Summer break

We are currently on Summer break but will be back soon with a couple of fresh reviews.

Feedback: KCCO Pro

You know, what I hate about the official Chive app? Pretty much everything. It's glossy, full of gradients... It looks and feels like an iPhone app, clearly a PhoneGap multi-platform project, developed by someone, who doesn't give a flying fuck about Android. I don't want to feel like as a customer, I am just 2nd choice. Without wanting to rant too much off topic, the Play Store rating of theChive (the official app) clearly shows that most people are unable to distinguish between a web service and an app. TheChive is "Probably the Best Site in the World" (their words, though I tend to agree), but the app is utter crap. People still go nuts over it, as they want the content, despite the app design and it hails 5-Star ratings, just because they enjoy FLBP posts and can't seem to see that the app, providing them, is not well made.
This is where KCCO Pro comes in. Let's get started:

KCCO Pro

Description

KCCO Pro is an unofficial theChive gallery viewer used to procrastinate more effectively, if that isn't an oxymoron. It offers all of the photo blog's famous content in a pocketable format and is meant to close the gap (no pun intended) between your awesome phone and their awesome site, which they were not capable to do on their own. It's free to download and ad-supported. There is an in-app purchase to remove the ads.

The Play Store listing

The app icon is square and contains KCCO. I don't know about this. Certainly square is muuuuch better than being square with rounded edges and glossy effect, like all those wanna-be iPhone apps on the Play Store have, but it is also not particularly distinctive. Maybe using the crown from the O would be more unique. Do I really need part of the app name in the icon? No, if you think that is necessary, at least add the full name to establish your branding, put a tiny "Pro" underneath the KCCO. Not only will this give the full app name, the phrase "Pro" is also utterly positive. It adds value and gives the impression of a paid app, even though it's free.

The feature graphic is nice. The font size is ideal, non-intrusive, but still readable on smaller phones. I'm not a big fan of adding screenshots to the feature graphic but in this case with the tilted phone, it seems to work. After all, what else are you gonna put there? Can't put actual posts there, can't put trademarked logos there.

The green gradient is subtle and stylish. The phone's shadow adds to that. Maybe a tiny bit of structure or texture in the green would be nice. Also, it might be my eyes or my screen but the green in the icon and the green in the feature graphic seem very slightly different, like the app icon is more yellow-y. maybe measure the colour values and make sure your colouring is consistent.
The description could be a little subtler, it seems to scream at me. The header "Features" is highlighted by 6 plus signs on each side, unnecessary, make it bold, or add an empty line above and it will stand out. The checkmarks in the feature list also have very thick lines and look a bit more like square roots than actual checkmarks. maybe a simple dash or asterisk could point out there is a list just as well. The last point in the feature list is "GIF SUPPORT!!" In this exact form, this is uncalled for. Not only does the horrible official app have gif support as well, any news reader like feedly, the stock browser and Chrome all display gifs on theChive's mobile site on your phone, no reason to shout.
Infinite Scrolling, pull to refresh, ads and the gallery's post date are not exactly features, they are design choices you made and do not necessarily need to be in the list. As an experienced user, I will see that in the screenshots or when I have it installed, as a novice user I don't care or don't understand.
Directly underneath the feature list you put "(No commenting support)". At this point I am not sure, do you want to tell me, you don't give support via comments on Play Store ratings? Do you want to tell me, I can't comment on Chive posts from within the app? In the first case, remove that phrase, all developers can reply to Play Store ratings and you should do that as well, while thanking users for 5-Star ratings doesn't do much, answering 1-Star rants calmly and competently, explaining why it could come to an issue for that particular user or telling other users that said bug has since been fixed is a huge message for people browsing through the ratings. If it is the second case (i.e. commenting on posts in the app), still remove the phrase. Never admit defeat. At least alter it to say it is planned for a future version or say it is impossible due to technical reasons. You don't want to look lazy or incompetent for something that probably isn't your fault.
The next paragraph "This app will kill your data plan" etc. is great. It describes what the app actually does, what theChive is and why the user would want this app. Unfortunately, it is so far down in your description, that most users won't even read it, as they have to expand the description, both on the phone or the web and people don't do that for apps they know nothing about. This paragraph has to be right at the top. First, the user has to know, what this is and why they want it, then explain, why you made it, then tell them what this can do better than the original. The people who already know theChive will expand the description to find out, what distinguishes this app from the competition.
The last paragraph explains the permissions, which is awesome. More developers should do that. It gives the inexperienced user a feeling of security, knowing that you are not invading their privacy, but the permissions actually do something. Nice. In case you use Analytics or in fact, do collect any kind of data from the app, you should link a privacy policy in the Play Store listing.

