Iron Ink Media: Inked Up

Here is an entertaining list of what not to do when constructing your iPhone app. It makes sense and they give examples for each:

Be Slow and Stingy: Wired Product Reviews (2.5 stars, 3,724 ratings) gets high marks for good reviews and video when users can find them, but the app gets slammed by users for poor loading times and a dearth of new content. Crashes and reviews not loading properly are frequent complaints from users. In our own experience, we have tried loading reviews in some of the product categories in this app and given up.

Don’t Pay Attention to the Competition: Sports Illustrated quietly came into the app store a couple of months ago with its news and sports scores app (2.5 stars, 867 ratings). Many of the users who actually did discover that their favorite sports brand was here were sorely disappointed by poor updating and buggy behavior. While some users simply like having access to the magazine’s great writing and imagery, the majority of reviewers say they are let down. The big problem for SI is that their main competition, ESPN, has hands down some of the most popular applications across the App Store.

Overpromise, Under-deliver: CBS promises “personalized TV” in its TV.com streaming media applications (2.5 stars, 7,929 ratings) and instead gives most users TV the way we remember it in 1957. With only a handful of shows available in full episodes, a weird collection of brands (CBS, CNet, CW, Showtime) and a lot of promotional trailers. Without clear utility or a reliable and rich content experience, this is a tube TV still waiting to warm up.

Keep Making It Worse: The jury is still out on whether the magazine branded shopping apps we have seen in recent months really are getting traction with users. Many suffer from tepid and few reviews. Lucky At Your Service (2 stars, 1,228 ratings) got slammed by some reviewers who actually like the early iterations of the app and then felt betrayed by cluttered and buggy updates. Complaints about crashes and slow downloads abound, and the reviews have not rebounded even as the app reaches Version 3.0.