Android and iOS Remote

I am happy to say that both the Android and iOS have remote apps in their market/app store. I have used both, and they are pretty much the same. I personally like it on the iPad which gives you a huge remote.

It is nice to not have to get up and get the remote, but I personally prefer the remote it came with, because the apps there are too many screens. I don't like switching between them, There are like 4, the normal view, the keyboard, the mouse and the other options(including power and input.) I like being able to access everything and the app doesn't do it. I still haven't found a way to use combinations of keys, meaning my shortcuts (the search key + a letter) or ctrl + alt + del to reset the system if there are problems.

I still need to prank a roommate and turn off the TV when they are using it, while I am in bed in another room, but someday I will.

Zediva

Supposedly the movie industry thinks that keeping new movies from online sources for one month gives anyone who is willing to buy a DVD or Blu-ray the chance to do it. After the month they let companies like Redbox, Amazon On Demand, Netflix's Stars Play, iTunes or others the chance to rent or sale digital copies of movie. Zediva has come and saved us from that stupid rule. Best part is it works great on almost anything Google TV, Android, Apple or even Windows. It works in the browsers so that means it works on mobile devices.

Zediva is a new company that has done something completely crazy. The day a movie comes out they go and buy DVDs, put them in their network of DVD players and let people rent and stream the actual DVD. They found a loophole which gives them the quickest access to stream movies. They are Awesome!

The pricing is actually great. They charge $2 per movie unless you buy 10 rentals where they give you it for $1 each. They even throw in bonuses sometimes. Each rental lets you watch the movie as many times as you want for 14 days, and you just click return when you think you are done with it. Therefore this is way better than Redbox. It is cheaper, works great, and you don't even have to leave your house. I don't think I will use Redbox again.

Lets just say Zediva opened an awesome window. I hope it's existence eventually gets rid of the one month rule, and they don't get sued out of existence.

YouTube Leanback

Today when trying to watch a Youtube video as soon as I clicked search it popped up Leanback. Yay. I have been complaining for a while that it would open the regular page and making me. click the small buttons to get it full sized, but today it magically worked like I thought it should since the beginning.

Complaining

I have had my Sony Internet TV powered by googleTV around 4 months now. Let me tell you all my current complaints.

Most annoying issue: Remote delay

Semi often the remote will delay when I press the buttons. This includes everything but Crtl + Alt + Del. If you you want to restart it, that will always instantly work, but I cannot search, type letters or change the channel or volume. That is really annoying. It will always do what I want it to, but each click will be 10 to 30 or more seconds delayed making it look like it isn't working. I don't understand why the force restart would work instantly when everything else doesn't.

Tips to improve it:

Pandora: Add a clock, if you have a music player that just sits there, at least let me know what time it is.

Timers: Give me a countdown timer so I can use it when I am baking cookies.

Kill page: The kill page warning doesn't pop up till the page in responding again, I can always click wait and it will work right after, so either pop the warning up faster, or wait that second after you would pop it up to do it.

Tabs: These don't really work, they just disappear with the back button with no hope of coming back. Make them work, or don't include them.

End notes:

I am waiting for the store to come, because I want to see what the tv can actually do, but I am worried because of how often it freezes. I hope that doesn't continue and get worse with new apps.

Update 1.2

The update for my Sony Internet TV with Google TV came out this week. I was a bit sad because it took 3 days after I saw on twitter that it was released until my TV was able to update. I wanted it, and I knew others had it, it just didn't upgrade so I had to wait it out. I guess that is a bit much complaining, but I like my updates. Here is what I think of the updates:

Netflix: The interface is way better. You can search which is nice (even though they put a weird letter clicking thing, for if I didn't have a keyboard). My only problem is they made the font and pictures for everything a lot smaller, so I need to put my glasses on to search now, a bit annoying, but whatever.

Dual View: The update is nice, bigger is better. I like being able to move it, but I don't really use this feature. I don't have a cable line plugged into my TV, I use it exclusively for online content and my Blu-ray player. When apps like Netflix can be put in Dual View this will become much more useful to me.

Remote: I have an iPhone and the remote app isn't out for it yet. I am waiting. My roommate has a droid so I downloaded it on his phone, the voice search was kind of fun, but I am not going to take his phone whenever I want to use my TV. My biggest problem here is the Logitech keyboard supposedly being supported. My roommate has a Logitech Revue, so we have the keyboard, and he likes it much better than my Sony controller, so I am trying to set it up for him to use, but I don't know how to do it, and there seems to be nothing online to help, when I find out I will update here.

Movie: This feature is cool, but needs some updates. I love how if a movie is on Netflix it can go straight to the movie in the Netflix app. The fail I see here is that not movie services are found here. Crackle the Sony service which they are trying to push on the Google TV doesn't show up in the search. I think it should.

The updates are nice, but not all that impressive. I will probably be more happy when I find out about that Logitech keyboard, I might call Sony tech support tomorrow.