Wow, that was a long paragraph, but it is a long Play Store listing, which can use a lot of minor tweaks in my opinion. Overall, everything is there, just the structure is a little off. Let's move on, we haven't even began to talk about the app yet.

The app itself

After first starting the app, I am greeted with a changelog.

I don't like it for various reasons:
- This is version 1.0.0. As a developer myself, I understand the urge to brag. You want to tell the user "Look, I put a lot of work into this to make it work and to make it awesome!" but the truth is, the user doesn't care, if you put 2 hours or 200 hours into it, they want to get to the content and explaining, there were actually versions before 1.0.0 isn't necessary.
- This is my first installation of the app. There is no change for me, since it wasn't an update for me, so I don't care about past bugs, previous users had to fight with, if they are gone, take me to the app.
- If it were an update for me, my Play Store app would inform me about this, then I'd see the Play Store listing on my phone, where the first thing I see is the "What's new" section. If I care about what has changed, I can read it there before I even update the app, if I don't, I don't and don't want to be bothered by the changelog in the app either.
- If there were any significant updates changing the navigation or something really fundamental, you can use a tutorial or a sneak peak to introduce the user to the new features. Telling them there is a 3-dot button now doesn't help, they can see that. The same goes for double tap to zoom, for instance. Instead of presenting that in a boring changelog, maybe show a toast notification, when the first picture is shown full screen. And once the user double tapped an image, never show that toast again.

Afterwards, I find myself in the app, no tutorial. I really like that you don't provide a tutorial. You used pretty standard navigation for the app and that is self explanatory. This is great. It's better to use a simple and standard design that doesn't require a tutorial, than re-inventing the wheel and then having to explain everything to the user.

There are several minor issues with this landing screen. First, when you pull to refresh, then release, eventually this "Done, Chive On!" message will appear at the top, every single time. It's nice and funny the first time, maybe even the 5th time, but after that it gets annoying. Every time I find myself not clicking anything, until it goes away. Somehow, subconsciously, I feel like I couldn't click the first article's headline, if the headline was any shorter as it would disappear behind the "Done, Chive On!" notification. I know that these big cards are clickable all over, but I just sit there and wait nonetheless.
Another thing is the Actionbar. From left to right: The Up affordance is non standard. Since you use a sliding menu drawer, you could use the "burger" icon, i.e. the 3-line navigation drawer icon to imply, there is something to the left, whereas most people will associate the Up affordance as navigating away to a higher level. Having the wide logo there instead of the square app icon (much like YouTube does it) is great. The "Latest" next to it should be lowered if possible, or the font size should be adjusted until it looks centered. I love that you used the Split ActionBar to make use of available space to provide several frequently used actions. Forcing a 3-dot ActionBar Overflow even on devices with a physical menu button and not breaking the menu button is great. Many people, including me, like that. Having dividers between the actions is not necessary, but looks nice.
In the light theme, you use cards and in the dark theme, it looks more like a list, this means, the photo previews are not the same size! In the light theme, you should remove the padding around the pictures and make them touch the top, bottom and left borders of the cards. This gives a flatter design, more consistent with the Design Guidelines. There also seems to be a lot of space around the post date for every post I have seen so far. Why not add the post time, so users, who come back more than once a day have some orientation what they missed.

In gallery view, you have no borders around the pictures, which is awesome. I'm not sure, what that grey box with the X is that pops up from time to time. It never displays anything for me. I like how the ActionBar changes to provide actions relevant to the gallery, like the favourites star. You used the standard implementation, which I appreciate, but since the star icon fills up, once you click it, the pseudo toast notifications at the top like "added to favorites" and "removed from favorites" are uncalled for. If you feel the absolute need to display these, first of all translate the string "favorites" into british english as well as "favourites" and lose the colours. Blue, if added and red, if removed doesn't make much sense, it feels like removing something from the favourites causes a problem or is the wrong thing to do, while, in fact, it is easily reversible. Having access to the settings from everywhere through the overflow is good, soliciting people to remove the ads from everywhere is not. Put that in one or two central spots and call it a day.

