Today was my first proper go at experiencing Orange Thursdays, the new service from Orange. I’m on record as saying that this is one of the smartest moves from an operator in quite some time. Indeed, it’s a brilliant addition to the company’s hugely popular Orange Wednesdays 2-for-1 cinema ticket deal valid across the UK.
The FilmToGo service is primarily based on text messaging: You text FILMTOGO to the 85060 short code. You get a reply back with an iTunes redemption code for the movie in question. Type that into iTunes and your free movie rental will start downloading. That reply costs you 35p — so it’s not entirely free. But, as I comment in the video below, most of the UK views that as ‘free’ (or reaaaaaally cheap) on the basis that the movie rental would have cost around £3.00.
I thought I’d check out the Orange FilmToGo app. That launched recently and gives you a completely seamless experience. Click ‘download’ and you’re then presented with the unique redemption code — and then given the option to redeem it. It’s all automatic. The movie then starts downloading to your device.
Utterly brilliant. This is about as easy as it gets. Really nice work Orange.
Here’s my video of the experience:
[Now, I used SocialCam to film it on my other iPhone. Unfortunately I still haven’t ‘got’ the way that SocialCam orients the screen. I held the iPhone in landscape mode and the video has come out sideways. Maybe it’ll get corrected by the server. Sorry about that. You’ll get the gist though.]