TV Tracker is an iPhone app designed by Adam Balzan. This handy app allows you to see a list of your favorite shows at a glance, while also providing users with detailed info about the show, actors, and episodes. Additionally, TV Tracker Lite helps you to keep track of which episodes you have seen in a certain TV series, and apply ratings to the TV shows you like to watch best.

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

TV Tracker lets you compile a list of your most-watched TV shows. The shows are ranked into three categories: Favorites, Active Series, and Archived Shows (ie shows that are no longer on the air, or are only on the air in syndication). The Lite version limits the number of shows you can track, however. The full version is 99 cents.

Pros

• Universal app — works on both iPhone and iPad
• Detailed information about each show’s actors, guest stars, network, and more
• Banner-style graphics for each show are easy on the eyes, both literally and figuratively
• You can save time by pressing the Bulk button at the bottom of the episode detail page if you want to mark an entire season as “watched,” “acquired,” or give an overall rating.
• Social integration: talk about the shows you’re watching on Twitter or Facebook (or email)

Cons

• Lite version only lets you track 3 TV shows
• Lite version users also miss out on the ability to apply a custom filter, or see just a series’ unwatched episodes
• Design is aesthetically a bit dated: architecturally, the design seems a bit clunky. Prepare for lots of clicking around for accomplishing even minor tasks.
• Some show information seems incomplete or not up to date in some cases, especially when it comes to shows that are on hiatus but have a scheduled return date

Discussion

While there are some holes in show page information (such as accurate return dates for show currently on hiatus), most episode pages are chock full of useful info. You will be shown the episode name, season number, episode number, average rating, a flag to say if you have Watched / Acquired it, when it was first aired and an image from the episode if it has been downloaded to your device.

Something that is annoying is the app’s handling of shows with special episodes. It makes more sense to me to list the episodes in chronological order, but TV Tracker Lite tends to lump special episodes into a “Season 0” listing. On the plus side, TV Tracker Lite uses this “Season 0” designation to aggregate some stuff you might have overlooked, like amusing on-air promos.

While the list of banner-style show listings looks great, parts of the app’s design are less pretty. Your mileage may vary, of course, but the color scheme and design elements combine to make an app that would have been very attractive a few years back…but today, it just looks a bit faded and past its prime.

Beyond just looks, though, I have other issues with the design. I felt like I was having to make multiple taps for something that should have been simple to accomplish with a single tap.

One thing I really appreciated was the in-depth “About” section, accessible from the bottom menu. But even here, I’m torn. I tend to feel like if your app is well-designed in the first place, you don’t need an massive “About” section to help users navigate what you’ve created.

Conclusion and download link

TV Tracker Lite is a good way to sample whether you might be interested in spending 99 cents for the Pro version. However, there are many more TV tracking apps out there, and you should try as many free ones as you can to find one that suit you. If you’re willing to spend 99 cents, I’d suggest skipping TV Tracker Lite and TV Tracker Pro, and instead try the similarly named TV Show Tracker, which we recently reviewed.

Price: Free, $0.99

Version reviewed: 1.7

Requires iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, iOS version 6.0 or later

Download size: 3.4 MB

TV Tracker Lite on Apple App Store