Opening an image is when your app really comes to shine. You offer the name of the gallery, the position like 1 of 80 and five relevant actions. This is where the Split ActionBar is really necessary. The iconography is clean, simple and self-explanatory, you included tooltips for visually impaired people, which in this case helped my figure out, why there are 2 share actions. The "Share this Photo" action is probably my favourite feature of the entire app. While many others would look up the photo url and share that, this app actually downloads the photo and calls the share intent afterwards. Let's say I want to send a picture over Hangouts, a link only annoys the other person, sending the picture directly is more convenient for the recipient, but also spares me the troubles of first saving the picture and then going through the Android Gallery to share it. Not having to leave the app for such a feature really improves user engagement.

The sliding menu drawer is well structured, maybe the list is a little too long, it might, MIGHT, be a nice idea to make the categories like "Funny", "Girls", "Random" and "Tech" collapsible. Also, using a sliding menu drawer instead of a navigation drawer is debatable. It might be a better experience on a tablet, on a phone it is not necessarily the better or more obvious choice. The font size could be slightly decreased as well.

This is a weird bug that I encountered once and was lucky to snap a screenshot of. The background and list was fixed and another transparent version of the list was lying on top, being scrollable. While I might not be able to recreate the bug now and am still uncertain, what caused it, it is certainly something that would not happen with the standard implementation. Through the support library, the navigation drawer should be available for every device that is currently compatible with your app, although I am not sure, if it plays nice with Actionbarsherlock.

For me, the settings activity is the ass that knocks over what the hands built up. Where is all the nice branding gone? Suddenly it is in the default Holo theme?

It's great that you offer themes. That is surely more work that to simple hard-code the theme into the manifest. Please keep in mind the comment on the difference in photo size in the overview, I mentioned earlier. Certainly the prettiest look is the "Large Images" theme, although technically not a theme but a different layout. The overlay of text over the images is reeeally good, but the padding between the cards in this layout looks slightly different from the padding in the other layouts. Make sure to measure all your themes for consistency. Offering to clear cache from within the app is a nice touch. The default directory for saving images should not be the sdcard root. You should set that to a subdirectory like "KCCO", but only create the folder, once the first picture is exported. The sdcard root only creates clutter on the user's phone.

I can't, for the life of me, figure out, what "Disable Captions" is supposed to mean. I looked all over the place, but whether it is checked or not does not seem to make a difference. Unfortunately, it is the only item in this list that does not have a description.

I sincerely hope, you use inexact alarms for the notifications but either way, I suspect a real battery killer right there. Maybe in the future, this could work with GCM triggered through RSS on the server side. If you use real regular 20 minute intervals like the app suggests at first glance, have a look at Reto Meier's talks from the last 3 Google I/O conferences, where he talks a lot about this topic.

Me, me, me, me, me. Surely, I would expect the in-app purchase to remove the ads in the settings, but this long list of features that entirely revolve about you are not settings. Make it an "About" screen or put an email support button somewhere.

Listing included open source libraries, while technically not necessary and entirely uninteresting to the average user, is nice. Giving credit is important.

The Up affordance in the settings brings me back exactly where I came from. In fact, all over the app, I can't find a single occurrence, where the Up affordance doesn't do exactly the same thing as the Back button. This is weird. Up is not the same as Back. This guide from the Guidelines displays the differences between Back and Up and in most cases, I would suggest you use Up to actually go to a hierarchical parent, i.e. the main gallery view.

Conclusion

Wherever the app complies with the Android Design Guidelines, it is perfect, wherever it tries to distance itself from the guidelines, something goes wrong. The layout of the app is perfect, the navigation needs a bit of work. In some instances, the eye for the details seems to have gotten lost, surely a minor flaw that was caused by focussing on more important things and making them awesome.

