Orbit is an app that aims to make it easier for you to keep in touch with your contacts – in particular, your social network friends. At heart, it ‘s a combination of the Phone and Contacts app that comes standard on your iPhone. What makes Orbit unique is that it also adds Facebook and Twitter support. So instead of simply seeing your friend ‘s cell phone number and E-mail address, you can also see his latest Facebook status update and his most recent Tweet.
But just how useful is the app? It ‘s clearly aimed at Twitter and Facebook geeks such as myself and most people reading this, I would assume. Does it do enough to justify the purchase?
When you launch Orbit, you ‘ll notice five main options at the bottom: Contacts, Places, Updates, Keypad, and More. The Keypad tab lets you manually dial a phone number to call. It also lets you dial your voicemail if you ‘d like to check it, but not navigate back to the Phone app.
Contacts – Contacts are further broken down into four categories: Favorites, Recent, All, and Orbit. Under the All tab, you ‘ll see all of the contacts that you have already stored in the standard Contacts app. Next to each contact are icons that represent what you can do: a phone, an SMS bubble, and an E-mail icon. Underneath their name will be their most recent Facebook status update or Tweet (one or the other, not both).
One thing I ‘m not a fan of is the scrolling. It features letters on the right side of the screen, much like the standard Contacts app. But instead of following your finger in real-time like the Contacts app, it waits until you lift your finger before navigating to where you left off. It ‘s not a huge deal by any means, and scrolling is in no way difficult or clumsy. It works just fine for what it needs to do.
Another gripe is that, mixed in with your contacts, are category listings (bars, restaurants, entertainment, etc). These appear highlighted in yellow so they stand out. It came across as an eyesore to me that I wish could be disable, but cannot.
Tapping on a contact will bring you to the next screen with three tabs at the top: Info, Facebook, and Twitter. Under Twitter, you ‘ll see a list of recent Tweets up to a certain point. Under Facebook, you ‘ll see the most recent status update, along with a list of comments. Be ready to use the refresh icon in the top-right corner, because the contact ‘s most recent status update isn ‘t always displayed.
The main Info tab will display their phone numbers and E-mail addresses. Tapping on a phone number will exit the app and start dialing the phone number, and likewise for an E-mail address, although this is done inside the app. You can also tap Send Message to start typing a text message, add this person to your favorites, edit some of their information, set their Social Volume (more on this later), and pair them with a Facebook or Twitter contact (more on this later as well).
The Recent tab shows you the people with whom you ‘ve most recently communicated with through the app – including a phone call, E-mail, SMS, Facebook, or Twitter.
The Favorites tab is, you guessed it, the contacts you designated as favorites (this can be done by opening a contact in the All tab and tapping ‘Add to Favorites ‘).
The last tab, the Orbit tab, shows you all of your created Orbits. The app suggests a few categories for you right off the bat, including family, friends, and coworkers. This acts just like the Favorites tab, only you can further categorize your contacts here.
More – I ‘m skipping all the way to the fifth bottom tab because this is where you add your Facebook and Twitter information. After you type in your login information for either service, Orbit will automatically pair your Contacts with your Facebook friends or the people you follow on Twitter. It will also bring up a list of people who weren ‘t exact matches, but who the app thinks is close enough that there might be a match. In my test case, I had over ten suggestions, but none were correct. Still, it ‘s a nice touch and, most importantly, it got all of the automatic ones correct. You can also add or remove pairings at any time under the Contacts tab. This is an important aspect to the app, and the developer nailed it perfectly.
You ‘ll also be able to set Social Volume (more on this later), disable ads (more on this later), and edit some settings.
Updates – This is the meat and potatoes of the app. This is where you see all of your contacts ‘ status updates and Tweets. From here, you can also separately or simultaneously update your Twitter or Facebook accounts and comment on your contacts ‘ Tweets or statuses. Both features work as advertised.
