Well, if you weren’t a fan of TiVo before, they’ve just added a slew (that’s a bunch) of new features under their “Music, Photos & More” section in the TiVo Guide. After hearing about the pending release of new features, I went to the website and requested priority status on the waiting list. I was greeted this evening with a new mail message stating my service had just been upgraded. This is going to be a long post since I have photos of the main screens and will give my feedback on each of them.
This is the main screen after you select the “Music, Photos & More” section. These two photos will show all the new sections, but here they are:
- Yahoo! Photos
- Yahoo! Weather
- Yahoo! Traffic
- Browse & Buy Movie Tickets
- Live 365
- Podcaster
- SameGame
- Wordsmith
- Skull & Bones
Yahoo! Photos allows you to view all of your photos you may have stored online in the Yahoo! Photos functionality. Initially you have to setup the TiVo box to sign-in to the Yahoo! system, but once you do (or at least so far for me) you don’t have to re-sign in again. In addition to seeing your own photos, you can also search for other albums that may be publicly shared or shared specifically with your Yahoo!ID.
This feature is a nice addition, but not that earth shattering since you’ve already got your TiVonetworked into your home network and can access whatever photos you already have shared through you main PC to the TiVo.
Yahoo! Weather is a GREAT addition to the functionality of TiVo. The fact that it’s incorporating your settings already used in your MyYahoo! page (if you use that) was an added plus. Although I can check the weather for any city, having my preferred cities quickly available is excellent. This was even more interesting this evening since we’ve had non-stop snow since about 2:00pm, so we’re up to about 7″ I believe, if not more.
Yahoo! Traffic addition is okay. The functionality is obviously that of what you get online. I’ve just never been one to really over concern myself with what’s happened on the roads while I’m still sitting at home. What I need is a traffic service that will send me alerts directly into my car that says things like “CAUTION: Really slow old lady coming up in the fast lane. Prepare to engage thrusters” or “ALERT! There’s an idiot that’s about to run the redlight, take a few seconds to admire the daisies so you don’t end up pushing them up instead!”
Movies Central is a nice addition, with the following features, but the execution of the functionality could still be improved.
- Now in Theaters: After messing with the section for a few minutes. I couldn’t intuitively just figure out how to browse through the movies currently showing to find out what time each one displayed. It was easy to see the movies playing at the movie locations based on my zip code.
- Opening This Week: A quick list of movies that will be opening this week. Pretty self explanatory.
- Browse Theaters: Again, pretty self-explanatory.
- Top Box Office: I thought this was an interesting feature, it shows how current movies are faring at the box office with sales.
- Coming Soon: A location to see what movies are currently being teased for release. Reminded me of the functionality of Apple’s Quicktime MovieTrailers page.
- About Fandango
The thing that would really push this feature over the edge would be to view downloadable trailers, or stream the trailers directly to the TiVo. If you’ve got a good connection to your wireless network, I would think this should function as closely as you can view trailers from any other website. If that couldn’t work, it would be interesting to select an option to have trailers downloaded to your TiVo when it’s not in use for viewing later. Then to send you messages letting you know a new trailer is available. If you’re like me, one of the reasons I enjoy going to the theater is to see the trailers.
Live365 internet radio is an obvious nice addition to the service, but for me the audio quality was horrible due to the streaming. I’m sure this could be fixed by improving my wireless signal strength. It would also be nice to include the same intuitive search functionality within TiVo into all of these new features.
The Podcaster functionality is obviously playing off the buzz of podcasts in general. They are the new talk radio functionality. This feature is nice, it did introduce me to a new podcast about the ABC TV show “Lost”. The audio quality seemed better on the podcasts than the Live365 audio, but I don’t know how much I’ll actually use this. If I listen to podcasts, they will be through my iPod Mini, but for those that don’t have them, this could be a great way to introduce even more of the population to podcasts.
New features that I had not heard were coming in previous blogs about the pending release are that of games integrated into the TiVo. Oddly enough, I think this is a great idea. There are three games included in the functionality: SameGame, Wordsmith, and Skull & Bones.
I played SameGame a few times and Wordsmith once. I have not played Skull & Bones yet. SameGame reminds me of a Tetris like puzzle game. Also similar to Bejeweled and Qbeez. It was very fun to play. The game play was very simple, you basically select groups of same colored orbs and select them to make them disappear, which causes the orbs on top to fall down and shift left to always fill open spaces. The key is to not leave any orbs unmatched on the screen.
Wordsmith is something like a Scrabble game with a twist. You have a list of letters on the top row with additional letters beneath. You have to make words (at least 3 letters long) with the top most letter in each column. If the word is a legitimate word and accepted, the letters disappear and those beneath shift to the top to allow you to keep going. It’s a nice strategy game that makes you think in advance by what letters are coming and which to use first strategically.
I have not played Skull & Bones yet.
All in all, I think these are great additions to the TiVo service. They need to keep innovating features like this to keep themselves ahead of all the DVR’s that are being sold by the various dish and cable providers. They really need to step-up and get a dual-tuner HD capable TiVo unit on the market as quickly as possible. If they’re smart, they should also incorporate a special upgrade pricing promotion to existing TiVo customers. This could help them in two separate areas: 1.) increased sales of the new units to people who may not think they need the upgrade but love TiVo, and 2.) it will help them sell more subscriptions to the multiple unit service plan. However, that’s another area that they may need to address. I’ve very close to going with a DVR with Comcast just because it will cost me less per month than I’m currently paying ($12.95) with TiVo.