This app is so close to perfect, it almost hurts to see it fail in some details. It is so intuitive and a wonderful way to browse content of a wonderful site and makes it easier to save and share content than any other app I have come across. If you read this review as a user, not the developer it was intended for, this app is by far the BEST way to browse theChive on your phone. With just little room for improvement, I give Version 1.0.0 a final rating of

4.9 / 5

Update:

I would suggest, after having read a post, you grey out the front image of the post and/or make the title Italic, so people know, what post they read last. Posts that are new to the user, i.e. appeared since they last opened the app could also be in Bold font to highlight. Swiping away posts to dismiss would also be a nice addition.

News: Roaming fees in Europe - a thing of the past?

Roaming in Europe

The Telegraph reported last week that the EU is planning to drop Roaming charges for European mobile phone customers as soon as 1 July 2014. The plans were originally brought to life by Dutch politician Neelie Kroes of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy. Where the USA's 300 million citizens are provided by 4 carriers, in Europe there are way over 100, not counting small providers that buy into big carriers' networks and offer their own tariffs.

The underlying problems are that even with the open physical borders, the digital borders are sometimes higher than ever. If you are ever considering traveling through Europe, prepare for a painful journey for your phone. You might as well turn on Airplane mode and use it to take pictures only or prepare for a huge bill, and I mean huge, >1000 Euro. If you are unfamiliar with European networks and carriers, don't even try to understand what is going on there. It is bureaucracy at its finest.

Germany compared to its neighbours

For instance, with my German SIM card, while in Germany, I pay 9 cents per minute to call any German mobile or landline number nationwide. I also pay 9 cents per minute into most other European countries and North America. But if I travel 1 mile into the Netherlands, our direct neighbour, I would pay 34 cents to call Germany and 9 cents per minute for incoming calls. Paying for incoming calls is absolutely not customary in Europe, as long as you are in your home country. Let's say, I call somebody for 10 minutes, then receive an incoming call for another 10 minutes. While in Germany, these calls would cost me 90 cents, just one mile to the west and suddenly these calls cost me 4.30 Euro. That is nearly five times the price of the original calls and absolutely unacceptable. Before a law to limit these rates passed in 2011, it would have been even more expensive.

The other side of the medallion is that with 2011's new Roaming law, a price limit for SMS while Roaming of 11 cents / text was introduced. This came as a surprise for many Germans, who still paid 19 cents for texts from Germany to Germany at the time, meaning it would now be cheaper for them to send SMS from their vacation spots than from home.

While some carriers have multinational operations going, every country is treated differently and as an EU citizen, you are limited to what your country's carriers have to offer for you. As a German citizen, sometimes that makes me weep and look over the border to Austria jealously. Germany and Austria are culturally similar, they speak the same language, watch the same TV networks, have similar average household incomes, etc.
Still, how come, in Austria, T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom) offers a pay-as-you-go tariff of 1000 minutes, 1000 SMS and 1000 MB of Internet traffic for 10 Euro a month, no contract, no obligations, where in Germany the same tariff (while it does not technically exist) would cost you somewhat around 30 Euro.
But it does not exist. In Germany, we have this ridiculous practice of fake Internet "flatrates". The term, when coined, used to mean, you could use it however much you please. These days, it has been bastardized to mean use as much as the carrier pleases. An SMS flatrate almost always comes with a "fair use cap", meaning, you get 3000 SMS per month. Even on expensive contracts of 30-40 Euro / month, you are lucky to get 500 MB of Internet traffic, before they slow you down to 64kbit/sec. 
What good is unlimited Internet, when you are limited to 64kbit/sec? The carriers build up these awesome HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE networks, only to have you burn through your allowance in a matter of seconds and then limiting you to 90s dial-up modem speeds.

What does this new proposal mean and how does it affect me?

With the removal of all Roaming costs, calling your loved ones from your holiday will cost the same as calling them from home. You always have the same tariff, no matter where you currently are.
This is great for the two weeks a year, you want to enjoy lying on the Beach of Skiing in the Alps. This might cut your mobile costs for the entire year in half, but that is not all.
Travelling for business is much more convenient as your boss will not strangle you, once you come back, as your bill will be pretty much the same as if you were sitting at your desk.
And not only does this affect texting and calling, it also affects data, the most important and most expensive part of our system.

