I thought it was time to roundup some cheers and jeers for web services and apps I’ve been testing out over the last few months. Some of these are web-only, some are browser-based (Chrome), and others are mobile (Android/iOS for my ASUS EE Transformer and/or iPhone).
I download a LOT of free apps and will pay (either upgrade or right off the bat) for those apps that are most useful. Sometimes I would happily pay for a free app; sometimes it goes the other way. If an app or service sucks enough, I stop using it and/or delete it from my device.
My fave thing ever?
Kindle. Not the Kindle reader itself, I don’t have one of those, but the Kindle app(s) which I now have on my MacBook, my ASUS EEE Transformer and my iPhone. I love this app. I’ve used lots of other reader apps (Callibre is pretty swish) but I love that I can now sync my ebooks between all three devices. I can read electronically almost anywhere now and close a book on one device then open to the same page on another. I also love Amazon’s “whispernet” delivery for buying/downloading ebooks. Because everything lives in the cloud, it’s pushed to my tablet by default but can be pulled to either other location instantly.
Almost as good?
Evernote and Dropbox also use the cloud to sync things. Both allow me to share files or folders with others and to quickly file things I find at work or on the go. Sure, I have used Google Docs for ages (which is now merging with Google Drive) but the mobile interfaces suck. Evernote is ridiculously simple to use — once I figured out how to make the most of it. I used it on my coffee breaks this week to make point form draft outlines of articles and blog posts I wanted to write. Once home, I could fill out the point form in to paragraphs. Ridiculously efficient. Dropbox allows me to shuffle files around efficiently and access them anywhere. As with Evernote, the mobile interface really makes the difference.
I’m also putting a couple of PopCap games in here: Chuzzle, especially, continues to amuse the hell out of me after more than 5 years playing; BookWorm, too. I have paid for these on multiple formats — on my former PC, on my iPod (which transferred to my iPhone) and for the PS3. Still not bored. If they come to Android, I’ll put them on my tablet, too.
One Chrome app I love is Timer Tab — when I need to suck it up and focus, the timer tab gives me some boundaries. I can set it on countdown for 30 minutes and during that time I will write and not surf the web, check Facebook, wander away to make coffee, or anything else. Often it’s enough to pull me out of the Bermuda Triangle of WebSurfing (Facebook-Twitter-Pinterest) and when the alarm goes off, I re-set it for another 30 min.
Still worth having around:
Yeah, Angry Birds falls in here but Angry Birds: Rio makes me insane — I can only play that one for short bursts because I find it much more difficult than the original. Difficult but not lousy so it stays.
The Cineplex app for my iPhone does one thing really well: stores my Scene card so I don’t have to remember to put it in my wallet (most of my loyalty cards travel coach in another card holder that doesn’t always get tucked in my pocket). Will I ever use it to buy tickets? Time will tell.
A great big “meh.”
I signed up for Mindbloom a while ago and ignored it until sometime in April. It’s basically gamification of goal-setting and I decided to give it a shot but after a week of use, I walked away. The truly annoying thing about Mindbloom is its insistence on “watering” your garden by looking at or listening to motivational pablum. If you don’t mind that sort of thing, Mindbloom is not a bad way to track regular goals (e.g. exercise for 30 min per day).
Also in the meh stack is Rdio — think of it as Netflix for music. I signed up for a free trial and while I love the idea of it as a music discovery service, I didn’t really like the way browsing worked and decided it was not worth paying $4.99 per month for music ($7.99 if I wanted to add mobile streaming). Right now, the value isn’t there for me.
I’d also throw every single solitaire app I’ve downloaded into this category but sometimes, I just feel like a game of solitaire so, I keep them around.
And finally, the “burn in hell” award goes to….
ReadLaterFast. I downloaded this Chrome Web app for bookmarking and promptly forgot it was there since I realized it was redundant between my many other services (Dropbox, Evernote, Delicious and Pinterest). One day, it went rogue, inserting crappy banner ads under every medium to large image or video (anything wider than 300 pixels) on most web pages. Truly detestable! I didn’t make the connection right away but through some careful sleuthing found that others were discovering the same problem and had tracked it back to the app. I deleted it, restarted my computer and =POOF= the ads disappeared.
The ReadLaterFast fiasco is a good reminder that apps are “As Is Where Is” and “Buyer Beware” — on the Android, you can see exactly what each app is asking for access to; it makes me think twice about downloading many of them.