Showyou’s New iPad App Is Like A Remote Control For Your Apple TV

A few weeks ago, I took a look at the new Showyou iPhone app, which founder Mark Hall at that time said was quickly becoming the team’s favorite version of its social discovery engine. Well, Showyou just released a new version of its iPad app to do that one better. Not only does the new iPad app add a lot of the same social features that make the iPhone version so great, but it also adds retina display support and dual-screen mutlitasking.

What’s that last part mean in English? Basically that if you have an Apple TV, you can now use Showyou as your remote control for a wide range of online video.

Showyou uses Apple’s AirPlay to allow you to send videos from the iPad to the Apple TV, which is nothing new — that feature’s been part of the app since day one. But Showyou has incorporated some pretty cool magic that will allow users to queue up videos to be watched on the Apple TV, and watch them even if you leave the app to check your email or browse the web. That’s right — the videos will keep playing.

So this feature has actually been around for awhile in iOS5, but few app makers have actually implemented it to date. Which is a shame, because it’s pretty cool. You can load a video from The Daily Show or Funny Or Die or any of Showyou’s other partners — and there are a bunch — and go about your business, tweeting and not really paying attention to the TV. (It’s just like if you were watching regular TV!) Anyway, Brightcove recently highlighted dual-screen navigation and control as part of the latest update to its App Cloud offering, so maybe others will soon catch on and start using the capability in their own apps.

Anyway, that’s the coolest new feature, but it’s not the only one. After rebuilding its back end to support its updated iPhone app, Showyou is now circling back and adding many of its new features back into the iPad app. For instance, its “Send to Friend” and “Thanks” social features. It’s also adding Retina Display support for all you fancy third-gen iPad owners out there.

Showyou’s in the middle of a big, crowded space full of apps seeking to help you discover cool videos on your iPad. But with dual-screen multitasking support thing, this update can really help set it apart from the rest.