Review: Photoswap
Author: Jeff Noble | Posted under: Reviews, Social NetworkingTags: camera, native apps, Photography, pictures, Social Networking
PhotoSwap v1.0 | Published by Padadaz | Via App Store | Free | Released: 8-19-08
Overview
I fully expect this review to get more traffic than my others. I have no idea why. I’m still seeing double…
Photoswap is an app that claims to allow two iPhone users to exchange a photo, a photo only viewable to one person. If you want to reply with a photo of your own, supposedly it gets sent only to the owner of the photo that you viewed.
Imagine my surprise when my first photo was the one below.
Functionality
There is very little to do with Photoswap.
There’s a camera button for taking your picture, and there’s a reply button in which to send the picture via email to the user of the pic you viewed. You can also get more information about the photo by pressing the Info button or Report the photo by clicking on Report.
Review
I, uh, have to confess that I did click on the Info button. I also hit the Report button. Although some might think such a thing is funny, the bigger “picture” is that I have no idea what the next picture to appear on my iPhone is. In addition, my kids play with my iPhone all the time, and such an app is pretty disconcerting.
For an app that simply desires to have a “real photo-based conversation,” I just am not too trusting of letting any old image into my life unscreened. There’s issues of integrity and decency to be considered that apparently this app has not.
It could be a nice idea, but without built-in parameters, I’m not too comfortable recommending it. In addition to that is the overall functionality… there is none after you view the first picture. It would be nice to be able to slide to another picture or delete the existing one. However, I closed the app and reloaded it, and the Great Cleavage was still there.
Summary
Photoswap is great conceptual app, but I can see some real danger for abuse and eeriness here. Users, beware.
Usability: 1 / 5
Value: 2 / 5
Utility: 3 / 5
Aesthetics: 3 / 5
that’s pretty hot
Name... on September 29th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Your usability ratings are the worst I have looked at of any app reviews. You really need to think about what usability is.
The House of Husar on October 7th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
@Husar: Uh, that’s because the app was difficult to use…. Wikipedia defines usability as “a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal.” That is how I also understand it and apply it reviews.
Perhaps I should have gone into more detail, however, that I could not get Photoswap to “work.” It seemed to be a dead app.
For one entire evening, all I saw was the above picture. Repeated relaunchings and even a reset, thinking it was my iPhone did not alleviate that. It wasn’t until the next day that I got a different picture, and then that one stayed on my iPhone all day…. No options to swipe, or drag another picture onto the screen or anything. Very confusing for users.
Jeff Noble on October 7th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
I’ve been using it frequently for a few days now and have not received anything inappropriate. I have, however, gotten some great shots from Japan, Czech Republic and England…. as well as lots of stuff from the US. Some shots aren’t very inspired, but some have been very beautiful.
Regarding usability, I would give it a 5. I cottoned onto photoswap immediately. The point is to reciprocate. If you’d taken a photo, the photo you copied above would’ve immediately been replaced by another. That’s just how it works.
Also, the photos are not saved anywhere. In fact, the only way you can save a pic, is to do a screenshot.
feeder_goldfish on October 12th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Lol..
This ( http://www.photoswapbabes.com ) site is amazing, loads of photoswap babes.. Pretty fun app IMO..
Peter on November 4th, 2008 at 2:08 am
Could be much nicer. I see a lot of frusterated oversexed, mostly gay men…why not keep it nice and interesting for every one. If you want to see dick rent a movie!
Beau on January 4th, 2009 at 8:07 am