Starting this week, we are on the hunt for beta testers to help us test our wares and get them ready for market.

For those of you who have never been a beta tester before, this is your chance to get your hands on a product before anyone else. All you have to do is download the app we send you, use it and send us feedback. The input and ideas you give us after using the app will directly affect what millions of people will see as the final product.

If you are interested in becoming an i.TV beta tester, just follow this link and complete the form with your name, email address, the kind of device you own (iPod touch, iPhone, iPad) and your device’s UDID.

We look forward to working with you!

A lot has happened since we set out to build the very best TV, movie and Netflix guide for the iPhone and iPod touch. Thanks to you, i.TV has been more successful than we ever dreamed. Although we couldn’t be happier with the progress i.TV has made over the past two years, the future is still ahead of us.

We’ve been working on something new–a big idea that we think might just change the way you experience TV.

Before we bring this new product to market, we would like to get some input and constructive feedback from you, our trusted users.

Be part of the first-ever i.TV Feedback Panel

We would like to show what we’ve been working on to a select number of i.TV users. We’ll give those selected some ‘hands on’ time to try out our new product and then ask what they think. The feedback and suggestions we gather will have a direct impact on the product that finally comes to market.

Please fill out this brief questionnaire if you would like to participate in one of a series of i.TV Feedback Panels to be held over the next month.

After we’ve had a chance to review your responses to the questionnaire, we will notify those who will be invited to participate in a focus group discussion about i.TV’s new plans.

We look forward to hearing from you!

The following is a message from i.TV CEO, Brad Pelo regarding the recent release of i.TV 2.1 in the iTunes Store.

To the i.TV community,

Unfortunately, tonight we had to temporarily remove i.TV from the App Store because of a critical system error that surfaced shortly after i.TV 2.1 was made publicly available this evening. For some, the new i.TV update is working perfectly but for others it is not. Because many of you were affected by this defect, we chose to temporarily remove the application from the iTunes Store and will make the app available again soon.

In the past year, we have made significant improvements to our development, software testing and quality control processes. We can assure you that i.TV 2.1 was thoroughly tested over several weeks and the application we submitted to the App Store was our most solid app yet. We are working hard to find the cause of this problem and will keep you updated on progress via Twitter, Facebook and here on the i.TV blog.

We take the relationship with you, our customers, very seriously and we offer our most sincere apologies for those of you who had an unsatisfying experience tonight.

Thank you for your support, patience and for using i.TV.

Warmly,

Brad Pelo

Feature Focus: Customize your nav bar

Before:

After:

Follow these steps to customize your i.TV nav bar–
1. Navigate to the ‘More’ screen by tapping ‘More…’

2. On the ‘More’ screen, you will see a list of features, i.e. News, Remotes, Netflix, etc.. Tap the ‘Edit’ button in the top, right-hand corner of the screen.

3. This will bring you to a screen titled, ‘Configure’. Please note that when you are in this screen, every icon you see on the page is in ‘configuration mode’. In this state, the navigation bar is also configurable. To add new icons the navigation bar, such as Netflix, simply place your finger on the Netflix icon and drag it down to the nav bar so that it covers the nav bar menu item you wish to replace (see Configure screen to the right).

4. You may also want to rearrange the order of i.TV features on your nav bar. For example, if you are a movie buff you will want to have the movies tab be in the first position. When in the ‘Configuration’ screen, you canchange the order of the icons by simply selecting one and moving it to the desired position on the nav bar.

5. Finally, MAKE SURE to save the changes you made by tapping ‘Done.’

Got it? If not, come visit us on Twitter or Facebook and let us know if you have any questions.

i.TV 2.0 now available. Your iPhone is the new TV remote control– download now from the iPhone App Store

Help us get the word out about i.TV 2.0 on Twitter

Brad Pelo (CEO and founder of i.TV), will be attending and speaking at Digital Hollyood this week in Santa Monica, Calif. For those of you who don’t know, Digital Hollywood is a conference that draws over 15,000 top executives in the film, television, music, home video, cable and computer industries each year.

Brad will be speaking on the Music 2.0/Mobile Media Track panel discussion from 3:30 – 5 p.m. on Wednesday, May 6. Danny Passman (Global Head of Programming at Joost), Wendy Feldman (Executive Director of Mobile Marketing & Digital Promotions at Sony) and Michele Edelman (VP of Marketing at Warner) will also be participating in the discussion. The panel will be moderated by Steve Polsky, COO of Flixster.

The following topics are on the agenda for the panel discussion:

• iPhone Apps
• App Breakthroughs
• Video
• Games
• Mobile Engagement & Advertising

If you’re attending Digital Hollywood, make sure you stop in and say “hi” to Brad.

i.TV 1.4 now in the iTunes Store (link to press kit) — Comcast menu tab, AT&T U-verse listings, and a faster and more stable i.TV. Thanks for all the great feedback on Facebook and Twitter. Your input helps make each update to i.TV better and better. 