The default view in this tab is All, but it can be adjusted to the following: Facebook Contacts, Twitter Contacts, or any Orbit you have already set up.
Unfortunately, this section isn ‘t without some glaring flaws. First up, viewing the information isn ‘t as easy as it should be. With Facebook, for example, you not only see your contact ‘s status update, but also every single response in that thread. Since the Updates view is organized with the most recent post on top, things can get jumbled pretty quickly. Depending on how many responses a status gets, you could end up with more entries (responses) in your Updates tab by strangers than your contacts. A much better way, or even option, would be to just show the initial posts by your contacts. This makes even more sense because, when you click on something in the log, it just takes you to the entire thread of that status update anyway. This renders showing each response to the status update even more useless.
The next problem is, as the developer admitted, a bug. Let ‘s say one of your contacts is Jane Doe, and she updated her Facebook status seven times today. In the Updates tab, you ‘ll see all of those updates. The problem is that, no matter which update you tap on to view the thread or comment on, it will always load the most recent update. I was told, however, that this will be fixed with a future software update.
Even if it displayed the Tweets and status updates correctly, you ‘re only seeing a handful of your friends and followers since, I would assume, no one has all of their Facebook friends and Twitter followers in their Contacts. Yes, the app allows you to bulk-import everyone into the app, but it also adds them to your Contacts list, which creates a big mess in your Contacts app, especially if you are friends with or follow a lot of people.
Places – This tab comes across as an odd addition to me. For an app that touts itself as a way to better organize your contacts across the two most popular social networks, searching for local businesses and restaurants doesn ‘t seem to be a natural extension. Nevertheless, the feature works fine. There are a number of categories to search, including attractions, bakeries,, pharmacies, and movie theaters. Each of these categories can be organized by relevance, name, and distance. You can also manually enter a search term and a zip code to find exactly what you ‘re looking for.
I ‘d personally like to see this section removed from future updates, with a greater focus put on your contacts, Facebook, and Twitter. Searching for places doesn ‘t seem to fit with the rest of the app.
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Outside of those five basic functions of Orbit, there are two other important details to touch on.
Social Volume – This is where you can edit – either individually, in groups, by Orbits, or globally – how much information is pushed to your phone when you ‘re not in the app. You ‘ll see your list of contacts, each with a pseudo-volume bar next to their name.
To change the setting, you turn a volume nob to one of these statements as your options: I want to hear everything (this includes status updates and responses to those status updates), Alert me for status updates (only), Alert me for new messages (the developer informed me that this is reserved for v3.0 of the app, which is slated to include in-app SMS and visual voicemail), and Mute.
Note that, although there are ten volume notches, there are really only four different settings. The multiple notches is for aesthetic purposes only.
Ads – It ‘s also important to note that Orbit is a paid app that has ads, at least initially. After you purchase the app, you can also make an additional purchase to convert it to ad-free, but there ‘s a catch – the $0.99 purchase is good for only 30 days.
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It isn ‘t all bad news. Pairing your Facebook and Twitter contacts is simple and easy. Simultaneously updating your Facebook and Twitter statuses is a breeze. Social Volume is a neat idea and is executed well. And the app is designed and laid out quite nicely.
But there are also a number of glaring flaws: the Updates glitch, only seeing some of your Facebook and Twitter friends (unless you choose to add them all in your Contacts app), categories intertwined with your contacts, and the annoying ads.
To be fair, aside from the glitches, my other gripes were personal and may not bother you. If that ‘s the case, and Orbit sounds like it ‘s just the app you ‘ve been looking for to help keep you in touch with your social network friends, and you don ‘t mind waiting for software updates to fix some of the issues, then I believe there ‘s enough here for you to at least give it a shot.
But to the casual user, you ‘re better off passing on this one for now.
Orbit is available now in the App Store for $2.99.
*** Trilibis Mobile provided a promo code to Just Another iPhone Blog for the review of Orbit. For more information regarding our site ‘s review policies, please see the ‘About ‘ page. ***
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