparja, NBN, Nine HD, SBS News, Seven Central and across the various states we have ABC, ABC2, Seven, Prime, Nine, TEN, SBS, SBS News, WIN, 31, Golden West and TDT where available.
What's on the Telly
To answer the many eMails we get, here a a list of current lineup
Well, Its been a while since we published the list and just today we have added in a whole bunch of channels that were missing from our list. Most of them are for the Australian users, but do let us know if there is a favourite of yours we have missed.
In the UK, so far we have: 4Music, BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, BBC7, BBC6 Music, BBC News, BBC Parliament, Radio 1, Radio1 Xtra, Radio2, Radio3, Radio4, CBBC, CBeebies, Channel 4, Dave, E4, Film4, Five, Five US, Fiver, FTN, Ideal World, More4, ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, QVC, Sky News, Sky Sports, Sky Three, teachers.tv, TMF and Virgin1
As for Australia, You have all these Free to Air channels to choose from: 7TWO, ABC2, ABC3, Aurora, Christian, Australia, Eurosport News, GO!, Imparja, NBN, Nine HD, SBS News, Seven Central and across the various states we have ABC, ABC2, Seven, Prime, Nine, TEN, SBS, SBS News, WIN, 31, Golden West and TDT where available.
In New Zealand, we have TV One,TV 2,TV 3,C4,TVNZ 6,TVNZ 7,Prime,Alt TV,Animal Planet,Arts Channel, BBC World, CNBC, Cartoon Network,C & I,CNN, Discovery, Disney Channel,Documentary, E!, ESPN, Food Television, Fox News, History Channel, J2, Juice TV, Living Channel, MGM, MTV,Maori TV, Nat Geographic, Nickelodeon, Playhouse,Rialto, Rugby Channel,SKY 1,SKY Movies 1 & 2,SKY NewsSKY Sport 1,2 & 3,Shine,Star Plus Hindi, Stratos, Movie Greats, TCM, Trackside, UKTV and Vibe
Finally, for South Africa we currently have M-Net, Action, Series, Stars and the two movie channels.
A favourite, gets discovered
tvGuide updated again
Our tvGuide app is featured on the Staff Favourites list in New Zealand and Australia right now, so more of you are discovering how handy this reference app can be every day.
It's great timing as today another update is available. This new version lets you now search across all known channels for listings. No longer do you have to hunt thru to see what Channel/Day/Time your programmes are on, just tap the small magnifying glass and type part of the title to see what's out there. Its snappy too, due to the local SQL database stored right there on your phone.
If you haven't grabbed it before, now there is even more reason to buy it. If you are a curent user, go and get the free update now to version 2.7, We know it'll be a favourite of yours too.
tvGuide improvements
Couple of extras for NZ'ers...
Welcome to those new users who have just discovered us after reading the entry in this months KiaOra magazine on an Air New Zealand flight. Just a quick note to let the you know we have added a few more channels into the selection available in tvGuide over here.
We now have Radio NZ listings ( both Concert and National ) and also the new Comedy Central listings for Sky's latest addition. Go tap 'Edit' and then hit the Add button to include these in your selection. Don't spend all day in front of the box though, there's a beautiful country right outside your door. :-)
We've got the attention of the BBC
And not in a particularly good way.
We have been instructed by our friends at the BBC litigation office, that showing UK TV Guide information on PDA devices, including the iPhone, is apparently not permitted within the licence they have for their public data.
I am in talks with both the BBC and an alternative supplier to see if there is some way this service can be continued. In the meantime, I have suspended new sales of the tvGuide app in the UK just incase the feed is discontinued.
We hope to have an update soon, Stay tuned.
UPDATE - Jan 25: We now have an alternative supplier for UK content. Its not the same selection we were using up till now, but it does include 45 channels of radio and TV listings that we have the rights to distribute. The old feed has data there for just a few more days, so sometime soon you should press EDIT in tvGuide, and select the channels you want from the list under 'United Kingdom'. I am still in talks with BBC, and should an agreement eventuate, I would be able to reinstate the other feed again.
TV in the UK
The Dr is in, Is everyone happy?
It looks like a few users had probems with an earlier version of the tvGuide app in the UK, If there are still any issues with this program over there, we want to know about it, The price has been dropped to just 59p, and the data feed is pretty extensive. You lot shouldn't have to make do with the other TV Guide offerings you have over there, go grab it now and let us know how you find it.
If you have any issues at all please eMail us directly at support@orsome.co.nz, or if you are one of the many happy users, please feel free to put a rave review in on iTunes! :-)
Fix for tvGuide Issues
Problem fixed that affected many tvGuide users...
After much tearing out of hair, and further work with a fine tooth comb, we have got to the bottom of an issue that was plaguing many of our users. It turns out, the problem was with a setting outside the app, that showed up a fault in the phone OS when parsing and formatting dates.
