TV Show Tracker is a remarkably simple app that does one thing: tracks your favorite TV shows. If you find yourself sitting around often wondering if the new episode of “The Office” has aired yet, TV Tracker is your solution.

Below we’ll take a look at everything the app does and discuss whether or not you should shell out $1.99 to download it.

Search and List Management

When you first open the app, you’re presented with a blank list and the option to turn on time zone correction, which adjusts the default time of the show to your specific area.

Searching and Show List

To add a show, simply tap the plus button in the top right and enter something in the search bar. It’s nice to have a search feature, but I was quite disappointed in the complete lack of a way to browse available shows.

I couldn’t remember all the shows that I like off hand and really wished I could just see a list of all the options from a given network. Network categorization isn’t even supported in the search. In other words, if you type in “NBC,” you won’t get 30 Rock, an NBC show, you’ll only get shows with “NBC” in the title.

When you find the show you’re looking for you can add it to your list of favorites show above (on the right). This is a typical iPhone-style list with the ability to easily delete and/or reorder items.

Viewing Shows

Each of your shows has a dedicated screen of information. These are arranged horizontally according to your list structure and you can navigate them by swiping back and forth just like you navigate your iPhone home screens.

Show Description and Episode Guide

As you can see above, each show lists the title, network, show time and description. There is also a list of episodes with accompanying descriptions.

The list of episodes is in sort of a flip format that only shows two at a time. Though it looks nice, I didn’t like the functionality of this feature at all because you can’t quickly scroll through the entire list of episodes; instead you’re stuck flicking through one at a time. Further, even just flicking through proved quite difficult as you had to hit it just right for it to actually work.

Schedule and Genius

Clicking on the little calendar icon at the bottom left of a show screen will bring up a schedule of all your shows’ previous and upcoming episodes (shown below on left).

Show Schedule and a Genius Suggested Show

It’s definitely nice to have a quick list view so you can see all the episodes from various shows on a single screen.

The coolest feature the app has is Genius suggest. After you enter a few shows that you like, you can shake the app to activate a Genius suggestion. This feature looks at the shows you’ve already entered and suggests a new show based on that criteria.

When you see a Genius suggestion, you can either hit the check mark to accept it and add it to your list or tap the “X” to disregard the suggestion.

I received some pretty solid suggestions and was able to quickly add a few shows that I watch but didn’t remember to search for. The one annoying part about this feature is that the app doesn’t seem to remember shows that you’ve ignored. These already rejected options are fairly prone to pop back up in a minute or two.

Icon View

The final feature of TV Show Tracker is the ability to turn the app sideways to bring up an alternate viewing option.

Icon Mode

I found this view to be a much nicer way to browse your favorites as you can quickly get to the show you’re looking for. This view also contains multiple pages that you swipe back and forth across to navigate.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, the app is off to a decent start and supposedly has more features on the way. It definitely has a home-grown feel and I’m not quite sure it’s worth $1.99. With the current super-limited feature base and relatively clunky user experience, it falls into that category of apps that you’d be happy to download for free but sort of regret actually paying for.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a free app that closely mirrored this functionality. TV Guide Mobile allows you to see what’s on TV but doesn’t really make it as easy to track new and past episodes of a list of specific shows.

However, there is another app that shares the same functionality, price and even name (with the addition of an exclamation point at the end) with TV Show Tracker. Check out TV Show Tracker! if you’re interested in seeing another option. That app looks like it has a slicker interface and better browsing options.

Let us know in the comments below if you’ve tried this app or any other that lets you track TV shows and what you thought.