There was a lot of hype about Color for iPhone and iPod touch recently – especially since it just raised $41 million in funding and no one has really heard about it until a few days ago. Color allows users to share photos and create multi-user albums if they all own iPhones and are within 150 feet of each other. It’s pretty novel, and might come in handy at large events, but it seems very limited in terms of features.
It’s also not very intuitive. At all. When you start the app, you see a split screen and it asks you to take a photo of yourself. Once you’ve figured out how to do that, it asks you to take photos of your friends in the room and shows and cartoon image of people photographing each other… photographing each other.
Basically, this app is designed to really do one thing: create photo albums that can be shared with others who own iPhones nearby. It doesn’t work.
The UI is hideous and unintuitive. Most apps that have custom icons and features typically have a tutorial that guides you through it, perhaps a settings feature so you know what you’re doing and a guide as you go along until you’re accustomed to the app. Color has none. Take a quick peek at the user reviews in iTunes and you’ll get a good idea of just how non-user-friendly this application is.
I’m guessing the investors who dumped all that money into the app didn’t take a look at it before making a decision.
Give the app a try yourself. It’s free, but be warned. You’ll find yourself muttering, “What the hell is this and how is it supposed to work?” There most certainly is nothing revolutionary or original about it, and it’s almost tough to go wrong when you’re integrating social networking, location-based services and photo-sharing, but Color manages to fudge it pretty good.
[Via: iTunes]