iPhone App Reviews

Tweetion

Chrisa | Feb 4, 2009 Social Networking

User rating: (1 votes, average: 2.00 out of 5)

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Hi, my name is Chrisa, and I’m a twitter-er.  It’s pretty much an obsession, and I should be in a 12-step program for it, but I can’t help it.  I lovemicro blogging, and I don’t care who knows it!  I’ve used another iPhone Twitter app for some time now, but it was a free app (you’ll have to search for it yourself), and while it works fine and does what I need, I figured there must be a more full-featured Twitter app out there, even if I have to pay for it.

Along came Tweetion, from Joggame.  I guess you pronounce it “twee-shun”.   And it does seemingly have more features than the freebie I had been using.  You can have it automatically set your location based on where you are when you Twitter, automatically update your Facebook status from Twitter (although, Twitter itself can do this, without having to set it here), retrieve past tweets, update your service delivery (IM, SMS), and even edit your Twitter bio information.   Don’t know about you, but I usually set that and forget it on the Twitter website, so I don’t know how often you’d use the setup, after your first time entering your login info.

Then, of course, you can read tweets from those to which you subscribe, add a tweet, add a twitpic, reply to a tweet, search for trends, etc.  All the things you’d expect. 

But, there are some downfalls.  In the settings, you use standard iPhone “dials” to pick how far back you’d like to pull tweets, but it doesn’t work as a dial.  In fact, it’s infuriating as all hell to figure out how a dial ISN’T a dial (see below).  In fact, the entire setup menu is either a little blurry, or I need a prescription change on my glasses.  Recent Tweets are in HUGE boxes, which I found hysterical, since the avatar/bio pic for each tweet was so small, I could barely make out what it was.  Oh – and if you want to view your profile, all you get is your tiny bio pick – can’t even read your own bio to be sure it was edited correctly in settings. 

Then there’s adding a tweet.  It takes no less than 4 clicks – minus what you type – to add an entry.  Why?  Seems like there are 2-3 clicks to many and when you’re an addict, you need to get delivery of your fix fast.  4 clicks wasn’t fast enough for me.

I tried to give Tweetion a fare shake – I used it to Twitter for five straight days, and in the end, I went back to my free Twitter app.  Maybe I’m just used to the free one, but I get more tweets on a page, bigger bio pics, faster tweets, and easier searching on the free one.  Seems that Tweetion slaps in a lot of stuff you don’t really need to justify charging $4.99.  My advice – slim it down, make the bio picks bigger, and charge $1.99.  You’ll probably end up making more dough in the end.

Tags: $4.99, social networking

Q&F: Comeks

Splash Jackson | Jan 5, 2009 Quick & Free, Social Networking

User rating: (6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)

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Comeks may seem like just another comic-style photo editing program, but the eyes can be deceiving. Actually, this app falls under the Social Networking category as a micro-blogging tool that offers a fun way to keep people posted on your status on either Facebook, Bebo, or Friendster. You have to set up an account at comeks.com for this to work however. If you dread the mere thought of having to manage yet another online account, Comeks also gives you the option to export your creation to your photo library or send it as an email.

The actual photo editing portion of Comeks is pretty sweet. You can import any photo from you gallery or take a picture using your iPhone camera. Or you can choose a solid background color to build up from. Once you have your canvas, there are numerous sticker categories to choose from that range from “callouts” to “mustaches.” What I found that worked really well was after choosing a sticker, you can rotate, resize, and drag it in place all using the multi-touch methods we all are accustomed to. To top it off, Comeks allows you to add text in one of those white speech or thought bubbles so you can tell people how you really feel. The only drawback for me was the dwindling choice of stickers within each sticker category. I hope Comeks Ltd. plans to add a plethora of more sticker options in future updates; of course at the price of FREE, you can’t complain too much.

I noticed in the iTunes app reviews that many people experienced crashing issues. While I didn’t have any crashes after extensive use, a stability fix and more stickers in a future update would probably help the lagging two-and-a-half star rating in the app store. Nonetheless, Comeks is a social networking app with lots of promise and potential to be a high-polished and well sought-after micro-blogging tool.

Paris, you got nothing on me!

Tags: free, photo editing, status update

PhotoSwap

Michael (Admin) | Aug 27, 2008 Social Networking

User rating: (14 votes, average: 3.07 out of 5)

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Using PhotoSwap is incredibly simple: take a picture with your iPhone which is then whisked off and shown to some random person, and in return you get a picture from that same stranger.

Each photo sent through Photoswap is sent only to one person, so you should never see the same picture twice, and you can send photo replies back and forth to each other. Also, as a bonus for the stalker in all of us, you get to map the sender’s location! It doesn’t give pinpoint accuracy (a good thing, imo), but if this creeps you out just go into Settings and select Hide Location: On.

