BlackBerry users just got a few clicks closer to their favorite shows.
Just in time for fall’s new television lineup is the TiVo for BlackBerry app, a free offering from Research In Motion’s BlackBerry App World storefront that lets TiVo users program their digital video recorder directly from their BlackBerry smartphones.
According to Inside BlackBerry, the official BlackBerry blog, getting started is as simple as downloading the application, creating an account at TiVo.com and registering one’s DVR. The account number and DVR are reportedly used to log in to the app.
The BlackBerry app mimics the TiVo DVR interface, so it’s intuitive for current TiVo users to use. Know the game or show you want to watch? Great. Those searching for something new, however – or else that show they caught once, or that a friend recommended – can choose to search by title, actor/director or keyword.
Users can also browse shows by category, view the most popular picks or choose “Daily Picks.” Once that favorite show is discovered, there’s the option to record it just once or catch the entire season using a Season Pass feature.
Mobile applications, and application stores, are now must-have offerings, as BlackBerry, along with Microsoft, Google, Nokia and Palm know well. Each is racing to close the gap between themselves and front-runner Apple, which recently announced that its App Store now includes more than 85,000 apps and that more 2 billion have been downloaded since July 2008.
BlackBerry’s App World is said to offer a “satisfactory on-device experience,” and also to offer more enterprise-focused apps than Apple’s store, which makes it more of a competitor, analysts say, with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.5.
While BlackBerry devices first found an audience with enterprise users, its customer base, according to co-CEO Jim Balsillie during a June 2009 earnings call, is now evenly split between enterprise customers and consumers. During the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, 80 percent of Research In Motion’s new subscribers were non-enterprise customers.
TiVo for BlackBerry can be downloaded on a BlackBerry handset from the BlackBerry App World or from a desktop browser at www.blackberry.com/tivo.