Shovel (aka Diggerific)

Michael (Admin) | Sep 5, 2008 News

User rating: (9 votes, average: 4.11 out of 5)
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I hate walking into the office restroom holding a newspaper or magazine because anyone who spots me automatically knows that (a) I’m about to take a huge dump, and (b) I’m a total slacker who prefers to entertain myself on the can rather than work.

Well you know what? Screw them! I do it anyway. Well… I used to. Now that I have Diggerific, I mean Shovel, I’m a lot harder to spot when I’m on a work-avoidance mission.

Shovel really is The Ultimate Bathroom Reader. It’s Digg on your iPhone and, despite the limited functionality, it’s pretty sweet. You’re on your iPhone… do you really need to be able to leave comments and bury things and whatever else loyal Diggers do? Not me. I just want some interesting stories to keep me amused while I’m squeezing one off.

Sprikit has done a really nice job on Shovel, and I love the fact that I can read the full stories within the app instead of having to launch Safari window after Safari window. If there’s anything missing it would have to be search, but even without that it’s still a great app that I use pretty much every day.

If you spend a lot of time taking refuge on the office crapper and you’ve got $.99 to spare, buy Shovel! If you’re also a big pimp and like to wipe your ass with $100 bills, blow the extra $4 for Shovel Donate. Either way, it’s a solid investment.

Most of the Popular stories are decent, but some are utter crap
Most of the Popular stories are decent, but some are utter crap
A quick synopsis will hopefully tell you whether the story's worth hitting the
A quick synopsis will hopefully tell you whether the story's worth hitting the "Load Story in Browser" button
Comments are there to remind you that the entire world has gone completely insane
Comments are there to remind you that the entire world has gone completely insane

If your'e super bored, drill down into the various comment battles that get waged daily
If your'e super bored, drill down into the various comment battles that get waged daily
I hate when apps make me switch to Safari... Shovel doesn't
I hate when apps make me switch to Safari... Shovel doesn't
All of the major Digg categories are there, you just have to
All of the major Digg categories are there, you just have to "dig" for them under More

Offbeat = stupid = funny
Offbeat = stupid = funny
Is it just me or does this configure screen do absolutely nothing?
Is it just me or does this configure screen do absolutely nothing?
iphone_shovel_price



Tags:

  • trev

    In the configure screen, if you hold down your finger on one of the icons and drag it to the below menu bar it will save it as one of the default news catagories when you load it up.

    Let’s you customize it to your tastes.

  • http://robbroadwell.blogspot.com Rob

    Digg reader on iPhone = cool. Taking a dump and contaminating your phone, which you put up to your face all the time = not cool.

  • josh

    instead of wasting time on the toilet trying to poop, maybe you should eat more fiber to speed things along. :idea:

  • matt

    well he could eat the newspaper… if he wasn’t using an iphone

  • David Fitzhugh

    The shovel app is currently being rewritten and is very close to release. The original bugginess had a lot to do with memory management and has been reworked completely to correct these problems. In addition, the new Shovel app (3.0-ish) includes much more intelligent story loading and is much faster in browsing between multiple stories and accessing the stories themselves (through an in app browser window).

    The current build features access to Instapaper and Facebook and has features in place to allow digging up/down as well as leaving comments which will be made available as soon as Digg releases these features through their API. Overall the rewritten app feels much more streamlined and quick, and I expect current users of Shovel to experience a massive boost in speed and usability when they upgrade to Shovel 3.0

    Key Notes:
    -The 3.0 release will have a free (ad supported) and paid version.
    -Overall memory management has been vastly improved
    -A more extensive debugging process has been undertaken with this release
    -Digg has NOT released digg up/down features to their API as of yet
    -These features have been written into the new Shovel app already, all that remains is the API functionality to interact with the Digg website
    -Included with every feature we’ve taken the time to code (digg up/down, commenting etc) we’ve included a form letter builder with which you will be able to automatically send digg an email kindly requesting that they release these features with their API. You can of course sign with your own name and hopefully with enough requests they’ll solve the issue of releasing this functionality while preventing the inevitable bots and spammers that will abuse it.

  • http://www.thefatlossauthority.com/fat_loss_tips Michael – Fat Loss Tips

    Cool app…I’ll have to remember this one.

    Mike

  • http://www.113tidbits.com 113Tidbits

    Thanks for the opportunity to get a great application.

  • Jason Taylor

    I purchased the Shovel Donate app ages ago, key features – gets updates sooner and addition pro features to come.

    Now its 2010 and I m still waiting for any update and these pro features……..still waiting and feeling a wee bit ripped off.

    Comon, its only been 1.5 years since I purchased Shovel Donate.