But this also means, no one is stopping me from getting a cheap Austrian SIM card and using it in Germany or The Netherlands or wherever, just to ditch the ridiculously expensive domestic data charges. However, any included minutes and SMS go to waste, the minutes and texts on said Austrian card are only good for calling Austria.

So, what's next in line?

Obviously, when ditching the digital borders for a united european mobile network, there are 2 more things to come:
- A regulation that will force carriers to charge the same price for a call to any other European number.
- A European country code to actually make it one network.

Said country code could offer a unified phone number structuring system and effectively, phone numbers might even become shorter than they are now. But more on that structuring issue on another day...

I believe this entire plan is long overdue. So many laws and regulations apply Europe-wide these days and still the communication companies try and overcharge, where they can, while offering great rates in other countries. I mean "Shit, T-Mobile, get it together!". You are the Deutsche Telekom, but still you offer the worst service in Germany and (at least on paper) much greater service in other countries like Austria or the USA. Why is that?

In general, I think this is a great step forward for a unified Europe and in the long run, all mobile users will profit from this proposal, as in the end, everybody will be able to switch to the cheapest carrier, putting real pressure on the more expensive ones. Having the networks finally grow faster is another important benefit from this and the customer has already won some important privileges.

Feedback: Inte.rests

I regularly browse for material to start filling this Blog with feedback and reviews, but especially the feedback part can be tough, as many developers don't particularly appreciate having their work torn apart without being asked first, so I browse the Google+ Community Android Developers, especially "Check out my app", where developers actively ask for feedback on their newly released apps and today I came across a few apps that I would like to review. This will be done in a similar fashion to Google's own "App Clinic". Let's jump right in with the first app "Inte.rests":

Interests News Reader / Inte.rests

Description:

The app can be found here. It is a free news reader app, gathering content from various sources in groups sorted by their topics, so people can easily dive into news according to their personal interests.

The Play Store listing

The Good:

- The icon has a distinctive silhouette with a modern tribal floral arrangement around the circular icon.

- The name Interests News Reader describes exactly what it is, it is a news reader with news based on your personal interests.

- The feature graphic is awesome. It uses typewriter type fonts, which matches the topic news / press beautifully, listing possible categories in a Scrabble / crossword type pattern in different colours is a great idea, it is distinctive, instantly recognizable and offers a lot of information on the actual app, without appearing busy.

-It is great that you have included the fact that it is a trial version and also offer the price of the full version of the app via in-app purchase. At first glance, I might have thought the app was free. Including this is a very fair move and the consumer will appreciate the honesty.

- You have all 3 links in place, Developer's Website, Email Developer and Privacy Policy.

- The screenshots offer a wide variety, Light Theme, Dark Theme, Phone, Tablet. Good job.

The Bad:

- While the icon has a nice outline, its center, a circle shape with the letter "i" is maybe a bit of a cliche, when it comes to anything that provides information, which I could have overlooked, if the "i" had the beautiful font the feature graphic has, but it doesn't. Having the shiny black candy background in the icon does not help either, as it looks kinda iphoney. If the icon were to be made consistent with the feature graphic and given the same stylish dark grey background with a subtle touch of gradient, it would be much nicer.

- The name of the app. What is it? The Play store listing gives me "Interests News Reader" but both the feature graphic in the Play store listing and my phone say it's "Inte.rests". If I were you, I'd go with Inte.rests. Maybe no one knows, why it has a period in the middle, but at least the name is unique. Searching the Play Store for "Interests", you are currently the 5th result, for both "News" and "Reader", you are not on the first page, so focus on what is supposed to distinguish this app from the competitors: the personal interests.

- I mentioned earlier that listing the price was a fair move, explaining some of the permissions right from the Play Store listing might be as well. It might not immediately be obvious for the user, why a news reading app needs to add or remove accounts, access the sd card, vibrate, etc. I am sure people expect some permissions like Internet, license check and in-app billing.

The app itself

All the spelling errors are a No-Go. I might as well have stopped there and uninstall it right away. This really bugs me. From every app that has to do with News, Magazines or Education I expect the spelling and grammar to be perfect or my trust is immediately shattered. One minor typo somewhere deep in the app might be forgivable, maybe, but right in the tutorial?

