[iOS App] Introducing GBTV - A new Giant Bomb video app for iOS

Hey man, I’m a huge fan of your app. I don’t have email set up on my iPad tho, so I can’t send you feed back in my app. The only thing that Like to request is a way for the app to track/hide/fade out/mark the videos that I’ve already watched. They are putting out so much content that I’m having a hard time keeping track of what I’ve watched. Would love to be able to know where I stand on series completions.

Thanks for all your hard work,

Has picture-in-picture functionality been removed/disabled? Haven't been able to get it working on my iPad Mini 2, running latest iOS.

Just chiming in to say I’ve got the same problem as Wonderva, I mostly watch downloaded vids on my commute and picture in picture mode on my iPad mini 2 running IOS 11 doesn’t work for me, the button is missing. Just been trying this out as an alternative to Video Buddy and gotta say it’s a great app so thanks for the hard work.

@opusofthemagnum: It can play them, but as there is no search functionality, you have to scroll back a long time to find the video that you want, but it does work!

Just a quick heads up for everyone. There is a bug in the current version, that means that the mobile data toggle does not actually take effect until the app is restarted (i.e. force quit, then relaunch). I'm working on a fix for this issue, but if you rely on that toggle to avoid using up your mobile data, then please keep this in mind! Hopefully, I've not accidentally burned through someone's data plan with this bug. A fix should hopefully be out soon.

@scott-r: Found this out when I used the app to listen to the pathfinder stuff from way back when. Nice to have because on my old phone/Android/etc I always got the error message video trying to play older content.

I also ran into that issue and found I had to restart my phone to get it to stream on cellular, as I don’t have WiFi and rely on unlimited. Just glad I got it figured out!

Do you have any plans to improve the view of the shows? The different selections are so big, it would be nice to have a more compact list.

E3's arrival has reminded me of a key feature I'd like - the ability to filter out all trailers from the video feed. (or expanded, filter out any type of video e.g. I don't particularly care about fighting games so excluding some science would be nice too)

GBTV has become my go-to app for watching GB content, so thanks very much @scott-r it's great!

@opusofthemagnum:Yeah I've been playing with some different designs for the shows screen, as it is a chore to scroll through now. I can't say when I'll have something ready to ship, but I am working on it!

@rahulricky: Yeah E3 season is a bit annoying for trying to find the actual shows you want. Filtering might come eventually, but I have no plans for it at the moment (but only because I've have so many other features I want to get finished first). In the mean time qlcrew.com has amazing filtering options, so hopefully that is useful to you.

Another small heads up. Refresh in the app is currently broken. There is a bug in the GB API which is sending bad data, so the app is ignoring the data (since it doesn't understand it). You should be able to refresh all your feeds apart from the Recent Videos one. I'll add better error handling in the next update to try prevent this being an issue in the future

Thanks for that Scott-R!

Also chiming in to mention the lack of PiP for videos. Just got a new iPad with iOS 11 and I cant find the option to activate it.

@pd: PiP is a llittle odd at the moment, if you make the video full screen, you should see the icon (though sometimes it doesn't show). This should be fixed in the next version.

It has been a while, so I wanted to give everyone an update with what is happening with the app. I've run into some problems with the App Store review process, and they are no longer approving updates to GBTV. This is super frustrating because I have several bug fixes (and features!) ready to go, but I am unable to send out the update. I am working with Apple on how we can get the GBTV updates flowing again, but that is the reason for the silence lately.

It's also annoying because the videos in the app still do not download properly, and my fix for it has been ready for weeks, but I can't get it out to you folks yet.

I'll say more when I know more, but that is the current state of GBTV. :(

THanks for the update! Bummer that’s what is happening with the App Store. Sucks that Apple can seem so wishy washy on App Store policies at times. Hopefully something is worked out! Best of luck!

@scott-r: If i could chromecast the livestreams, this would be the most epic app ever.

Hey - i really enjoy your app and I hope it all gets sorted. Apple and it’s store are such independent, hands-off things, it drives me nuts.

GOOD NEWS!

v1.2 of GBTV is now on the App Store! Biggest feature is that videos should now be updating again properly, but there is also now a Continue Watching feed! So any videos you don’t finish watching on Giant Bomb, or in Burger, or any other GB app, will appear in this feed.

Hope you enjoy it, sorry for the super long delay in getting it out to you all

Best news I've heard all day!

Awesome!

@scott-r: Thanks so much, this is my go to app for my phone.

@scott-r: Thanks so much. Great work!

Any progress on the Apple TV app?

Just out of curiosity, is the app open source? I’m learning Swift/Objective C (JS/node monkey by day), and would love to pitch in.

@lebkin:To be honest, no. I've totally fallen out of using my Apple TV personally, so I'm finding it hard to keep up development for the Apple TV version of the app. I will keep chipping away at it though, but I'm not sure when it will be ready.

@ascagnel: It's not currently open source, but it is something I have considered. The code is pretty rough in several places, so I'd want to tidy up those areas before doing anything like that.

I just wanted to drop a small personal note to everyone here. Recently (actually a few months ago), the app crossed 1000 installs from the App Store. I know that in the grand scheme of the App Store, that is a tiny number, but it makes me really proud that people are actually using GBTV! This app is the first app I've ever released under my own name, so it's really neat to see people actually enjoy it. I know it has several bugs, and the UI is a bit rough in places, but the lovely emails and support you folks have given me has been very touching over the months (especially when Apple was rejecting all my updates!). So anyway, thanks everyone! I promise to keep the updates coming!

Resuming from saved position does not seem to work anymore.

Awesome app otherwise!

Hi, I wish I’d found your app earlier. I love it on my iPad. I’d been using video buddy and lack of development has made it more and more frustrating, and battery usage was very high. (It was great for it’s time though, not trying to trash it)

One crash I’ve been seeing is as follows. I download most videos to watch offline. I download in low quality. Sometimes I will be at the closing bits of the video, I’ll skip the last 15 seconds to make sure it’s ended. Hit the X. Hit delete. Then tap on my next downloaded video. It will crash the app.

It’s the metal gear scanlon V videos I’m watching.

Just in case that helps at all.

Thanks for the great app!

Love the app! You're getting me though the holiday rush at work. Any word on the potential chromecast support?

Thanks!

This app is great. I like being able to preload videos before train journeys and such.

One thing regarding downloading videos though. It seems that if I put my iPad to sleep while downloading something it will stop and not resume. I’ve had to completely restart the download of the latest UPF a couple of times due to it being a large file and me doing something other than using the iPad for a bit after having started the download.

It just shows up as pending in the download manager and never resumes. I have to start the download over from the beginning again.

Really loving the app!!

I just have a small issue...I can't seem to get the notifications working...I subscribed to some feeds and already activated notifications in the settings on my phone but somehow I still don't get any

Am I missing something?

Bit of a necro bump sorry - has this app stopped working for anyone else recently? It’s stopped pulling through most vids for me, only the occasional Borne to Run video in the recent vids feed. I’ve tried the usual delete/reinstall/wipe data steps but no dice

@markini6: i don't use any ios devices but rorie mentioned they were doing something with a new player so maybe that had some type of unintended effect?

I‘m having the same behavior.