MyMemory

The classic “memory” game generally serves to remind you that you’re dumb as a post, yet somehow it’s endured generations and can actually be kind of fun if you’re sober and have some time to kill.

MyMemory lets you select images from your camera roll and use them in a photo matching game. Tap a square on the grid to see a picture, tap another square to see another picture, and hopefully they match. If not, you’re a dumbass. When you tap matching squares, they go away. The object is to clear the grid entirely.

Jedidiah Laudenslayer had the right idea when he made MyMemory but, unfortunately, this app has problems.

Problem #1: It’s flow as suck. I mean, it’s slow as… well, you get the idea. When selecting images from the camera roll there’s a delay of at least 3-5 seconds. In fact, you might even think for a moment that your iPhone has frozen on you. Tapping grid squares is also an excruciating test of patience, and your grid tap doesn’t give you any feedback to tell you that the square was tapped successfully. No immediate highlight, no sound… you have to wait for the square to change colors when the image is revealed. Ouch.

Problem #2: Images being imported into the game are often sideways or upside-down. I can understand images taken in landscape format (iPhone turned on its side) being misoriented, but nearly all of the images I used were portrait photos with my iPhone positioned upright. Part of the fun in using your own photos is looking at them, but that’s hard to do when they’re sideways.

I suppose Problem #2 could be remedied by turning your iPhone on its side, but Problem #1 is a dealbreaker. A minor delay in loading the photos could be excused, but what I experienced was pretty major. 5 seconds to find out what image is under the square I tapped? Call me impatient but I can’t deal with that.

If you have MyMemory and have NOT experienced the same speed issues, please say so in the comments. There’s an outside chance that my iPhone is just an idiot, but I kind of doubt it. Other apps run just fine and my device’s performance issues are minimal. I also thought maybe I just got a bad installation of MyMemory (if such a thing is even possible) so I deleted the app and reinstalled it from the iTunes App Store. Same results.

In its current form, there’s no way I’d pay $1.99 for MyMemory. If the speed problems could be fixed it might be worth it, but as of right now I’ve gotta give this app a big thumbs down.

In fairness to MyMemory’s creator who was nice enough to buy me his app for this review, here’s a video I found that shows a user who’s not experiencing the same speed issues that I’ve encountered. Some of the images in this video are slow to load, but others are much faster. There’s also another video here that shows the app working the way it was meant to. As of this writing I’m using the latest version of MyMemory, so maybe it’s a version issue?