imdb

Updates for the official IMDb app are few and far between, heck we're just hitting v1.3 now, but at least it's a significant improvement. The popular movie and film database has been out since day one on Windows Phone, but it's missed a lot of the cool new Mango things, including a Live Tile. Version 1.3, which just went up today, fixes this along with other reported issues:

  • Bug Fixes
  • Search integration via App Connect
  • Social sharing of Movies and People
  • Live Tile support

Not too shabby and it feels a bit zippier too. We still find ourselves swiping when we should be tapping and vice versa on occasion, but the ability to share on social networks, the Bing 'App Connect' feature and Live Tile go a long way. Speaking of, we're still waiting for our Live Tile to update so we're not entirely too sure what it does nor looks like, but we're sure to see in the next hour or so.

Pick up the official IMDb app here in the Marketplace for free. Thanks, Nicholas M., for the tip!

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Confession: I watch between 5-7 movies a week, some in the cinema, some at home, never on my phone. Heck, I saw three movies just on Saturday. So needless to say, looking up info on movies (actors, awards, year of release, who directed, etc.) is one of those things I do a lot of, in fact you'll find me fiddling with my phone during a movie, because I need to know something. Yeah, sorry I'm that guy.

While we have apps like iMDB, Flixster, etc. on our phones, they're not for everyone. Captain Movie, which just hit v1.7 and is set for Mango, is a "wrapper" app meaning it scrapes info from iMDB, Rotten Tomatoes and TMDB.org and gives it to you in a nice, Metro-y format. More interestingly, it shows you on the first screen what just opened this weekend and then you scroll over and see what's coming for the next few weeks--that's imporant for myself, because it's hard to keep track of all the different little films out there. Under each movie, you get things like cast, crew, links to trailers, trivia, comments, pictures and more--it's all the info you could want right at your finger tips.

"Metasearch over all databases, Search for Movies, Search for Persons, Movie Starts, Search and Watch Trailers, Tile image update with current Movie Starts, Information about movies(facts, cast & crew, pictures, user comments, soundtrack, release dates, story line, editions, awards) Information about persons(facts, filmography, pictures, awards)"

Supported Databases: IMDb(en,de,es,fr,it,pt), TMDb(en,de,es,fr,it,pt), OFDb(de), Cineasten(de), moviepilot(de), FILMSTARTS(de), RottenTomatoes(en)"

In addition, you can search for any movie--not just current ones, but the whole iMDB, TMDB and Rotten Tomatoes archive, making this a very powerful app. Quickly learn what awards the film one, the soundtrack info and more.

The app does fetch for $1.99 which is on the high end, no doubt. But there is a free trial and if you're a movie buff like myself, the $1.99 is well worth the investment. You also get a swanky Live Tile that pushes the latest posters to your Start screen, updating every hour or so--nice touch. Take Captain Movie for a spin here in the Marketplace. And don't forget to grab the RunPee app too, as you'll need that to nail down some bathroom breaks during your latest silver screen viewing.

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The above video features Jobi Joy, UX Architect at IdentityMine (see our interview), who discusses some of the problems he was faced with (and overcame) while working on the popular (and highly successful) IMDB and Twitter apps for Windows Phone 7. What's interesting to note is the topics covered, which include "perceived performance" and how he put together the framework for panorama controls.

Source: Channel9

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Today was a superb day for both the Windows Phone 7 platform and the development community behind the 13,000 Marketplace apps. Luckily we were at the front (literally) of the action in Las Vegas and laying our hawk eyes on the live stream to bring you the best coverage of the keynote from a variety of angles. Not only were we live blogging the entire session, we are also bringing you the latest bulletins covering the Angry Birds release date, IMDb working with Bing, Kik Messenger coming to WP7 and more.

Follow the break for a snappy list breaking down the important topics covered in the keynote along with an in-depth summary.

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One of the big new features coming up in 'Mango' this fall is the ability for developers to have their app work with other apps. For now, devs can have their app integrate with Zune e.g. PicoLyrics and YouTube. Take that model and expand it across the device and you have an idea what's in store.

In the example above, a search for a movie in Bing allows you to link back to IMDb, even maintaining the movie you were looking for ('Source Code' in this case). This ability for apps to "talk to each other" will quite huge as it's going to allow a lot more powerful apps on the platform.

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Last week there was an update to the popular IMDb app for Windows Phone. We noticed that it seemed to perform quite a bit better and we got curious as to what was different. We reached out to the developers, IdentityMine (see interview) and here's what we learned is new or improved:

  • Surprise Me! - using the accelerometer, shake the device to randomly discover a movie or celebrity
  • German Language support
  • News Update Improvements: Previous version of the application had caching issues, which prevented the application from automatically clearing data.
  • Users can now see updated news in the app
  • Movies link to Amazon.com for easy purchase
  • More movie trailers have been added
  • Several performance enhancements to make it easier to quickly explore the application and discover content

Not bad and it significantly improves the experience on this core app for Windows Phone. Download the app here, if you don't already have it.

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We're learning a bit more about that very cool IMDB program for Windows Phone 7 that we saw on Monday. In short, it's really, really sharp and many of you will find it quite pleasing to use.

The program was made by a company called IdentityMine who also works on Microsoft's Surface. We recently received this description about that movie database app:

New features include daily application tile image updates, panorama views, and the ability to receive IMDb movie recommendations by shaking the phone. Users can also find show times, watch trailers, browse photo galleries, get TV listings, find DVD and Blu-ray releases, explore popular charts and share movie information. The application is available in English US, English UK, French and German. To understand the complexities and deliver on all the goals of this project, IdentityMine researched IMDb’s business needs, user profile, movie assets and technology capabilities.  Over a course of three weeks, IdentityMine’s team of UX experts worked with Silverlight and Microsoft web services to integrate IMDb’s enormous database of 1,633,300 titles and 3,649,234 names with graphics with an interface that users could easily access, search, sort and engage with.

IdentityMine has made a total of six applications for Windows Phone 7 (Graphic.ly and Twitter are others) and we'll be learning more about those over the next few days, so stay tuned!

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First look: IMDB on Windows Phone 7

One of the surprises today was the inclusion of the popular movie site IMDB.com. The standalone app is extremly fast, smooth and chalk full of movie info goodness.

Here are a couple of shots of that app in action after the break. More to come later!

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