Let's go through, what to expect, when you first open the app, shall we?

- "you'll be ready to ready" (probably should be "read")

- "in the meanwhile" (should be only "meanwhile" or "in the meantime")

- "all the application feature" (should be "about all" or "all of" and "features")

- "Stop waste..." (should be "Stop wasting")

and why is the "Stop" not aligned with the rest? There is probably an unnecessary space in front of it.

- "Where existing uses..." That just outright doesn't make sense. You probably meant that I can click the icon, when it is there, well, that's what you do with buttons on the ActionBar, no need to explain. Also, the button is never there. The only times I could make it appear, it was on the bottom right of the split ActionBar, never the top right

- "O Drag" or Zero Drag? This might be a minor typo for "Or", no biggie, what makes it annoying is its position. The text basically tells me, dragging from the left is an alternative to pressing the preferences button, while it actually is an alternative to clicking the app icon. This might be self-explanatory for everyone familiar with a sliding menu drawer or a navigation drawer, but this tutorial is obviously for people, who are not familiar with it, so it should at least be clear.

- "latests" should be "latest"

- "yuor" should be "your"

- "with search option" needs something like "a" or "the" or make it "options"

- "you like base on" put a comma after "like" and it is "based"

- under Catalog "Allow to manage easily adding and removing channels" is gibberish

- favorite. This is an on-going thing, you should provide an English-GB translation with the spelling favourite, both for the app and the Play Store listing.

- "let" should be "lets"

- etc. etc. Basically, I give up at this point, get the app spell checked by a native speaker. Let's concentrate on more important things now.

Once past the tutorial, I am presented with these beautiful news articles. They are presented as cards, G+ style, which really makes sense as every one of them is its own entity. The pictures scale nicely, are retrieved at a reasonable rate with proper preloading. The headline text length is perfect, the time stamp lets me know instantly, if that particular article is still relevant. The coloured headers allow me to refresh a single news source only or let me ditch one news provider entirely.

The split ActionBar offers a nice overview over what I can do at this point, refresh, add new sources, edit or go to preferences.

You used a light ActionBar with light icons, which is an interesting choice, preferences seems a little darker though, I'm not sure, if you picked the right icon there. Also, the preferences screen is messed up on my phone, the text overlaps and the switch underneath is too narrow:

Samsung Galaxy S2, Android 4.1.2, WVGA (800*480) at 4.3" makes it container large, hdpi

The sliding menu drawer probably cost you a lot of work, as it is a non-standard implementation. I probably would have expected a navigation drawer. But to switch between different aspects you implemented an ActionBar spinner and the sliding menu drawer is meant to switch between other levels of the app and it contains a search bar and a setting (hide empty). I'm not sure, whether that is intuitive. If I wanted to switch to other aspects of the app, I would never know, when to use the Spinner and when to open the drawer, but that might just be me and would likely go away in a few days of use. Although this is not the standard navigation drawer, you might want to think about using the navigation drawer icon instead of the Up affordance. With the new design pattern coming into place in more and more apps and with all Google apps already using it, it gives the user a certain expectation that a navigation drawer icon opens a drawer from the left and an Up affordance navigates up.

Inside an article the ActionBar changes, the app icon is gone, the drawer is gone, it does not have a title at the top left.

The icons on the top right are non standard. The font size icon seems really big compared to standard icons on the ActionBar and the Zoom buttons at the bottom right don't make sense to me. You offer this app for Android ICS and upwards, is there any device that can't pinch to zoom that you are targetting? By the way, neither pinch to zoom, nor the double tap, that the app keeps reminding me of for no reason, seems to re-align the text, i.e. once zoomed in, you have to keep dragging around the text from left to right to read full lines. Together with the font size, which effectively is also a zoom, there are four possibilities to make the text bigger, but only one of them works properly, the text size button. You should ditch the rest.

Then there is this favourites star. The colour does not match anything else in the app, I don't know why between all the stylish white and off-white colours, suddenly there is a dark grey star with a gold border. It has a little plus sign at the bottom right and once you click it, there is a toast notification, informing you, that it worked and the icon changes to have a little minus at the bottom right. I would just use the standard star icon that comes with android, make it empty, when something is not in your favourites and fill it white, if it is. You can get rid of two custom icons and the Toast notification. Simple, clean, intuitive.

