Tap That App: 'Can I Stream It' Tries to Be the Ultimate Digital Entertainment Database
Cord cutting can be tiresome, especially if you're trying to find out if one particular movie may be available on one of a half-dozen streaming services. In this week's Tap That App, we look at "Can I Stream It?" the website and app for iOS and Android that attempts to be the one-stop place to find where to watch anything.
"Can I Stream It?" is a free app for Android and iOS, (and also on the web) by developer UrbanPixels that attempts to do the impossible: Connect the databases of available content for every streaming service, along with online outlets for digital rentals and purchases, physical purchases and rentals, and Comcast Xfinity's offerings, including all of the premium movie channels.
The Good
Services referenced by Can I Stream It include Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, Crackle, YouTube, Xfinity Streampix, Epix, SnagFilms, and Fandor for movie streaming, and the first six as well for streaming television shows. Add in iTunes, Google Play, Vudu, Xbox and Sony for digital rentals and purchases (and Redbox for physical media) and you have quite a range of options to search and find anything you want to watch.
That's quite a lot, and the app's meta-database works as a way to discover content on various services through browsing, a quick way to search all of your streaming options for a specific title, and finally, from the copyright holders' point of view, a nice way to promote paid-for digital content over pirating.
On top of the massive digital entertainment meta-database, the app also pulls images and information from IMDb and links to Rotten Tomatoes, complete with a star rating and top-billed actors.
There's so much churn in the content catalogues of streaming services like Netflix, so Can I Stream It also includes a feature for account holders that notifies you if a title you wanted to watch, but wasn't available at the time, suddenly gets added back to one of your streaming apps.
The Bad
If only the app could keep up with all of that catalogue churn.
Can I Stream It is quite an ambitious project, and at times -- and depending on what you're searching for -- it seems that cross-referencing all of these digital entertainment options was biting off more than UrbanPixels could actually chew.
For example, a search for "DareDevil" in television brought up the first season of that show, but the image, cast and star rating for the show was completely missing, and it incorrectly returned zero streaming results, even though it's one of Netflix's most popular original shows.
This can happen quite a lot for new listings especially, and after several inaccurate results, a user may come to the conclusion that it's not reliable enough to even try.
And speaking of TV shows, the way Can I Stream It currently lists availability is by single episodes within seasons, which is too much navigation to get to a result -- especially when you know in most cases, if a binge-watching service has one episode of a season, it has the entire season.
Tap That App
But you have to give Can I Stream It points for its ambition, most of its user interface, and the fact that it's free and open-platform.
Sure, if you have a 2015 Apple TV or the latest Roku, you'll be able to accomplish the same task with more consistency. But that's only searching through the services and apps that the manufacturer of each device has decided to partner with.
Can I Stream It wants to do that for all services, and make it free (ad-supported) and available for anyone with a smartphone or computer. That makes this app, even if it's not perfect, worth a tap.
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