Essential
Continuing with our App Store Essentials section and our first app in to our NZ App Store Essentials is Flicks. We previously reviewed this app and said how great it was, well we feel it’s time this one was an essential.
This comes from the same team that developed the Yellow App (Smudge Apps) and shows what great things our own NZ devs are capable of. We’ve included the review below so hit the ‘Read More’ link to check it out.
First things first, what does it do you ask? Well, that was my first question too. Flicks (bought to you courtesy of flicks.co.nz) lets you browse movies that are showing now or coming up soon at the cinema. You can do a heap with this app including view session times, read reviews, search by various strings including actor/director/theatre or movie and best of all you can also watch trailers.
Launching....
Now some of you may think I am a bit strange with this next comment but when I first opened the app I couldn’t believe my eyes… not because it looks amazing (and it don’t look half bad) and not because it is going to save the planet but because I was so pleased that we (New Zealand) are finally going to have an app for this. Countless times I have wanted to know what’s on at the movies, you see, for I have an 8 year old boy who LOVES the movies so I am constantly asked what’s on and what can we go and see (plus everyone knows the “kids” films are really for the Dads). It’s then a case of pulling out the laptop and searching around the cinema sites (which can be painful), or going to flicks.co.nz, finding the movies and then having to find your local cinemas and see when it’s on and so on and so forth. Believe me when I say that this app makes that old painful experience much more pleasant.
On first launch, you are taken to the “Movies” tab and specifically the “Top Ten” tab where you’ll see the Top Ten movies out at the cinema right now.
Main Screen
From the main screen you have three tabs at the top: ‘Movies’, ‘Cinemas’ and Search. Movies shows you three sub headers: ‘Top Ten’, ‘Now Playing’ and ‘Coming Soon’.
- Top Ten is self explanatory but I know someone will want to know, the data for this and in fact the app as a whole is fed from flicks.co.nz
- Now Playing shows you all the movies that are on at the cinema right now, including movies that are only showing in certain areas at certain times (i.e at the time of writing this ‘Grease’ is being shown in Northland and Waikato)
- Coming Soon shows all the movies that are coming up whether it be in a few days time or in a couple of years time – that’s right, there’s even info on there for films coming up in 2011! Brilliant!
The movies are shown in a thumbnail style which scrolls vertically. Tapping on any of the thumbnails takes you to more info for that item. You get options to view the movie trailer, read reviews and view session times. Tapping on session times lets you see where that movie is showing and when. This is useful for seeing all the times that particular movie is showing and where. If any of the additional info (reviews, trailer and session times) isn’t available then the button is greyed out.
Movie Info
There is a huge a mount of info and you’re not left wanting, everything from release date to run time, actors to directors it’s all there. The reviews tab shows you the review from Flicks.co.nz and then below that are reviews from other publications such as NYT, USA Today and Empire Magazine (UK). These links take you into webview to see their review.
Reviews
Cinemas lets you go straight to the movie theatre you want to go to and see what’s showing when. You can filter the cinemas from 1Km-50Km, directly from this view (i.e you don’t have to go into any settings to change this, big thumbs up for that one) or if you want to see what’s going to be on in another city while you are there for a few days then tap the icon of NZ and you are taken to a list of regions to pick from.
Cinemas near you
Tapping on an icon for the cinema takes you to the session times view for that cinema. From here you can see what’s on and when. You view by day and under each day are all the movies being shown and their times. Tapping on any of the movies takes you to the details of that movie. What I really like is say you find a film you want to watch but at the cinema you have selected it is not on when you want it to be, going into the movie details for this screen lets you then tap Session Times which will give you the session times for just that movie in all the different cinemas…Fantastic!
Session times
At the top of the theatre page is the name of the cinema you are currently looking at and the address. Tapping on this will take you to more information about that cinema. You have a link for calling the cinema, the address and a google map of the location. Tapping the address takes you out of Flicks and into the Maps app.
Ah there it is
Last but by no means least is ‘Search’ and what brilliant search it is. You remember that film, what’s its name directed by the same bloke that did what’s it called, you know has Brad Pitt in it…….no? Ok then just search for Brad Pitt, or if you remember it was directed by Quinten Tarentino just search by his name instead. And yes of course if you know the name just search by name.
Great Search
You can also search by cinema as well.
Which cinema shall I choose
In terms of media sizes and data caching, the images are fully cached, the trailers and session times are loaded on demand and the movie trailers are a couple of MB’s each.
A bit blocky but still watchable
The first time they’re needed all the movies descriptions, reviews and image data is downloaded which is about 4-5MB, and from there, you’re looking at very minimal data usage to conserve battery life, and keep the app efficient and data charges low. The app has been designed it with casual data plan users in mind. I was looking at movies in the app whilst out and about that I hadn’t looked at when I was at home with my wi-fi and apart from the trailer and session times the rest of the info was cached.
The menu transitions are smooth, touch wood no crashes to date, the movies although a little blocky play back smoothly and want to know the best bit……..it’s FREE! That’s right folks there giving this away. I would actually say they could charge for this app and people would be more than happy to pay for it, I know I would.
– Flicks NZ
You know the drill by now……What do you think, let us know in the comments
