It’s been over a year since Ruben had his hands on Infuse and dubbed it as the ‘Swiss army knife of video playing.’ Later, Infuse shed the skeuomorphic skin and became flat as a pancake with its iOS 7-optimized Infuse 2, which I reviewed at Apple TV Hacks. I tagged it as ‘one of the best video players I’ve used’ and here is a summary of the great features which lead me to say so.
Key features
- Play a wider range of video formats such as MKV, MP4, MTS, AVI, and many others.
- Browse videos in a visually engaging layout with auto-added artwork and movie info.
- Stream videos to the big screen using robust multi-format AirPlay.
- Stream content from most any Mac, PC, network drive, and UPnP/DLNA app.
- Transfer videos using a standard web browser, no iTunes required.
- Enjoy videos with enhanced mobile surround sound, powered by Dolby® and DTS®.
- Download and add subtitles with ease.
- Connect with trakt to sync watched history
- Add videos from Dropbox, Google Drive, iTunes, email attachments and more.
- Much, much more!
Of course, we knew that there would be an iOS 8 update to this great video player, but we never thought it would be so huge as to add one to the suffix and become Infuse 3.
As expected, Infuse 3 is not just a brushed up, refined version of 2.0. Instead, it brings a whole new array of features, some of which have been unheard of in the iOS app industry till now.
One of the highlights is the addition of certified DTS and DTS-HD audio support, and Infuse 3 boasts to be the first and only app to do so. If you have some Blu-ray movies and a 5.1 system at home, you’re going to be blown away by this update.
Another major addition is the support for popular WiFi storage services like AirStash, Sandisk Connect, Seagate Wireless Plus, Lacie Fuel, and others.
Infuse 3 also picks up support for the Morphie space pack which acts as a battery case for your iPhone 5/5S while adding up to 64 GB of storage to it.
So if you have a huge library of movies and TV shows but only a 16 GB iPhone, Infuse might be the media player of choice to be used with one of these WiFi hard drives.
Personally, I don’t watch Blu-ray movies over AirPlay or connect my iPad to the surround system, nor do I own any wireless drives. So for me, the rest of the update (about 30 new features) which comes packed inside infuse 3 is what matters more and I’m pretty sure, the same is true for many of you guys too.
My favorite feature would be the automatic collection of TV shows. Just like before, Infuse tracks down the media you have in your device and downloads all their metadata, to create a pleasing ticket menu of videos. But with Infuse 3.0, this is taken a step further and TV shows get automatically sorted into seasons. You can choose the episodes from a single season ticket, which makes the experience really neat and seamless.
Also, all your media files (expect those purchased via iTunes) now shows a Share button with an AirDrop option. And that means, you can now send even large movies to iFriends near you at WiFi speeds, with just a tap. This again is something which comes in really handy and one, I am going to use very often.
Since a lot of Infuse users have network devices, FireCore has brought many specific improvements for them. “Streamers” can now favorite folders for quick access, stream content directly from the home screen, download in the background and even stream over 4G/LTE.
Of course, Infuse 3.0 is now optimized for both iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The update also makes the streaming feature available to free users, which kind of makes me jealous, but surely is a huge deal for freebie lovers.
Also, the new Dark mode theme looks way better than the super bright one in my opinion.
Besides the above mentioned features, there are many minor tweaks and performance improvements in Infuse 3 which further adds to the overall experience.
– Use your own folder artwork (folder.png or folder.jpg)
– Mark movies and shows as watched/unwatched
– 2-way trakt watched history sync
– Sort files by name or date
– Tap ticket artwork to start video playback
– Manual movie/show title search
– Transfer files via Wi-Fi when iPhone is acting as a hotspot
The Infuse Pro app is available for $9.99 from the AppStore. But those who want to try out the app first, can get the Infuse 3 app for free and upgrade to Pro via an in-app purchase.
All existing Pro licenses will transfer over to Infuse 3. More details can be found here.
To conclude, Infuse 3 is undoubtedly a huge improvement over the past iterations in terms of features and stability. If you are a power user who consume a lot of videos on your iPhone and iPad, Infuse is probably the best option to go with. It has been my go-to video player for the past one n’ half years and after upgrading to Infuse 3, I don’t see that changing any time soon.
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