If you’re anything like me, there’s nothing quite like a quiet afternoon in sitting and watching the latest trailers for the most recent movies to have hit the big screen. With the iPad’s 9.7 inch high-res display, the device becomes perfect for watching any kind of video on the move … especially movie trailers.
With the iPad App Store being so young though, having only launched last Saturday (April 3rd), there are only a few apps which currently make the cut.
In this brief post, I’ll aim to lay down the options, the pros and cons of each app and how you can get hold of each yourself, to feed that trailer fix of yours!
Movie Trailers (£1.79) – Just like most trailer based apps, Movie Trailers for iPad will show you a list of movies for which trailers are available to be viewed. These are displayed beautifully on a wall of movie cover artwork, with a total of 99 movie covers displayed at any one time. The app houses trailers for the most recent movies as well as upcoming titles. Tapping any one of the movie covers brings up a split screen view. This view displays the trailer (up top), and movie synopsis, rating and certificate data in the bottom pane. What I liked about this app is the user has the option to choose when the trailer actually start playing. Much like YouTube, each trailer starts with an arrow button which needs to be pressed in order to start playback. Once pressed, the trailer will start playing almost immediately.
Firstly lets look at the pros. Movie Trailers for iPad offers a wall of movie cover art for you to choose from, which just looks stunning on the iPad’s large screen. Alongside this, the app also provides an in-detail synopsis of each movie and provides a split screen view which trailers can be played in-app. The cons? I would have liked to see some more information as far as the actual movie goes. While I understand this app is intended to solely provide movie trailers in a quick and easy fashion, grabbing a few user reviews from iTunes and an up-to-date cast list from the IMDb could of enhanced the overall experience.
Trailers (£1.79) – Developed by Polar Bear Farm, Trailers for iPad works much like Movie Trailers above, however its one significant difference is search. Need to find a specific movie trailer? Simply tap the search box at the top of the app and search for keywords relating to that movie. Trailers displays movie trailers similarly to TV, displaying movie artwork in a scrollable visual wall. Complete with animation, when tapping any movie cover it will fly elegantly into a separate overlay window. This window also displays a brief movie synopsis which is scrollable within the separate window. To play a movie full-screen, just hit ‘Play’. The trailer will start playing almost immediately.
In my opinion, Trailers’ overall polish of displaying movie information and its integrated trailer search functionality, put it just a bit above Movie Trailers, however I did tend to take a liking to the split screen view in Movie Trailers, for viewing synopsis information alongside being able to simultaneously play the trailer.
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