FlickBay App review - A great app for Bollywood lovers
Bollywood so far did not have a dedicated mobile app that lets you have an all round information on what's happening in the Wold's largest film industry. Bollywood fans no more need to surf through different websites and news sites for their share of knowledge on the day to day happenings in Bollywood. FlickBay has been touted as the Indian equivalent of IMDb. Let us have a concise discussion on the new app of the block.
Indian movie buffs so far had to juggle through different websites in the niche to get the information they want. There had been a constant search for a one stop solution for an all round information on everything Bollywood.
The search now ends with FlickBay. It aims to be the IMDb of Indian cinema. You can use it as a single destination for all the information you wanted to have with respect to Bollywood. The service was recently launched in the distinguished presence of Farhan Akhtar and Riteish Sidhwani. In fact, they were the ones who have been helping the site to raise funds.What is FlickBay?
Well, to begin with, FlickBay is a site that lets you gather as much knowledge you would want to gain about all things concerned with Bollywood. The startup has launched apps for both Android and iOS.
It does come with a wide range of information such as the reviews, ratings and trailers of almost all Bollywood movies. The app forms an all round database of critic reviews, latest trailers and songs along with all the real time news about important Bollywood happenings.
Brought out with the tagline "Bollywood Ka App", FlickBay is the brainchild of Vishal Ramchandani and Trishant Sidhwani. The app has been funded and developed by Excel Entertainment, the production house owned by actor Farhan Akhtar and Riteish Sidhwani. The duo, Vishal and Trishant realised that there wasn't any dedicated app for Bollywood information. They planned to fill this void and the result is FlickBay.
The app began its journey from June, 2015. After almost a year of persistent development, FlickBay has assumed the shape that it currently has.The interface and the experience
Well, the easy to use and easy to understand interface should be the best part of FlickBay. No complicated navigation tabs, no need to go through different menu options - it just has a simple and quite straightforward navigation options.
As you launch the app, you will be asked to sign in to the service. You can decide to sign in through Facebook or Twitter. Or better still you may decide to sign up with your own email ID. As simple as that! Once you are signed in to the app, you will be welcomed with a launching page that shows you a carousel of the latest releases. Just below are the tabs for different sections of the app. These tabs include - Trailers, Music, News, In Theaters, Upcoming Films, Box Office, Reviews, On TV and On DVD.
The sections are indeed full of the information with respect to the particular section. The box office section lets you know the collection of the individual films in different markets.The Sections
The different sections are indeed quite praiseworthy. The TRAILERS section lets you view trailers of upcoming movies. The trailers are arranged on the basis of how they trend. So you may see the highlighted trailers first followed by others.
The Music section will let you browse through the music collection of the latest releases. The selection of songs is qualitative. You can be confident of getting the best of the clips. The News tab provides the tidbits about the Bollywood happenings. The news is gathered from different sources and presented to you in one place.
In Theaters tab shows the shows currently running in theaters along with the information on upcoming shows. Tapping on a listing will take you the detailed ratings, reviews and other information about the movie. What we liked the most?
The app has been done quite well. There should be no two words about it. But still, there are certain features that caught our attention. We do feel they tend to be the most praiseworthy additions as far as the usefulness of the app is concerned.
The first feature that we would appreciate is the On TV section. The tab will show you the Bollywood shows scheduled on the television channels. The schedule is shown for the current month. FlickBay lets you set reminders from within the app if you plan to watch any of them.
Another interesting feature that is worth mentioning is the On DVD section. It will show you the list of latest Bollywood movies available on DVDs. The section has all the information you would expect to get about the DVD on sale. The tab has the option to buy a DVD if any of those listings impress you. Clicking on Buy button will take you to the Amazon India website so that you can complete the transaction and buy the DVD you wanted to.Any Bugs?
Agreed, the app has been out just now and we may need to wait till it stabilises. However, we feel it would be good to point out some of the drawbacks that we observed in the app. We will not call them bugs as such, but would term them as the improvements we would love to see in future updates.
First things first, the app does not let you choose a quality when you select Trailers or Music tabs. The trailers and music are streamed at the default quality. This could be a concern for some of us who are on limited mobile data plans and as such would want to limit the data usage. We hope to see the option to set the video quality in the updates.
The On DVD section has a need for improvement. If you plan to purchase a DVD from within the app, you will be taken to the Amazon India mobile web page. And it does that even if Amazon India app is installed on your phone. There should be a provision to detect the installed app so that the purchase option will straight away take you to the Amazon App.
And the final possible room for improvement we would wish to see is the possibility to buy movie tickets through the app. Perhaps a tie up with BookMyShow or some other such service would be a good value addition. We will not call it an issue with the app, but it would indeed be a great feature if added.Future Plans
Movie reviews on the app are currently sourced from established players. The outsourced reviews are processed in house before being presented. The developers are planning an integration of user reviews in the future upgrades.
Following the format of international movie database, IMDb, FlickBay has plans to have a dedicated page for every film and actor. However, FlickBay wants to be a little different with the focus on specialised content on the actors and the films.
FlickBay will soon come up with exclusive content in association with production houses. We may need to wait for the exact announcement soon. There is a reward system planned for a release soon. For the content you consume, you will be awarded reward points. You can use those points for some movie merchandises, or memorabilia. In conclusion
FlickBay is indeed the best source of information for all the Bollywood related information. It aggregates all the tidbits in a really awesome manner. With its presence across all major social networks, you can definitely share your Bollywood gyaan among your friends. Head over to the Google Play Store, or iTunes to get a taste of the app. After all, it is free. We welcome you to use the app and share your opinions about the app here.