After exiting an article, its preview picture is greyed out to show you that you read this article. Beautiful little detail. There is a small blue line under the article you opened last, nice.

Conclusion:

All this text may make it seem like I don't like the app. That is entirely not true. The app is really great. This review is nit-picky on purpose as the target of this review is the developer and not the user. I purposefully pointed out, where the app might need some work to become even better than it is right now.
It has certain points that really stand out as positive:
You get into the app quite fast, it gathers information for you and presents it quite nicely. Its design is unique and still not unfamiliar. Browsing through articles is fast and efficient, it seems to manage data downloads well and has many ways of customization, all without overwhelming the user.
The flaws are minor in comparison: Spell check and grammar check in the tutorial, change an icon here and there, make an adjustment to the preferences screen, etc. This could be done for a .01 update.

For its overall presentation and usability and despite its minor flaws, I give it a 

4.5 / 5

Comment: Why Whatsapp is horrible

Really?

Kicking off this Blog with something controversial: Saying Whatsapp is horrible. Check.
"How can you say that?" "But it's everybody's favourite messenger!"
- Well, everybody is wrong and here is why:

People love Whatsapp, because they constantly compare it to SMS. They say, in contrast to SMS, Whatsapp messages are free, even across several countries, you are not bound to the 160 character limit and you have smileys.
While that might all be true, isn't it true for any Instant messaging service out there? Yes, that's right, Whatsapp should not be compared to SMS, it should be compared to Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, Skype, maybe even ICQ or AIM.

Real comparison to SMS

While SMS can be used on any old phone, Whatsapp will require you to have some kind of smartphone. An SMS will reach the other person instantly, as long as their phone is connected to their carrier's network, Whatsapp will require both people in the conversation to have a stable Internet connection (which in some regions is not the same as having some reception on your network) and even then it randomly takes its time to deliver messages. In contrast to text messaging, Whatsapp is not integrated into the operating system of your phone. This means, while you can ask Google Now to send an SMS to anyone in your address book, it will not do the same for Whatsapp, and the same goes for any voice command app.

So, can I use Whatsapp to send someone a quick text, if I'm gonna be 5 minutes late? No! The other person might not have a smartphone or they don't have a stable Internet connection (if they are on the move as well), or the message will be randomly delayed.

Its real competition

So, let's compare Whatsapp to its real competition here, shall we?
Every other messenger I can come up with allows me to use one account all my devices, Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, Skype, ICQ, AIM, Windows Live, what-have-you. Whatsapp doesn't. The account is bound to my SIM-card and phone number, pretty much the most antiquated concept to use in this day and age. This means, no Whatsapp on your Tablet, no Whatsapp on your Computer, no Whatsapp on your second phone.
While any other company goes and heads for the cloud, Whatsapp forces you to go local. Google recently introduced Notification sync, so all their services (which sync across any platform), so if you read a notification on any of your devices, it won't bother you again on the rest of them.
All of the other services sync as well and can be used from any device. They are regular online accounts and your data is where it belongs, online. Do the other services allow me to send smileys and pictures? Sure! Do they have a message cap or any fees? Absolutely not. They do the exact same thing, but better.

Person or card?

When it comes to communication in 2013, we should ask ourselves one important question: Am I trying to contact a person or a SIM card? As we previously clarified, every service treats me like a person and gets messages to me, no matter where I am. When people contact me, they shouldn't have to worry, if I'm on my private phone, work phone, tablet, notebook or desktop computer, they just want to reach ME, not a particular device. Often, I start chatting with somebody on my phone in Hangouts, and when a reply requires a lengthy explanation, I seamlessly switch to replying from my computer. The other person never has to know, they don't care. All they care about is that they reached me and get replies in a timely fashion, which is only possible because I can be reached on every device.

