It is a funny thing that has happened to me. I have become greedy about the real estate on my iPhone. Not just any app will do. If an app is lucky enough to get a shot on my iPhone, it has to be special. I have certain criteria that must be met before I will even think about cluttering my screen with yet another app.
- The name and description need to hook me and really make me believe I can't live another moment without this app in my life.
- It needs to have at least a 2 star rating from reviewers. I know that there are a lot of opinions out there, but if the average is one star than that gives a pretty clear message overall of what people think about the app.
- It has to be useful or offer some kind of benefit to me. Nothing annoys me more than downloading an app and deleting it 10 minutes later because I can't figure out what I'd ever do with it.
- The interface has to be easy to use. Like 5-year old easy. I have a short attention span and if I can't figure out how to manuever basic features in less than a minute, than chances are I probably never will because I can probably can find another app that does something similar that is easier to use. (This is the beauty of having 35,000+ applications out there.)
- If it is an app for a website I normally use, then I expect that all the basic functionality I am used to is available through the app. I don't want to have to navigate to the website on my phone unless absolutely necessary. Mobile versions of some common sites have proved to be disappointing in my opinion.
When I don't follow my own rules, I end up kicking myself in almost every instance. Earlier this week I was hooked by the cutesy description of Screen Cleaner (Jared Judd). Criteria #1 had been met. However, neither the free or paid version of the app had been rated, even though they have been out for several months. Hmmm. My curiosity was piqued though, so I decided to download it anyway, knowing it was really just for entertainment value.
Five minutes later I was deleting the app shaking my head. It has missed the mark on Criteria #3 as well. The premise of the app is that a dog is going to "clean" your screen. In the free version you have three dogs to choose from, and in the paid version ($0.99) you get eight dogs. You pick your dog and then watch it lick some liquid substance off the screen. That's it. DIfferent dog, same thing. I read in the paid version the dogs lick 4x longer than in the free version. I watched all three dogs to give the app a fair shot to see if I was missing anything. I wasn't.
So my iPhone real estate remains relatively uncluttered and I can feel smug that I am using everything displayed on a regular basis. We all have our own app critieria. What's yours?
App Criteria
These are all great criteria and worthy of consideration. Like you, ease of use is extremely important. That's the reason we buy an iPhone. There were very few features that I used on my others phones because they were too difficult to use; the ease of using the iPhone apps is what I consider its #1 benefit. An app that is difficult to understand and use is quickly deleted off my iPhone, too!
I don't like apps that make me navigate to a Web site either, but I do use them. I hope that with the iPhone 3GS, more of this can be avoided.
One thing I would add is that I also like my "desktop" (home screen) to be aesthetically pleasing. I want it to be to well organized and attractive. This is my "real estate," and I want it to be inviting! This means lots of color and interesting logos.
Great post. We should point
Great post. We should point app developers to it!
I think a lot of people use similar criteria for selecting apps, but haven't verbalized it. I am going to include this in this week's newsletter. Maybe others can add to criteria they use. Cindy, by "desktop" are you referring to the iPhone home screen and a desire for colorful logos on your iPhone?
BTW - our iPhone Life app (stuck for some unknown reason for the past three weeks in waiting-for-Apple-App-store approval mode), may not pass completely your criteria. The app will show a paragraph or so of posts like this within the app. However, if you want to read the entire post and comments, you end up in Safari. I don't like it either, but apparently it is a programming thing, and difficult to do otherwise. Hopefully, we will fix that in the future.
Desktop
Yes, that is what I meant! I corrected it - thanks for pointing that out.
Very good post!
I like the post and have also found myself being more picky about what stays on my iPod touch. My comment touches on your last bullet. For any readers who use internet radio apps like AOL Radio, Pandora, Slacker, etc... you've probably noticed you can't do other things with the device at the same time. Trying so closes the apps out. But I found one called Fly Cast which does reach out to a website and will allow you to do whatever else you want on your iPhone/iPod while listening.