Callsheet: Find Cast & Crew +12

If you’re anything like me, you like well-designed things. Apps that feel at home on your iPhone. That look like Apple made them. That don’t bother you with privacy prompts or ugly ads. That’s Callsheet. It’s like if Apple made IMDB. It’s such a beautifully made app. Everything is carefully and thoughtfully crafted. It’s lightning quick, even on slow connections. No more waiting for web pages. It doesn’t ask for your employment history for the last 50 years and the last four digits of your Social Security Number. It respects your privacy. It has tons of goodies, too. Goodies that both casual watchers and movie buffs can and will enjoy.

Don’t scoff at the price. $8 a year?! Trust me: it’s worth *more* than that. It’s $8 a *year* for a delightful, boutique product. One you’ll always love using. It’s literally the price of a cup of coffee for joy. It brings joy, and I think joy is worth $8 a year. If you’re sick of looking at ads, loading slow web pages, or touching tiny tap targets on poorly optimized mobile websites, Callsheet is the app for you. And if you just like nice things, what are you doing here? Just subscribe to Callsheet. It’s just what you want.

This app retains the speed and simplicity of the phone version, and is also a good fit for this platform. The app looks very nice with the new glassy semi-transparent material look, and the movie poster thumbnails are high enough quality that they look fine when presented as quite large. The “touch” targets and buttons are big enough that it’s relatively easy to activate them without making mistakes. The main search bar now adorns the bottom of the window.

There’s a search history panel that makes it easier to access past searches through large buttons instead of trying to type. I couldn’t correctly clear out the search history in that panel, but I expect that it may be a feature that’s coming soon.

The features here don’t require augmented or virtual reality, but it’s great to have the app here because many people are using their devices to watch movies and television. Generally, if you’re happy with this app on other platforms, you’ll probably also be happy with it here because the quality is similarly very high and it follows native platform conventions.

I’ll be honest. I downloaded the app because I genuinely wanted to support Casey (he’s a good guy), and figured I’d subscribe even though Callsheet is ‘just’ a front end to a website. Oh, was I wrong! The app is fast, responsive and, more importantly, a delight to use. Every screen has the information I care about, but no more. I went to the source website to see if I’d been missing out on the best movie site ever. Nope. There’s so much clutter there that Callsheet has swept away leaving me in a figurative zen garden of movie information. I think I’ve spent the last hour or so just browsing, and searching, and browsing some more. Learning about a bunch of actors I just couldn’t be bother to go spelunking on Wikipedia (or worse… the other ‘mdb’) because they are right there, with their age, and their photo. Seriously Casey, if you’re reading this, I’ll double down on my offer: come back to Austin and I’ll buy you as many beverages as you want. Thank you for this amazing app, and thank you for caring about good UX.