Its account model

I have been on the Internet for about 15 years now, I have had my fair share of accounts over the years, for dozens of forums, messengers, VoIP services, games and anything else that would require you to identify yourself. One thing they all had in common, was that I registered through a form with my email address and a password and after confirming said email address, I had full control of my account. Whatsapp doesn't go this route. You have no account security, you don't have privacy. Whatsapp scans your address book for other Whatsapp users, so your private data is uploaded and checked against a data base, so my Granny, who has never heard of the Internet, involuntarily has all her data stored on some Whatsapp server somewhere, without knowing about it. Can the user opt out of these practices or scan their address book selectively? No, of course not. Can I prevent others from uploading my data to this server and search for me? No. Everybody, who has my mobile number stored, now has the ability to contact me, no friendship request, nothing.

Why?

Why is everybody going ape-shit over Whatsapp then? It is exactly the account model that drives people to this service. There is no lengthy registration that requires you to fill out forms, confirm your email address and then leaves you with an empty window basically saying you have no friends. You install it, follow 3 simple steps and you are good to go, all your friends are there and you can start chatting. A quick start and good first impression helped Whatsapp gain success worldwide. The exact thing that annoys me seems to be great for everybody else, as long as they don't give a crap about their privacy.

Easy?

How easy does it actually have to be? Everybody and their mother managed to get a Facebook account going, including a lengthy registration form, confirming your email, and starting off with zero friends. So, is it really necessary to be the easiest to set up? Sure, a good first impression goes a long way, but with all these better alternatives out there, I think, people should motivate themselves to keep looking for a service that really suits their needs. And if you are willing to have your address book scanned for friends, storing an email address of your friends is exactly as easy as storing their phone number, and with that email address you can find them on any service.

Google Play and fees

Assuming most Android users downloaded Whatsapp from Google Play, people are bound to have a Google account, so they might as well use that account to communicate directly. Let's not forget one thing here: Whatsapp is not free! To begin, Whatsapp sends a text from your phone to your phone. This certainly is not expensive, but a stupid way to verify your number non the less. They might as well send the text from the Internet and just confirm its reception, that is what counts after all. If you tend to perform the occasional factory reset or flash a lot of roms, yet do not have Titanium Backup, you will encounter this registration text and its costs fairly often. Then there is the yearly fee. Again, at its current state it is not particularly expensive, but should Instant Messaging over the Internet cost anything? I already pay for the Internet connection! What is next, minute rates for Skype? Stamps for emails? This certainly sets a bad precedent and is heading in the wrong direction. And that price will only go upwards from here. When other services see that it works, that they can extract money from you after you are hooked, they will charge you as well.

What about the in-app payment? Google has certain rules and regulations when it comes to the Play Store. Sure, everything is a little more relaxed than on Apple's app store, but Google can be strict as well. For instance, if you want to publish your app on Google Play, you agree to not collect money behind Google's back. Wait a second! I have Whatsapp's Play Store version installed and it offers me to pay with Google Wallet or Paypal. Clear violation right there. They used Google's Play Store to get big, but when it comes to sharing their income with Google, who did all the marketing and distribution, they get creative.

And what about the account model? Isn't every app I buy and every in-app purchase tied to my Google Account and I can freely use it on all my devices as I please? Guess what, not your Whatsapp account. Since it is tied to the SIM card, you can use a premium purchase on only one device. Violation #2.

What about me?

Well, I do use Whatsapp from time to time, I paid the setup text fee about 50 times by now, have used the service for 3 years and was already prompted and paid for a year's extension. Does this make me a hypocrite? In a way, sure. But I don't use it because of the convenience reasons above, I use it despite them. I will take the time from my year's subscription to get everybody I contact frequently to transfer to another service, preferably Hangouts. Whatsapp has become a synonym for Instant messaging much like people call any wipe a Kleenex or your mother calls any gaming console a Nintendo. In this capacity, I often use Whatsapp as an argument to convince people, who are not at all tech-savvy, to get a smartphone in the first place. As soon as they got one, I try and steer them away from Whatsapp again.

Sometimes I ask myself, if I am the only person that sees the massive shortcomings of Whatsapp and if everybody was brainwashed from some marketing genius to constantly repeat "But it's better than SMS". I must have been home sick the day of that lecture.

Let me know in the comments, what you think about Whatsapp and if, just maybe, I got a point here.

App Feedback Blog explained

Somehow, you landed on this Blog and probably ask yourself "What is this all about?". Well, this is very simple, on this Blog, we...

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