Photoswap employs a very interesting concept, but unfortunately the results are mind-numbingly boring. I confess to sending around some pretty boring photos myself in hopes of getting something back that’s worth looking at, but I’ve been sorely disappointed every single time. Maybe that’s the problem here? Everyone is snapping crappy, boring photos on the off-chance they might get to see something funny or at least some boobs or something.

Padadaz is obviously aware of this problem since they recently started greeting PhotoSwap users (every time the app is opened) with a desperate plea for non-garbage photos. Something tells me nothing will change as long as PhotoSwap insists on making you take a new photo in order to get one back.

I understand why the app wants a new photo… it’s all about immediacy and sharing a photo that’s fresh right NOW. This would be great if we were all living like rockstars, but the reality is that most of don’t have anything terribly interesting to share right this minute. We could share something interesting from last weekend, but right now we’re just sitting on our asses playing with an iPhone.

The other problem is that any photo you take with PhotoSwap is gone forever, sent off to that anonymous stranger. You don’t get to save it first and it doesn’t get saved to your Camera Roll. If it’s a really cool photo, do you really want to give it up immediately? I don’t.

Kudos to PhotoSwap for trying to do something new, but right now it’s not doing enough to be anywhere near interesting.

Tags: free, photo sharing

Secrets

Michael (Admin) | Aug 7, 2008 Social Networking

User rating: (5 votes, average: 4.60 out of 5)

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There’s a really popular blog called PostSecret where anonymous people send in homemade postcards that reveal their darkest secrets for the world to see. The secrets can range from shocking to depressing to funny to lame… you get the idea.

PostSecret

Golgi has taken the same concept and adapted it for iPhone users to post their (sometimes) dirty laundry in a similarly anonymous environment. A lot of open forums like this tend to disintegrate into a cesspool of spammers and people trying to get laid, but the self-policed Secrets community and the Secrets staff seem to be doing a good job of maintaining some semblance of order and overall it’s pretty entertaining!

The “secrets” that I’ve seen so far have been a mixed bag of silliness, stupidity, sad revelations, genuine confessions of misdeeds, and a relatively small amount of spam here and there. All text is displayed in the kind of scripty font you find on Hallmark cards and some people can’t stand this but I think it works pretty well for confessing your sins. I’ve included more screenshots than usual with this review to give you an idea of the range of thoughts you’ll find in the Secrets community.

And that brings us to the subject of parental responsibility. This warning is my good deed for the day:

With Secrets I have yet to see any outright porn or sexual propositions (still hoping!), but there are definitely some bad words and “mature themes” involving sex and drugs. Personally I think sex and drugs are super, but if your 8 year old suddenly asks if you’re “addicted to masturbation” then maybe it’s time to uninstall or at least lock the iPhone with a passcode.

Speaking of masturbation, adding your own secret is easy… you can choose an existing photo, take a new one, or fill the background with color. After that you just type in your big confession and you’re all set. Be careful, though! Once you post it, there’s no turning back. After all, it’s anonymous so how would they know you were really the one who posted it?

When your secret gets posted, you’ll see the text in a semi-transparent box and if you tilt your iPhone back the box will disappear to reveal the artwork or color behind it. It’s a nice way to be able to share thoughts and the accompanying visual at the same time, but a lot of times the accelerometer behavior feels kind of unpredictable. Sometimes you have to tilt to see the art, sometimes you have to tilt to see the words.

Secrets does have some downsides and one is that it seems to crash more often than other apps. You’ll be tapping around, laughing at the misfortune of others, and suddenly the app just closes and you’re looking at icons. This happened to me a few times while trying to post my own secret which was frustrating. Another negative is that right now there’s a total of just 355 secrets. Obviously this will change if the app gains popularity, and that prospect is directly related to my final gripe that Secrets needs more (or maybe just better) ways to sort content. Search is available and there are three ways to browse secrets: highest rated, most viewed, and most recent. You’ll probably spend most of your time browsing, and paging through the same secrets every time you open the app or change views is not fun.

Still, I think Secrets is pretty cool and for only $.99 it makes for an interesting diversion when you have time to kill. It’s perfect for when you’re waiting in line or just sitting on the can so I say it’s worth buying. And after you’ve seen enough of other people’s secrets, chances are you’ll be tempted to post your own.

P.S. From the developer’s website:

Known bugs:
If you bookmark a secret that has no text, then relaunch the app, it will crash before opening.

Solution:
The only fix is to delete the app, then re-download “Secrets” from the App Store. You will not get charged again although you must click “Buy Now” if browsing from your iPhone / iPod Touch. Deleting the app will remove all your bookmarks, so if you accidently bookmark a secret with no text just go to your bookmarks section and delete before shutting down your app.
 

Tags: $.99, mature