This is part of a regular series of articles exploring the apps that we couldn't live without. Read them all here.
With the arrival of digital media and streaming, we've now all got access to more movies, television shows, and music than we could ever hope to get through in one lifetime – and it's now quite a challenge keeping track of everything that's been watched and listened to, and what's worth queueing up next.
When it comes to TV show tracking, I've been relying on Marathon, which is available for Android and iOS as well as the web. It manages to check off everything you want from an app like this: it's simple to get started, easy to find your way around the user interface, and it has a comprehensive and up-to-date database.
You can get started with the app for free, and there's a paid tier for $1.99 / £1.99 / AU$2.99 a month that gives you access to extra customization features for your profile and support for tags to organize lists and reviews. Your money will also support future development of the app as well of course.
Getting started with the Marathon app
The onboarding process is the same as it is with most apps of this ilk: you need to share a bit about what you're interested in so that the app and its recommendations can be customized to suit you. Right at the start, Marathon asked me about the streaming and TV services I'm signed up for, and some of the shows I've already watched.
With that done, it's time to record your watching in the app, and Marathon somehow manages to make the process fun. You're able to tap through a series of checkboxes to log individual episodes, and the app has some nice, smooth animations to go with this. My recent viewing always stays at the top, and I can always see how far through each of my various shows I am.
Marathon works really well as a way of keeping track of your upcoming viewing as well as what you've seen in the past. You can see what episode you're up to in each series – very handy for those that stretch across multiple seasons and multiple years – and you can even mark shows as paused or abandoned. It's another sign that the developers have thought of everything.
Via the profile tab you can add a few details for other Marathon members to see (you can follow other users you're interested in, just like social media). There are spots for your favorite shows, the ratings and reviews you've left, and any lists you've made. You can also see some stats about how much watching you've logged on Marathon.
Finding, logging, and reviewing shows
Perhaps the most obvious place to start when you're actually in the Marathon app proper is the search box up at the top. Once I've found a show I'm watching, I get a nicely-presented listing page for it: there are details of what the show's about, when it first aired, who's in the cast, and plenty more. You can even dig into individual episodes.
The app lets you leave reviews and ratings for individual episodes as well as whole shows, and you can see which platforms each show is streaming on too. Tap on Watch, and you get a show added to your list – you can then start logging your watching from the watchlist tab in the app, as described above.
The app covers a lot of ground, and yet it never feels overly cluttered or too busy. One of the biggest challenges for apps of this type are stuffing the maximum number of features and the maximum amount of information in without everything getting out of hand – and that's a challenge Marathon meets very well.
I like the way you can add a whole host of television to the app and it doesn't really break sweat. Tools like the filters and sorting options on your watchlist mean you never get lost inside the app, and everything is well laid out across the various tabs. It's the sort of app you can just dive in and start using without any hand-holding.
Tracking future watching in the Marathon app
Another area where Marathon really excels is in the way it handles everything that hasn't yet aired: if I go to the watchlist page I can see when future episodes are dropping and when new seasons are premiering. Several times now the app has given me a heads-up about new episodes and seasons that I wouldn't have otherwise found out about until after they'd been out for days or weeks.
I also make a lot of use of the explore tab inside the app. It couldn't be any simpler to tap through on lists of shows proving popular with other users, new shows coming to specific streaming services, shows sorted by genre, and even curated lists based around themes (such as workplace comedies).
There's not a huge amount here in the way of customizations, but you do get the choice of a light or dark mode for the interface, and it is possible to tweak some of the ways gestures work and which tabs in the app open first. Profile extras such as custom show posters come with an account upgrade.
One of the ways I can tell I like Marathon is that I'll often dive into it even when I'm not logging what I'm watching – just to have a browse around, and to leave some reviews.
It's a slick and intuitive second screen companion for my television watching, and I'm hoping it'll continue to get better over time, too.
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