Do you hate jump scares? This app warns you before they happen

A new movie and TV show tracking app, Binge, hailing from the indie developer behind other creative apps like the social app Mammoth and the AI ​​news reader Bulletin, has a clever feature: It will warn you when jump scares are coming.

To do this, the app takes advantage of Apple’s Live Activities – a feature that delivers real-time notifications to your device’s lock screen and dynamic island. I’ve seen other apps that track current events use this feature to track things like food deliveries, Uber arrivals, sports scores, and more. But Binge taps into the feature to let you know when scary scenes will appear.

To use this feature, click the clock icon on the jump scare details page to start the live activity when you start watching the movie. You can also filter out only “key” concerns if you prefer.

The app enters a crowded space where other popular apps like Letterboxd, TV Time, JustWatch, Trakt, and others already have a large audience. However, Binge aims to differentiate itself by leveraging Apple-specific features, like live activities and iCloud syncing, as well as offering a host of features that not all other apps have, like the ability to add private notes, details about post-credit scenes, timelines of award details, episode rating graphs, integration with other tracking apps, and more.

According to developer Shihab Mahboob, the hope is to make Binge a comprehensive app for tracking movies, TV shows, groups, people (like actors), streamers, networks, and even production companies.

Like other tracking apps, you’ll find the usual details about the shows or movies you’re following, such as release date, description, trailers, cast and crew, reviews, runtime, genre, and other basics.

In addition to adding items to your watchlist or marking them as seen, you can also easily see where the title in question has been viewed — a useful feature in a time when content seems to always be moving between services. And you can track which movies are still in theaters so you can remember to stream them later at home.

Additionally, Binge pulls data from third-party sites, such as scores from Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd, IMDb, and Metacritic, and creates a guide for parents using IMDb information about the amount of violence in a movie or show, sexual content, scary scenes, drug and alcohol use, profanity, and other factors.

Other features include the ability to rate movies and shows, sync with the Trakt service, browse recommendations, view details of Oscar winners, create custom collections, add tags to indicate you own a movie, add widgets to the home screen and lock screen, use the Add to Calendar feature, and access tons of in-app customization options.

The app is available on iPhone, iPad and Mac. It’s free to download, but requires either a subscription or a one-time payment to unlock premium features, like scare warnings. Currently, subscriptions cost either $1.99 per month or $17.99 per year, or you can choose to pay a one-time fee of $49.99 to unlock the app’s premium features permanently.