It's time for another look at Movies by Flixter. I had given up on and removed this App from my iPhone. Not because it didn't work. I removed it because it took too many taps to get to the one thing I wanted to know: "what time does the movie start?" What most of these Apps suffer from is that they force you to navigate between two to three screens to find your local theater and then show you the movie times. They assume you're opening the App to "choose" a movie or theater. When I go to an App like this, nine times out of ten I've already decided which movie I want to see and guess what, I'm going to the same theater I always go to. So i'm only opening the App to see the start times. For this simple reason, I went with OneTap Movies and haven't looked back. So why look at Movies by Flixter again? I noticed that the App has been updated with native support for the iPad. So I wanted to see what the experience was like on the iPad and I gotta say – WOW! They've come a long ways!
It looks great on the iPad, but that's not enough
While I am a sucker for a pretty (inter)face, I'm pretty adamant about the functionality of an App like this. It has to give me what I want without having to tap my way through several screens every time I use it. So I fired up Movies on my iPad and of course it asked to use my current location. Then after a few moments it presented me with the closest theaters. The one I go to 99% of the time was listed and I saw all the movies and there times at a glance. So far so good. The next thing I did was mark that theater as a Favorite (star) and then I closed the app. I closed it because I wanted to see if it would make me repeat this process all over again upon the next launch of the App. To my pleasure, it took me right back where I left off. This is exactly the way the App (and all others) should have worked all along. The next day I went into the App and again, my theater was right there and still selected and the show times updated. We have a winner. Sounds so simple, but this was a miss with most every other App I tried in the past.
What's up next? Now that I can move beyond my basic requirements, it was time to explore the other features of the App and there are a plenty. You can of course view movie trailers right in the App. You can also see the ever important Rotten Tomato Reviews and ratings. They do a nice job of displaying these ratings right in line with the movies and show times. Nice touch. If your theater supports buying tickets online you can do so within the App and they also added a local restaurant search that is powered by Yelp. Not a movie theater buff? No problem, you can also use the App to see up coming DVD releases. Also when you run this App on your iPhone/iPod touch (not yet implemented on the iPad) you can manage your Netflix queue and share movie ratings via Facebook with your friends.
You can get Movies by Flixter here from the App Store: 
poor Nightmare on Elm Street 
The Bottom Line
I'm very happy to see this App make progress and while I'm not quite ready to give up OneTap movies on my iPhone, this App is definitely my default and ONLY choice on the iPad. It's FREE, go for it!
Movies by Flixter
Movies by Flixter delivers movie showtimes, DVD releases, upcoming movies, theater locations, movie ratings and more to your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.
- Jeffrey Grossman
- Get on App Store
- Free
All info was collected on 9th June, 2010 when the app was reviewed.
About Terry White
Terry is the co-author of The Best Selling "The iPhone Book" 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions. He has been active in the industry for over 25 years and is the founder and president of MacGroup-Detroit, Inc., Michigan's largest Macintosh Users Group, host of the Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and a technology writer - Terry White Tech Blog.
No comments yet.