App Review #16
My thoughts on apps I’ve been using for the past week+
I decided to take out the numbered ratings because that is not the focus of the blog. My goal is to discover new apps and share them with others while examining the UI and UX of apps. I added more questions to better fit a deeper product critique drawing some inspiration from Julie Zhuo’s blog post.
Carrot
($2.99)
How did the app come to my attention?
I downloaded Carrot as I continued to see tweets about it. I am happy I did. Carrot has added character and some personality into the mundane task of checking the weather every day.
How did you feel while exploring the app? Did the app deliver on your expectations?
The app is beautifully designed. The attention to detail is amazing. This is very recognizable as you are greeted by different characters along with entertaining copy such as “Cumulus clouds are white and puffy, like cotton candy!” There are even seemingly small nonsensical actions that bring up hilarious copy such us the picture below. This may not provide to the overall experience of checking the weather but it adds a feeling of excitement and a human personality to the app.
Carrot has far exceeded my expectations. It has provided me with a quick and fun way to check the weather. I have been a user of Dark Sky for quite some time along with Yahoo Weather and Carrot has replaced Dark Sky on my homescreen.
How often have you used the app? When do you tend to use it?
I use Carrot a couple of times a day, usually when I wake up and at lunch. Although the weather doesn’t change much here in San Francisco, I check the app for a few minutes to see when time of day it will start to cool off and whether I’d need to carry a sweatshirt around.
What do other people think of this app?
Judging from the performance on Product Hunt along with the chatter on Twitter, people tend to love Carrot. Additionally, Jonathan Libov of Union Square Ventures had a great note on Carrot in his blog on UI flattening.
Based on all that you know, how successful do you think the app will be a year from now?
Carrot weather is just one of many tools that the Carrot team has created including Carrot Hunger (calorie counter), Alarm (alarm clock) and Fit (judgemental weight tracker). I think this suite of tools has the potential for a lot of success. They do a good job of cross promoting the other apps within Weather which can further drive growth. I see myself using Carrot a year from now and with the right positioning in the market, the other tools can become hits as well.
Roll
(FREE)
How did the app come to my attention? What do other people think of this app?
Roll is a new app from the Highlight team that allows friends to share pictures with each other from their camera roll. It was posted on Product Hunt by Highlight’s founder where there is some great discussion around the inspiration for creating Roll.
How did you feel while exploring the app? Did the app deliver on your expectations?
The onboarding process was very smooth and intuitive. They understand that initially, many users will not have friends on the platform and made it a priority to help me invite some of my contacts. Additionally, you are able to begin sharing photos from your camera roll by adding them to your profile, even though I do not currently have any contacts on the platform
The animations on Roll are very sleek. A simple swipe up to share recent photos with your friends and swipe down to keep private. Once you are out of photos, Roll provides recommendations of contacts to invite to the app based on how many friends they currently have on Roll. I think this has the potential to help Roll grow quickly in friend circles over the coming months.
Based on all that you know, how successful do you think the app will be a year from now?
Without the adoption from my friends, I don’t see myself using Roll in the future and I think many others will face a similar dilemma. It’s a difficult problem to have for the folks at Roll and they are very aware of that as they constantly recommend inviting friends. It’s a well designed neat app that has great potential.
However, I don’t believe that Roll fills a need that Snapchat or Instagram don’t already fill. Snapchat and Instagram will continue to be the mainstays in the photo sharing space. When there is a picture to share, I either take it on Snapchat or share it on Instagram. I hope I’m wrong as I’d love to have more of my friends on Roll.
Pacifica
(Free or $3.99/month for full access)
How did you feel while exploring the app? Did the app deliver on your expectations?
When I first downloaded Pacifica, I was skeptical of using an app to track how I feel. However, over the past month in using it, I’ve found it to be extremely helpful. Pacifica recommends tracking how you feel 1-3 times a day on a scale from very good to very bad. Additionally, you can choose specific feelings to add such as Relaxed, Stressed, Grateful and more.
I have found Pacifica to be a great tool in order to take a moment to breathe and think about how I feel. This helps me better understand the thoughts I may have and allows me to address them versus holding in and allowing them to burst in the future. Additionally, Pacifica provides exercises to relax along with a space to write down more anecdotal notes if you desire.
How often have you used the app? When do you tend to use it?
I have moved Pacifica to my homescreen and continue to use daily. It is one of the few apps on my phone in which I enable notifications and actually open them each time I am pinged (3 times a day).
I also have begun to track my hours slept along with my eating and exercise habits in Pacifica. I have used many fitness trackers to track this information and Pacifica has provided a simple and quick interface to track these activities that I’ve found to be useful as well.
What do other people think of this app? Based on all that you know, how successful do you think the app will be a year from now?
I don’t know of many others that use Pacifica so am honestly unsure what others think of the app. However, the people that I’ve spoken to about the app have found it to be very interesting. This was nice to hear although this does not mean the app will succeed or that they will actually use it.
Stigma is another app that is working on a similar concept that picked up a bunch of traction at launch. I have heard great things as well regarding their app although I have yet to use it (am planning to next week).
I believe that the success of Pacifica relies on the insights and analysis they are able to provide to the user. At the moment, all of my information I enter is neatly tracked and graphed but I believe there is more to be done there.
Is there a time of day I’m usually down? What’s my average feeling rating for the past week? Which feelings are most prevalent in a certain month? These are just a few ideas that come to mind.
The product is still young and with the right updates and improvements in tracking and analysis, I see it gaining traction in the mental health space for early adopters motivated to self-track their daily emotions.
I believe that a great growth mechanism would be partnering with psychologists to give their patients the app to help them track how they’re doing throughout the day. This additional data can be very valuable to a psychologist and can help them and their client in the therapy process.
Previous App Reviews — Week 15, Week 14, Week 13, Week 12, Week 11, Week 10,Week 9,Week 8, Week 7, Week 6, Week 5, Week 4, Week 3, Week 2, Week 1
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