TV Forecast Review: Track Your TV Shows

Everyone has a favorite TV show. Whether it’s the latest action thriller, the next riveting medical drama, or that hot new reality show, many people follow at least one TV show regularly. Keeping track of even one show can be difficult, especially when it’s not airing every week. Big Bucket Software has a few solutions for the mac TV junkie looking to keep track of all of their favorite shows.

TV Forecast comes in 3 flavors: OS X Dashboard Widget, iPhone/iTouch App, and WebApp. The OS X Dashboard Widget is a free download from www.bigbucketblog.com/tv, and allows you to keep track of all your TV shows in a clean, streamlined widget. At a glance the widget shows you the next air-date for each show,  how many days until it airs, the episode title, and even a link to buy previous episodes from the iTunes store. Clicking on a series title or episode title will bring you to TV.com for more information. It’s a fantastic way to keep up with your shows, and adding and removing shows from your forecast can be done with just a few clicks. One caveat with the widget is that it calls it’s data from TV.com, and it’s been broken a number of times by TV.com re-designs.

If you’re an iPod touch or iPhone user you can keep your personal TV Forecast in your pocket. TV Forecast is a $2.99 purchase from the app store. For $2.99 you get a clean list of upcoming shows with a similar look to the dashboard widget. The app adds episode summaries, a list of past episodes, and an e-mail button to send a reminder to yourself or a friend. I was impressed with the app, but I’d like to see more features in the future like links to episode video teasers or links to full episodes online. The standalone iPhone app calls its data from TVRage.com, and doesn’t have as many issues with the application breaking from site re-designs.

Users on their iPod Touch or iPhone can also use the TV Forecast web app if they’re not ready to buy the standalone app quite yet. The web app is a great alternative to the the standalone app, but I found the developers site quite sluggish even on a Wi-Fi connection. If you aren’t very tolerant of slow web apps, I’d recommend buying the standalone app. One other advantage to the standalone app is that it will run even when you’re out of Wi-Fi or cellular range.

The apps may not be feature-loaded, but they do deliver the TV Forecast they promise. While some people just TiVo their shows, if you’re one of those people who just has to watch it live, then TV Forecast  is an excellent choice.

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