With the 83rd annual Academy Awards quickly approaching, media junkies will be hurrying to see this year’s latest nominees, while catching up on the latest buzz and predictions.
Just in time for the Oscars, we’ve rounded up five apps designed to fill your insatiable hunger for Hollywood’s most important awards show.
Award’s Guide: The Oscars
Award’s Guide offers the Oscar nominees and winners from 1920 to 2011, allowing movie lovers to browse by both Oscar categories and years. By selecting any year, this app will list each category (best picture, best director) coupled with every nominee and winner. One of the coolest features of this app displays a list of previous nominations and wins. For example, by selecting Natalie Portman, a contender for best actress this year, Award’s Guide has included her past nomination for Closer in 2004. Nicely this app also includes a search feature however, it doesn’t sport any information about the films or nominees. Still, a handy app to have for reference while watching the show.
Live From the Red Carpet
E! Entertainment Television brings the red carpet to you through live streaming video, news, photos and videos that feature Oscar predictions, gossip and buzz. This app’s focus is on the hottest events happening in Hollywood but its Oscar 2011 section is completely dedicated to this year’s award show.
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The user interface is pretty sleek and parades the Oscar-related content in horizontal boxes similar to popular news app Pulse. Overall there’s quite a bit of content available and it’s free for both the iPad and iPhone. We can’t speak to the quality of the live stream but if you fire the app up tomorrow the option should be live. There’s also a list of nominees but unfortunately it’s lacking direct links to movie information or IMDB.
Oscar’s Backstage Pass
Oscar’s Backstage Pass, developed by ABC, is a must-have app for anyone who’s serious about the Oscars. The app, available for both the iPhone and iPad will enable users to watch live backstage video streams. During the event, viewers will be able to switch back and forth between multiple cameras and they’ve even included a map of where the cameras are positioned. There are loads of cams to view, including a fashion cam on the red carpet, a backstage champagne cam, a winners walk cam, and a feed from the lobby bar. If you’re crazy about the Oscars, you can grab the app for .99. We’re hoping the footage quality will be as good as it sounds.
Vanity Fair Hollywood: Oscar’s Edition
Vanity Fair has been known to publish in-depth recaps of the Oscars in its magazine and, it has done an excellent job with it’s iOS Oscar edition as well.
This app is beautiful on the iPad and it’s super useful for previewing trailers of each nominee. Vanity Fair’s app divides screens by nomination categories (best picture, best director), offering a trailer for each nomination within the respective screens. Quick access to each film’s trailer/movie preview is very handy and is sure to make the Oscar’s more enjoyable, especially for passing around at Oscar parties. Users can additionally cast votes and share through Facebook which will later post your predictions to leaderboards. It’s available on both the iPhone and iPad and it’s free. Another must-have app for the Oscars.
The Oscars
The Oscars, exclusively available on the iPhone, has a database full of this year’s nominees and past winners of the Academy Awards. It offers the latest news, photos, and a written synopsis of each film. Users can also make predictions or view user submitted predictions. Like Award’s Guide, there’s a way to discover the past winners by category or by decade and it offers results from the 1920’s up to today. The user interface isn’t that exciting and it doesn’t include trailers or much content as of yet. The Oscars was designed for the iPhone but it does work on the iPad, and it’s free.
Enjoy the show tomorrow, and feel free to post your Oscar predictions in the comments.
We should also note that Oscar’s Backstage Pass and Live From the Red Carpet are only available within the U.S. app store.
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