Weekly Web App Review- iRovr

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Social networking is all the rage these days. From Facebook to MySpace, everyone has a web presence. Well, now the iPhone crowd has an iPhone only experience, it’s called iRovr. Be prepared to enter the stream…

iRovr is designed to work exclusively on the iPhone. You can log in from a desktop browser, but it is still formatted for our favorite mobile device.

The Setup

The configuration for iRovr is quite clever. You setup and account with your email. Once you do this, iRovr sends you several links to add to your Contacts on the iPhone. You receive a unique address for items such as:

  • Photos: Send photos
  • Videos: Send YouTube videos
  • Blogs: Send a blog post in the form of an email
  • Bookmarks: via the send a link to this page in Safari

Streams

All of the listed items above get added to your profile as well to the “stream”. What is a steam you might ask? The Help/Faq section describes it best:

“Everything you post ends up in a stream. By default, you will only see what is commonly known as The Stream or The iRovr Public Stream. Think of The Stream as the main lobby of a large building. All of the emails we covered in the previous instructions will deliver your submissions to this stream. There are also subject specific streams, which may be private or publicly accessible.”

Tid-Bits

iRovr can be customized with themes as well. There are not too many to choose from surprisingly; I really can’t find a theme that I like. There is also the standard fanfare such as adding friends, send private messages as well as receiving emails when someone comments on a blog post, photo, video, etc of yours. If you really like something, you can even mark it as a favorite.

Conclusion

There is a lot to like about iRovr, but I feel it lacks the polish of other iPhone-optimized social networks; namely Facebook. However, iRovr makes up for its aesthetic polish a wide assortment of multimedia options and really uses the iPhones' built-in features to its fullest.

Ratings (out of 5)

  • Look and Feel: 4
  • Navigation: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Reliability: 5

Overall: 4.25

Pros:

  • Refreshing idea
  • Plenty of multimedia options
  • For no SDK, a dazzling array of interaction

Cons:

  • Not a lot of theme variety. This helps give the user a personalized look
  • Sometimes slow when loading streams on EDGE

Software trainer, blogger and mobile technology enthusiast living in the suburban Midwest.