Now, here is what’s new in i.TV 1.4: 

Just for Comcast customers:

AT&T U-verse:

AT&T U-verse Listings: FINALLY! Full AT&T Uverse listings now available for all coverage areas. Thanks to AT&T and our data provider to making these listings available.

Other Features:

i.TV now twice as fast: i.TV startup time has been cut in half. Users are now able to jump between TV and movie listings, as well as dates and times with near instant data retrieval on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Interactive Ads: i.TV introduces the the world’s first “shakeable” ad. This limited release “Shake-down 2 Get Down” campaign from Dockers features Dufon, from the dance expressionist group “Circle of Fire.” When you see the ad pop up, just shake your device to make Dufon dance! This is the first of many fun interactive experiences i.TV users will have with our advertising partners.

This is the fifth update to i.TV and we hope that you’ll note the significant investment we have made to respond to your feedback and improve the app. If you had previously reviewed the app on the iTunes Store and were unhappy, we hope that you’ll take a moment to and resubmit your i.TV review with a more positive rating.

Keep watching!

Justin and the i.TV Team

Delivering media to the i.TV user- is the third part of i.TV’s three-pronged mission statement that we strive to achieve through our application. Besides features like TiVo DVR integration and countless video streams, i.TV gives users the ability to purchase movie tickets at thousands of theaters through MovieTickets.com.

To begin, look for theaters in your area that have a small, red money box by the theater name. These symbols indicate that you can purchase movie tickets at these theaters through i.TV.

To purchase a ticket, simply browse the theater listings and tap on the movie that you would like to watch.

Using the tumbler, choose the number of adults, children, and seniors attending and click the continue button to pay! To set up your payment method, update your “Wallet” account in “Settings”.

So, what do you i.TV fans think about the new iPhone 3.0 features? Here is a link to Apple’s press release so you can see what’s new in the iPhone software update.

All I can say is that here at i.TV, we’re pretty excited about the potential the iPhone 3.0 SDK will open up. A lot of i.TV’s Facebook fans are talking about it too.

Our CEO is traveling this week and was on a plane during Apple’s announcement. I called to give him a rundown of what Apple will release this summer and asked him what he thinks:

“Apple has been so responsive to requests we’ve made for improvements to the iPhone software and the features included in the iPhone 3.0 update address what so many of our users have been asking for,” said i.TV CEO, Brad Pelo. “For example, we have had a lot of people asking for a way to improve how i.TV currently sends reminders to users when their favorite TV shows and movies are playing. Push notifications that appear directly on their iPhone or iPod touch will make the user experience on i.TV so much better.”

So, what do you think about iPhone 3.0 and what should i.TV do next with the new 3.0 features?

BTW–an update to i.TV is coming EXTREMELY soon.

We are working hard to improve the speed and performance of i.TV. In addition to the progress our developers have already made in terms of performance and stability, users can also improve the speed of the application by limiting the number of channels they wish to see.

Many in the i.TV community do not have channel lineups that reach into the high-hundreds or thousands. Limiting the channels so that your device downloads only the listing information you want to see will decrease the load time for TV listings and speed up the app. The following quick and easy steps will allow for much faster load times when viewing your listings:

Step 1:

Open i.TV and go to your TV listings. Once there, click on the time bar at the top of the screen to bring up listing times and options.

Now tap on the “Options” button below the date tumbler to bring up the available display options.

Step 2:

Tapping the “Options” button will bring you to the “Display Options” screen. Tap on the first category in this screen, titled “Listings Preferences.”

Step 3:

This screen displays all of your listings preferences, including any hidden items (channels).

Tap on the “Hidden Items” bar. The next screen will display  options to hide certain channels, shows, genres, etc. Right now, all we want to limit are channels. Click on the first option titled “Highest Channel to Display.”

Step 4:

Tapping “Highest Channel to Display” will bring up a channel tumbler. To improve your load time performance, determine which channels you do and do not intend to watch. Scroll to the highest channel you want to have listed and then hide every channel above it by tapping “Save” in the top right corner of the screen. Doing so will eliminate the need to load channel information you won’t utilize, thereby speeding up load times.

Also, don’t forget that you can always un-hide the channels you’ve hidden. If you find you like the QVC Home Shopping channels in the 500s, adjust your hidden channel tumbler accordingly to once again view those channels in your lineup.

Keep in mind that hiding individual channels will not speed up your load times. Only by limiting the viewable channels in your lineup can you speed up load times for TV listings.

We do recognize that this process is only a temporary fix for slow loading times and ask that you stay tuned for future improvements and releases.