Review - Official Digg iPhone App

Brandon Davenport Mar 25, 2010 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us Applications, Editorial , Internet, Mobile, Reviews, Websites, iPhone

I am afraid to say, I am going to be spending a lot of time with this - and it is amazing. This is the epitome of the perfect news app, and in my mind, has set a standard for the next news apps coming out. The fact that it is free, makes it almost impossible not to download, but first lets take a look at what makes this app so great, and what could make it better…

We are very excited to announce the launch of Digg’s official app for the iPhone. This free app was designed to create a seamless browsing experience between Digg and the most popular content on the web, as chosen by the Digg community. We wanted to make it easy to discover interesting content on your phone and to easily jump into the conversations around that content. You can browse lists of recent content, search for the topics you care about, and save stories to check out later. Best of all, you can join in on the curation by Digging and burying stories and comments right from your phone!

Chris Howard - Digg

Initial Experience

Once I had downloaded the app, I was immediately tickled with excitement when I saw the new Digg icon, and I quickly dragged it to my first page. I then went to tap it, and just moments after I released my finger off the icon, the app was loaded, and I was ready to go. It felt really “ready out-of-the-box” and that gave me the enthusiasm to start tapping and flicking my way through the internet, Digg’s way.

I started to notice that everything I normally use on Digg, is right here, like the upcoming section, Twitter sharing, Digging (of course) and other must have goodies. I was amazed at how they can fit all this stuff into an App, without making it feel like a bunch of stuff - its not cluttered in any way, and yet, it doesn’t feel washed out. Its alive with content, and so I started tapping my way into my first story of the day.

Using the app

I was pleasantly surprised that after clicking a story, it takes you directly to the story, ready to watch, read and enjoy - but not only that, it adds a “Digg” and “Bury” button at the bottom for you to quickly do some decision making, and then get on with your reading. Another thing I found that was very cool is by clicking the little arrow beside a Digg post, it will bring up an excerpt of sorts (photo above) and allow you to read a little clip of the article, and then Digg, Bury, store for later, and read comments.

After discovering the Digg buttons appeared on every article while you read them, I decided to log in. This was a really sloppy experience unfortunately. The login proccess was very confusing for a number of reasons - when I went to the app’s settings, I tapped the “Log In” prompt, and was greeted by a “Sign up” page, which I found odd. I would have thought that they would have included a proprietary login setup, built into the app without having to open a webpage containing the Log In fields.

I proceeded to tap the tiny “Log In” link above the “Sign Up” page (why would anyone need to sign up if they downloaded the app?) and was greeted by yet another prompt that was in a browser window (again, why not build it into the app?) so I continued to enter my credentials and tap the login button.

There was no indication of any progress of “loading” or “authenticating”, just a stale web page. This was really frusterating because I didn’t know if I did not tap login correctly, or if it was just frozen. So I tapped “Login” again, and it came up with an error. “You have not entered either a username or password” so I suspected that the problem was that the first time I tapped “Login”, I had done it correctly, I just did not know that I did. The second time I did it, it re-submitted the login prompt, without my credentials because it only works once. This was a bit of a frustrating experience, but it seemed to have worked out, and I was back on my way, Digging as I went.

All in all, it was a really nice, easy and laid back experience for me, and probably for the rest of you. The search function is perfect, and the inclusion of “Saving” stories for later is interestingly useful. Once I had my Twitter, and Facebook accounts all set up, I never looked back and once I set my iPod Touch down, I was a satisfied Digger.

Lets take a break, and watch a video

Information about the app

The app was created by a really cool team of developers at TapTapTap and they really seemed to put Diggs API’s to use, including writable endpoints that let developers create fully-featured applications. The app is sure to hit the top 10 chart in the App store in the next few days, and I imagine it will be frequently updated, as it is a 3rd party managing the app’s never-ending development cycle.

Pros and Cons

Pros - The app is very fast, and usable. The interface is clean, easy to read and really user friendly. The design and layout of the app is aesthetically pleasing, and will impress even the snobbiest designer. The implementations of Digging, Exploring and sharing is seamless.

Cons - You are un-able to make comments (most likely coming in a future release). Logging in should be a 2 step process, but instead it is clumsy and slapped together. The app crashes in-frequently, but is still annoying.

 Final rating

I really think there is only one way to rate this app, and before I do, let me say I hope you enjoyed this T3ch H3lp review and that you read some of our others. I give this app 4.5/5 Diggs!

 Download the app

Price - Free

Platform - iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad