So many social / sharing apps and so little time, or something like that, is how things seem lately. Everybody and their dog wants to help me share photos, tell folks what I’m up to at any given moment, and maybe even tell them where I am while I’m pounding out my latest Dear Diary entry.
PhoneZap is another entrant in this crowded arena, but one with some slightly odd and interesting angles to it. For a start, it has got Ringtone Creation stuck right in there next to its lineup of photo sharing / status updating features. Not sure how exactly that ties in, unless sharing of ringtones is going to be worked in at some point – but it is my favorite part of the program so far.
Creating a new ringtone is very straightforward – just choose any song that’s on your phone, use a roller bar to pick your start and end points for the ringtone, test it and save it. This has worked flawlessly for me so far – with ringtones showing up in Settings right away, not causing any adverse effects on others, and surviving reboots of the phone.
As for the more traditional social and sharing parts of PhoneZap, I’m not quite sure what I think yet. Its user interface is OK, but not wonderful, and there are some obvious things that could stand some improvement, for instance:
- The text entry area when posting a status update is quite small
- It will not pull photos from your existing Camera Roll; only offering to share a new photo taken from within the app itself. Several web apps – like iRovr and Natuba – that provide similar socializing options, do allow sending direct from the Camera Roll.
I’ve also found I’m seeing ‘Service Unavailable’ errors pretty frequently – on both the native app client and the full phonezap.com site on the desktop – in the first 24 hours of trying it out.
I do like the fact that PhoneZap is much quicker at its screen refreshes and general operation than web apps like iRovr though, and the Locating / Geotagging button works nicely.
The hardest thing about getting involved with each new social / sharing tool like this is that you most likely don’t have many (or any) friends or groups to interact with at the outset. That’s definitely the case for me with PhoneZap right now (I’m patrickj on there by the way). It would be nice if – a la Plazes that Thomas posted on last night – there was some integration with Twitter or other more established networks, so that you have sort of running start with your socializing.
I’ll keep playing with PhoneZap and will be interested to see how it develops. It’s available on Installer now, and you can also get more info on the service itself by visiting www.phonezap.com …
Continue reading:
- Everything New Apple Just Announced (Septembe
- Apple Watch Pre-Order
- Apple Research Kit launches with 5 Apps
- Apple TV now only $69
TAGS:
