Orsome

Regarding 7TWO

Last week we improved the lineup of channels further in Australia. One change that has effected several was the move from the single 7TWO entry in the FTA section, into separate entries now for each state.

If you have noticed the old 7TWO line is now empty you should go back to the list of available channels, and pick the new one appropriate to the area you live in. Some users aren't seeing the new entry, and if that is the case with you, you might like to try deleting the app from your device, and then either syncing it across again from iTunes, or 'buying' it again. NB: It doesn't charge you a second time to get the app again. As always, mail us on our support address if you have ongoing issues

Complete rewrite for top Reference App

tvGuide was one of the first apps from Orsome, and has always been a very popular find on the appStore over these last two years. With all the exciting new changes with hardware, and software, it came time to go back to the code and bring that app up to date, and exploit all the new cool things now possible.

This new version lets you set favourites, and if you are running iOS v4, you can have these trigger alerts to remind you that your programme is about to start.

The EPG is much smarter, and now lets you scroll continuously with a single swipe, and also lets you scrub over the title bar to zip forward and back through the data and senses a double tap to slide to current time. Best of all you can now touch an entry to see all of the description, plus any additional data we know about the listing. Cool eh!

This app now does the right thing on the iPad too, and uses split navigation views, and popup windows to get much more information on screen at one time.

tvGuide v3.0 will be a free upgrade to all existing users, and remain at it's bargain $1.29 price for new users too. Tap the link alongside to go straight to the tvGuide app on the AppStore.

Sadly, our supply of SkyTV EPG data for the New Zealand market is coming to an end this week. Our source is no longer able to distribute this content freely. We are trying to secure a new contract to keep this service going, but at this stage the feed will dry up Tuesday.

We will still have the Free To Air programming, as well as National Radio and Concert programming available, but for now that is all.

We are exploring a new arrangement, which might involve a subscription service. We will report here if there is progress on this front. We do expect many of you will want to go through your selection of channels and remove the ones that are no longer receiving data. An upcoming update to the app will automate this, but for now you need to tap the EDIT button, and reselect the new channels manually.

Here is the full list of what we have available:

In New Zealand, we now have the free to air channels, as available via freeview. TV One, TV 2, TV 3, C4, TVNZ 6, TVNZ 7 and Maori TV. We also carry the Radio New Zealand listings for both national radio and concert.

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, SBS News, Seven Central and across the various states we have ABC, ABC2, Seven, Prime, Nine, TEN, SBS, SBS News, WIN, 31, Golden West, TVS and TDT where available.

In the UK, so far we have: 4Music, BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, BBC7, BBC6 Music, BBC News, BBC Parliament, BBC HD, 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, S4C2, Sky News, Sky Sports, Sky One, Two, Three, Movies, teachers.tv, TMF and Virgin1

Finally, for South Africa we currently have M-Net, Action, Series, Stars and the two movie channels.

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.

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. :-)

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.

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! :-)

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.

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.

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.

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!"

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