Roller coaster with ZAAPTV !!!

One of the things that really get to me is the "Roller Coaster" feeling you get when you turn on your ZAAPTV Pod. You never know whether the channels you were watching 5 minutes ago will be available or not. I am not sure how many times this has happened but I would be watching a channel, turn over to another and then go back to the one I was watching previously (all within 5 minutes) and I get the Satellite video telling me the channel is temporarily unavailable. What's worse is when entire channels just disappear for no apparent reason and then they just show up also for no apparent reason !!! Don't get me wrong I enjoy my POD very much, but when small things like these start creeping up on you, it starts to make your experience with the product lets say...unsatisfying. Tell me what you think.

New update to your ZAAPTV Box

I turned on my ZAAPTV to find out that a new update is available for my Pod. Currently I have version # 5.6.0.17.2.4.23. So I bit the bullet and started updating, currently it's downloading package 2 from 7...and its flashing, now it's downloading 3 out of 7..... 4 out of 7.... 5 out of 7...6 out of 7...7 out of 7 packages. Done. It's restarting now and the whole process took about 7 minutes. The new version number is 5.8.0.31.2.4.23 Ok..so what's new? This is a quick list of the most notable changes that I recognized, I am not going into any details since I am still discovering what new functionality has been added. Most notably are the app support that has been added, I am not sure yet what is it or what apps I can get Starting with TV Live, they added a couple more categories, I think Afghan is a new one. They also added a new category called "Subscriptions", which could only mean that sooner or later they will allow users to subscribe to pay channels such as ART, Orbit...etc (These are Arabic channels you have to pay for in order to watch them for those of you who do not know what I am talking about). Very nice and clever move. This is something I personally will consider subscribing to if the rates are good for such additional channels. Under My Collection they added "My Apps". Under Internet Media they added "Web Apps", if you open that up you will find an App for Picasa ( a photo sharing service from Google). I opened it up and selected the featured shows, clicked on one and a simple slideshow of photos just played. You can search by Username, so if you have an account with them you can stream your photos to your pod and watch them on your TV. Under Newspaper, if you open up a newspaper now using your remote control you can control the cursor (finally). So now you go to the right side to scroll up and down, and at the bottom to scroll left and right. Finally, under Settings they added "Third Party Applications". Note: I just noticed that I lost all my MBC's ( I am very unhappy about that) and my Hayat Tv (Red) approximately 9 channels are gone, hopefully its a minor glitch during the migration they are performing. This was a quick overview of some of the changes that have occurred and I noticed.