iTouch/iPhone Application Review

Aaaah, marketing at its finest.

As you no doubt have read on Wired already, some companies will charge to have them review iPhone applications (see http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/app-store-payola).  This is nothing new, and while it is questionable I would think of it as a marketing expense.

This is basically how it works. 

You’ve developed an application, and you want widespread PR for that application.  You could stick it up on the App Store and wait for people to find it (discover it) by offering it at a reduced price or for free.  You could be waiting for a looong time.

Or you could send your application to the dozens of sites around the net that will review your product.  You could have it reviewed for free, and it will eventually make it to their database of applications that they’ve reviewed.  In the process, you could pay for enhanced listings as well – such as front page listing, bolded listing, ability to add logos etc.,  You could also pay to jump ahead of the multitude of developers in line to have their applications reviewed.

Are you paying for the review?  No.  You’re paying to jump ahead of the queue.

The Wired article says “Soliciting money in exchange for a product review is not illegal, but the practice should raise questions about the credibility and independence of the review sites, critics say.” and while it may be questionable, it would not affect the credibility or independence of the review.

The site is performing the same review, but rather than the developer waiting weeks or months – they are jumping ahead of the queue by paying to have it reviewed sooner than later.

With that said, I’ve opted for an iTouch.  Sure, an iPhone would be great, but data plans in Canada are expensive and I spend 8-10 hours per day at work.  My own personal cell phone hardly gets used, so spending $100.00 on another voice plan plus data plan didn’t make sense for me.

I use the Touch as an MP3 as that’s what its really designed for but also as my PDA – and while an all-in-one smartphone is really best suited for this function nowadays, it works quite fine for me to use it in this way.  Besides for work purposes, I do have a Blackberry.

I also use my Touch to surf the web when I’m in a wifi zone – yes, it would be nice to surf the web on an iPHone but honestly – there is very little need for me to do so.

My Touch is quite nice and for now, is all that I really need.

With all the applications out there, do you simply try each one?  That could get expensive even if the vast majority are $0.99 each — most are now in the $1.99 range and slowly but steadily increasing in price.

I tend to download applications like news readers, to-do lists etc., Things to make day-to-day activities (like shopping) easier. 

RSS News Readers

I am a news junkie and really like looking for RSS News Readers.  There are quite a few of them on the App Store.  Many are paid but there are a lot of free ones.

There are two applications that I’ve downloaded, and have been using for several months now.

Application #1 is called FREE RSS and the second is iNews.

Free RSS has over 17,000 reviews and is rated a 3-star.  iNews (FREE) has only 98 and is rated 2.5 star.

How do they stack-up – check out the next post, and I’ll go over the strong and weak points of each application – remember both are FREE applications.