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The Best Apps for Catch Up TV on Your iPad or iPhone

Modern society currently dictates that we need to be on the go from the moment we wake up until we fall into our beds of an evening. Everything is rushed, everything is frantic and we seem to have little or no time to do the things that we want to do when we want to do them, even something as ordinary as watching our favorite TV programme at the time that it is actually shown.

ipad TV

We have set top boxes that will record the programs that we have to miss, but to watch them we have to take time out of our busy day to actually sit down in front of the television; the lack of the ability to do this is what has resulted in us recording the programme in the first place.

Thankfully, we no longer have to be in the comfort of our own homes to catch up with our favourite shows.  There is now a whole selection of television catch up services that allow us to watch what we want to watch on demand on a number of different devices.  Some of these services are totally free to use and as with most apps available today there are some all singing all dancing apps that you have to pay for.  Listed here are some of the best.

The BBC iPlayer

This is a free service and is exactly what you want a catch up service to be.  The user interface is extremely easy to navigate and the app on the whole is very easy to use.  As this is a free service as you would expect there is a little promotional advertisement to watch promoting the BBC before you get to watch the programme of your choice – it’s not as though you are bombarded with ads, this is the BBC after all.

One of the best features of this service is that your screen is not bombarded with ads while you are watching your show, once you have made it through the short promo you are done.  Another great thing about this service is that you can also use it to catch up with the BBC radio programming that you may have missed, you are not just restricted to television shows and you can switch between the two with ease.  Searching for the programme that you want to watch or listen to is easy and to be honest this app works the way you wish all of the other catch up apps out there did.

The ITV Player

The player service provided by ITV is also free and allows you to catch up with the programming from the past seven days.  It covers all of the ITV channels including CITV which could come in handy if you have children.  As with the BBC player, the user interface is easy to navigate and the design is not over complicated.  One thing about this player though is that it will play both in landscape view and also in portrait.

Again, because this is a free service you are required to sit through a few ads both before your chosen program begins and at intervals during the show.  On the plus side though this player also offers you the option of watching live TV but at the moment only for the main ITV channel and ITV2, something that other catch up players should take notice of and implement themselves.  Providing that you can tolerate having your viewing pleasure interspersed with ads then this is a great option for catching up on your viewing, but this is very much the reason why the BBC iPlayer comes out on top.

About the author

VISHAL

I am Vishal Gaikar, Engineer, Web Addicted, Living in Maharastra, India. Email Me @ vishal@techbucket.org

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