If you have this problem of the program not even launching, you will find it goes away if you navigate to the 'Settings' area of your phone
Then tap on General / Date & Time, then turn ON the 24-Hour Time option. The tvGuide app will then run fine.
This 'Fix' is really just a workaround for you, until such time that the update, ( currently awaiting approval thru the app store ) gets released. A special thank you goes out to Eric Lovat, who has been very helpful testing many iterations of this code while we tried to find what was wrong here.
2.0 Steps forward
Rewrite of tvGuide hits the streets
The new version of tvGuide is out. It uses a new engine that can handle all the channels you want to throw at it. A few people have mailed me about slower performance when scrolling. This has been addressed in a 2.01 update that should appear in the appStore soon. The update also shows episode titles where available, and adds in support for a whole bunch of new channels in Australia too.
Our Baby will soon turn 2.0
The tvGuide app is undergoing a significant upgrade
Work is underway on a significant upgrade on our very popular tvGuide application. It started out servicing the New Zealand community, but quickly expanded out to Australian, UK and now the South African markets.
Some design decisions were made early on that favoured performance over expandability. As it has turned out, many of our customers, expected to have way more channels shown at once, than we ever envisioned. In the short time this has been on the market we have learnt heaps. While working on some other yet to be announced products, we have developed some methods to give us a much better way to manage this content. If you are one of those users that has been asking for better support for a virtually unlimited selection of channels at once, hold tight, Changes are in the wind that will give you that, whilst also providing a strong foundation for some exciting future plans we have for this product.
Listings for Africa
South African channels also supported now in tvGuide
Orsome Software, in collaboration with New Media Multichoice Africa, are happy to announce the inclusion of several popular linesup of TV Listings in the tvGuide app.
tvGuide Improvements
"Our popular app is going on a big O.E."
A small update to the tvGuide app is making its way thru the system now. This release addresses a number of bugs several users experienced when first making and ordering their set of channels in v1.2. There were other fixes incorporated in this next version that should make scrolling a bit smoother too.
While we were in the code, we slipped in a couple of new features related to showing when a program is broadcast in HD, or if it is the final or premiere of a programme. It looks pretty sweet. Oh, and did I mention we support more channels now too? Despite how our Australian neighbours have treated us in the rugby recently, we've extended the app to support a wide range of channels for them, plus the most popular channels for the United Kingdom.
There is nothing stopping those in the UK and Aussie from grabbing the current version and seeing their favourite channels now, but I would recommend that you quit the program straight after adding in new channels, to let the app save the selection incase it crashes on you. This new version that fixes that, and brings these other improvements will be free, and should show up in this next week.
The waiting is over
"tvGuide 1.2 Ships!"
After quite a delay, the new version of tvGuide is finally available on the AppStore. All of you guys that have been holding of buying this until it had more channels can go get your wallet now. :-)
Most NZ channels, plus some for Australia and the UK are all ready to go. Have fun !
For more information on the tvGuide program, click here, or follow any of the links on the left.
Version 1.2 submitted to appStore
"Next revision of popular app is ready to go..."
An updated version of the nzGuide app has been submitted to Apple. This should appear on the appStore as soon as it passes thru their qualifying testers. Existing happy users will be happier still to know that I have added in way more New Zealand channels. As for the grumpy owners... We still love ya, that's why this update addresses your niggles. I have changed the program so it stores the data locally after pulling it from the servers too. This results in faster launch and navigation times, and removes the need to be online whenever you want to see whats on right now. It is now more customisable too. I'm still only able to show today and tomorrows data, as any more would require a data subscription from you all, which I'm sure you're happy to avoid.
Some of the other new features include:
- The ability to move between displayed days when in portrait mode.
- Status bar added to listings view to give you a channel reference.
- Pretty new channel icons now loaded and stored when required.
The other most significant change is in regard to how you choose the channels to display, This is way more dynamic, so it would be possible to add more channels ( and indeed data from other countries ) when the opportunity/need arises. ( Yes, you are seeing a few Australian channels on that screen shot. ) You will also now be able to reorder the selection of channels using the same familiar method as other built in apps.
Doesn't it look nice to see all the pretty channel icons.. and you too can have them on your own device. If you haven't already got loaded it up, you can search for 'tvGuide' in the appStore, or in iTunes... Its pretty easy to find, it costs about the price of a Big Mac, except has zero calories
NB: If you buy it now, you will be able to get the new version as a free as soon as it is made available.
I get a load of mail asking for me to release this into other countries. This release was in part to enable me to extend this into other places, but securing a data feed is the hardest part. I am exploring options now and hope to have news soon. If you know of a ligit source for computer readable data from your country, send me a message
Number ONE on NZ appStore
"Just downloaded the tv guide app and am very pleased with it - orsome stuff" - B. Parsonson
We're chuffed to see the nzGuide app has made it to the top spot on the NZ appStore. Many thanks to all of you that discovered and bought this wee gem. Thanks for the feedback too.
If you haven't got this on your iPhone, or touch yet, what are you waiting for? Click this link to see it on the appStore!