Sky Mobile

Sky Mobile Review

by on February 3, 2011

The evolution of PVRs has been revolutionary – no more bulky tapes to record things, no more missing series when you forget to leave them on timer; it’s life, Jim, but not as we (used to) know it.

But it’s not just series linking and VHS burning that’s caught our eye – it’s the things you can do with your mobile that get us excited.

Originally it was texting the box a certain code to record a program (although one awry message during a sexting conversation did cause us to record the whole of Season 2 of the Krypton Factor), and then it moved quickly on to applications that would mimic your EPG and allow direct recording with a simple tap.

That’s where we’re at with this application – although it’s not officially from Sky, which brings a whole host of issues with it.

Firstly, the overall layout is pretty rough around the edges – things crash on occasion, the EPG is hard to tap correctly and the drop down menus (to select things like genre when searching for a movie) have a life of their own – we’re pretty sure Harry Potter isn’t world cinema.

Also, when you want to record a program, you get a message saying the command will be sent in 30 minutes. That doesn’t fly when you’re at the football and realise you’re about to miss Eastenders – half an hour is a lifetime in these situations.

But on the plus side, there are options you don’t get with the proper Sky Applications on the likes of the iPhone and Android – for instance, you can search through Series and Movies, and set notifications for when they’re going to be shown, which is a really neat feature.

For a first go, it’s not bad, and will likely increase in quality and ability in the near future. However, once Sky comes in with its own (free) application, unless you’re desperate for the notification feature, there’s not a lot that will keep you using this app.

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