Here’s something we didn’t expect to report on an otherwise-slow Friday afternoon. Rogers has released an Android app for its newly-acquired City Television channel titled City Video.
Like its iOS equivalent, the app allows you to watch the last or two episodes of many popular Citytv shows like 30 Rock, 2 Broke Girls, Parks & Recreation and more. The interface is surprisingly well-designed, with a simple, Holo-esque navigation pattern and a gorgeous sliding side panel that is reminiscent of the new Rdio.
Surprisingly, the app requires Android 4.0.3 to run, likely because it taps into many newer API libraries that ensure optimal performance. Considering most, if not all, of the current Android phones Rogers sells are running Android 4.0 or above, this makes sense as a long-term solution. We’re just a bit surprised that the company is willing alienate an arguably huge portion of its potential audience by striking out Gingerbread.
The app has been designed more for phones than tablets, but scales up nicely to the Nexus 10 thanks to some clever visual tricks. Nonetheless it would be nice to see Rogers build a tablet-specific version with more information and a permanent left sidebar when held in landscape mode, for instance. However, a bug appears to be preventing the app from displaying video on devices running Android 4.2, so the trying to watch a clip results in a force close on the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10. Hopefully Rogers releases a fix for this quickly, as I can see myself using City Video on my tablet fairly often.
Check out City Video for Android and let us know what you think.
(Thanks Curtis!)
