Update: As of 2019, Infuse 6 has been released. You can read my review on it here, or continue to read this one (much of it still applies).
I’ve been using Firecore’s Infuse 5 player to watch movies and TV shows on my iPad and iPhone for the past month, and I love it. Infuse 5 supports multiple media formats, Trakt.tv integration, initiative gestures, and so much more. This makes it the best video player choice on iOS.
One of the most important features of a media player is the format of file it can play – and I’ve been able to play every format in Infuse, from MP4 to 3GP. And it’s impressive how well the app runs formats – the scrubbing feature, which is a great way to quickly go back if you want to view something again – runs perfectly, even on huge .mkv files. Volume and brightness can be adjusted by swiping up or down on the left or right part of the screen, allowing you to quickly and easily change them. Up to 4K resolution is supported. The app supports AirPlay, so you can stream your movies to your TV.
For those of you who use subtitles, Infuse 5 allows you to completely customise your subtitles. You can import your own, or search through OpenSubtitles.org to find what ones apply to your movie. You can then customise the subtitles with 10 settings, including size, colour, background, and so much more to adjust your subtitles exactly to the movie you’re watching.
Moving content to Infuse is easy – you can transfer through your PC with iTunes Sync, or you can use FTP or WebDAV to connect to a provider. I use WebDAV to connect Infuse to Put.io, and I can stream videos directly from the source. You can also link it to Dropbox, Google Drive, and other cloud providers if you store movies in those cloud storage services. If you are a Plex user, Infuse has full Plex support.
Infuse does a great job of organising your media library. There are multiple ways to view it – the home screen shows recently added movies, unwatched movies, and has a carousel at the top – it looks really good. There is then the files view, which simply shows you all the movies and TV shows you have in your account, as well as the services you have it connected to. Finally, the last view is the search mode – this allows you to search the content you have by genre, title, and more, so it’s easy to find what you want to watch.
Metadata is automatically collected and applied to movies and TV shows you have in the app. I’ve found that Infuse does this well – I’ve had no issues with it collecting movie metadata, even for obscure movies. TV shows often work well – Infuse sorts them by season, which is a great way to do it, and I’ve had no issues with this either.
One of my favourite features of the app is Trakt.tv integration. I use trakt.tv to track all the movies and shows I watch, and Infuse has great integration with it. It automatically marks films and shows as watched when you have viewed them, and also checks them in automatically. You can shout out movies from the app too, and impressive feature.
Infuse also offers Apple TV integration, allowing you to easily view your library on your Apple TV.
There are two Infuse 5 apps on the App Store – one of which is free, however you can purchase Pro features in a subscription. So, what does Pro offer? With Pro, you unlock all the video formats, allowing you to play many obscure formats, and play up to 4K resolution. Support for Dolby TrueHD audio is added, allowing you to hear every detail, and Pro unlocks Google Cast and Airplay support. Sync is also unlocked, keeping your library, playback progress, and watched history in sync across all your devices, and most importantly, cloud streaming is unlocked.
One of the apps is subscription based, at £8.99 a year, and that version can be downloaded here. The app also has a free version, allowing you to try the app out.
However, if you are not a fan of subscriptions and plan to use the app in the long run, you can purchase Infuse Pro – this is a one time purchase, and you unlock all the features that the subscription based app has. It’s £14.99, and can be purchased here.
I really like Infuse – I’ve had no issues with it, and it’s surprising how easy it is to get content into the app. The ability to link to services via WebDAV and FTP is a great feature and allows you to link to hundreds of streaming services that Infuse doesn’t support. For people who view lots of media on their iPad and iPhone, I can’t recommend Infuse more.