Apps for a Personal Passion

          For my review of five apps, I chose apps that had to do with the ocean.  I had a small list of criteria that I wanted each app to have, and then rated them accordingly.  My criteria were:

·         Navigation: Are the menus or any other navigation tools easy to use and find?  Can I easily move from one page to another without going through a long process?  Is the navigation smooth and clean, or choppy and finicky?

·         Visuals: Are the pictures, backgrounds, color schemes, font, and overall appearance pleasing to eye?  Is the color scheme loud and obnoxious, or pleasant and appealing?  Are the pictures, text, or any other visual portion grainy and hard to read/view?  Are pictures moving and immersive or boring and non-descript?

·         Content: Is all content available upon installation, or does it require unlocking or purchase?  Is there a lot of content to explore and experience?  Is the content interesting and relevant?  Is there a lot of “fluff,” or actual information?  Is the content given in different forms of media (i.e. pictures, videos, verbal, text, different languages, etc.)?  Are there links or a page regarding who developed the app, and where the information came from?

·         Ease of Understanding: Was the content easy to understand and read/experience?  Did I need to infer information, or was it provided for me?  Was there a high learning curve in order to use this app?  If so, did it provide a tutorial, instructions, or other informative guide to make use easier?

·         Overall: Would I want to use it again?  How often would I want to use it?  Will I want to immediately uninstall it?

Ocean Science: Rating: 4.9/5

          By far, Ocean Science was one out of the two apps that I truly enjoyed.  The pictures and visuals were interesting to look at and were accompanied by verbal explanation and walkthroughs.  The information in the visuals was also given in the form of a written document.  The document also gave you different options, such as changing the brightness of the background, a note-taking option within the app, and links to certain parts of the visuals that would supplement reading.  Each document was divided into neat sections that gave useful and interesting information.  The app was easy to use.  My only complaint would be that it is slightly confusing to navigate at first.  You can’t just flick through from on topic to the next.  You have to go back to the main menu and choose from there.  There was a page with information about the app and who made it.  I would definitely use this app again in the future!

Aquarium HD: Rating: 2/5

          The visuals and background music to this app were fantastic.  It gave HD video of the animals being talked about, showing their movements and how they looked in action.  It gave nice information about each animal mentioned by putting it into a sidebar on the edge of the screen.  However, the visuals and ease of navigation were the only things this app had going for it.  There were only two animals available on installation: stingrays and oysters.  If you wanted to learn about any other animals, you had to buy them.  There were only about 3 or 4 other animals available for purchase.  In addition to this, the menus were a tad bit confusing at first.  The information given was interesting, but dry.  Overall, it’s pleasing visually, but loses all value once you’ve explored the two animals there.  I would probably uninstall it rather quickly.

SeaOrbiter: Rating: 1/5

          When reading about this app in its description, it sounded as though it would give an in depth exploration of this new floating lab that would go over the ocean and learn about the sea and its creatures.  However, what I got was simply a series of grainy pages and visuals that gave plenty of fluff, but not much valuable information.  There was absolutely no interaction with anything, no fun things to explore and click on, and no videos or anything fun to look at.  Overall, it was boring!  It gave nothing that it was promised.  If I could, I would’ve uninstalled it immediately.

MarineLife: Rating: 4.9/5

          MarineLife was so much fun to play with!  Within the app, it gave these animated pictures of these weird marine animals, some of which I had never seen, and gave you a 360 degree view of what they looked like.  A voice would then read off the information about the animal, while giving you the option to read along with it.  There was an easy to access menu that let you turn the voice and the music on or off, depending upon preference.  It also gave you quick buttons that let you get the basic information out without having to go through everything else you might not necessarily need.  Then, from each animal page, you could simply click on one button and have access to all the other animals available.  The menus are beautiful and easy to navigate, and have soothing music playing.  There are plenty of animals and options to choose from, even though you had to pay to unlock the rest.  The app also gave you downloadable backgrounds and such to use on your iPad.  The only thing I could complain about, as nit-picky as it is, is that next to each name were Chinese characters of what I assumed were the animal names.  They were a bit distracting, but not overwhelmingly so.  Overall, I would definitely use this app again and even consider unlocking the extra content.

SeaAnimals: Rating: 0/5

          This app was horrible, to say the least.  All the animals there were locked and needed to be unlocked by purchase.  There was only very basic information available on ONE animal in the free version.  The animals were listed out in one HUGE  A- Z list of animals, making free exploration kind of difficult and possibly overwhelming.  There were huge ads on some of the pages.  There were spelling mistakes and such.  Overall, it was horrible.  If I had known it was this bad, I would never have installed it in the first place.