AppReviewToday- All

Hi, my name is Kristina and I work as the office manager of Mid Atlantic Consulting. We are a Macintosh Support, Service, and Consulting Company. I will review one iPhone app every day coming from a non-tech like me. Add your comments and I will try to reply.

  • Should Nymphs & Wets Be Your Go-To App for Fly Tying Techniques?

    When you're first picking up fly fishing, or when you want to up your game, knowing how to tie the knots and make the flies is crucial. After all, you want them to look real enough to attract the big one, and that's not always easy to do. Nymphs & Wets does a great job of showing how to do those things, but does it offer enough to make up for the ads and other in-app purchases? Let's find out.

    App Feels Like

    $1.99

    Knots 3DKnots 3D

    Knots 3D

    David Boren

    $1.99

    Fishing Knots Real 3DFishing Knots Real 3D

    Fishing Knots Real 3D

    Gabor Toth

    $2.99

    DIY Fly FishingDIY Fly Fishing

    DIY Fly Fishing

    Kenneth Sperry

    When learning how to fly fish, the most difficult thing for many people is knowing how to tie flies, knots, and various patterns. It's definitely an enjoyable past-time, and can pay off with some great fish, but you've got to get a start somewhere. This free app will get you this beginning, teaching you the most basic nymphs, wets, and other fly fishing essentials. Once you've mastered those, you can unlock more advanced flies, knots, and patterns and learn them as well. The app uses detailed pictures along with great text to help you get things right the first time and every time.

    When you're trying to learn how to tie a fly, you need a good instructor. This app does provide that, with excellent tutorials on how to tie the flies you need, from the most basic to the highly detailed and complex. It offers various categories of techniques, and gives you a healthy selection of different knots and patterns to make use of.

    If your eyes aren't very good, each image in the tutorials has a zoom function. You just tap on it, and you get a more detailed, larger view of the image and its accompanying text.

    Whether you want to learn the Alexandra, the Black Zulu, or one of dozens of other fly fishing favorites, you'll find them within this app with detailed images and well-written instructions.

    Now, the drawbacks. This app makes heavy use of full-screen advertisements. I'm not opposed to monetizing your app, but the developers seem to have gone hog-wild here.

    With every screen change, you have to wait at least five seconds for an interactive ad to play before you can tap the X to dismiss it and go where you wanted to be in the first place.

    If you're in a hurry to get that fly tied, this isn't the app for you. The ads are annoying enough that I'll be deleting the app from my iPhone in very short order. Then again, maybe I'll forget about fishing and just download one of the games the app keeps pushing on me. Not really, but you get my point.

    Not only does Nymphs & Wets make extensive use of in-app ads, but it tries to monetize in other ways, too. This app has more in-app purchases than I've ever seen in its type before.

    First, there's an in-app purchase to get rid of the ads. That's one purchase.

    You can also spend money to unlock all of the tutorials in each category.

    Finally, the app offers you the option to remove all ads and unlock all of the fly tutorials, for another, heftier charge.

    Truthfully, the ads shouldn't pop up so often. Most apps only have them once or twice a day. The lack of much content also makes this app pretty frustrating.

    This just isn't the app for me, and it's a shining example of what happens when developers get a bit too much on the greedy side. There are far too many ads, and not enough free content, to make this worth the space it takes on my iPhone. Truthfully, it's probably a great app, but I just can't get past all of the ads and other in-app purchases to make the most of it.

    5.4

    OVERALL

    Does it well 8.5

    User Interface 7

    iPhone Integration 5

    Lasting appeal 3

    Is engaging 3.5

    FREE

    Nymphs & Wets: Fly Tying Techniques Knots PatternsNymphs & Wets: Fly Tying Techniques Knots Patterns

    Nymphs & Wets: Fly Tying Techniques Knots Patterns

    Stojan Pesic

    Source link: http://appadvice.com/reviews

  • Get on the Road Again and Don't Miss a Thing With Roadtrippers

    When you're preparing for a long road trip, or even a short one, you want to make the most of it. While you could go to AAA and let them prepare a TripTik for you, along with buying all of their guides to help you identify places to stay and visit, that's just not the best way anymore. Instead, you should harness the power of the internet and your smartphone, and let an app help you plan. That's what Roadtrippers is all about.

    Free

    TripIt: Travel OrganizerTripIt: Travel Organizer

    TripIt: Travel Organizer

    TripIt Inc

    Free

    inRoute Route Planner & GPS NavigatorinRoute Route Planner & GPS Navigator

    inRoute Route Planner & GPS Navigator

    Carob Apps, LLC

    $2.99

    Roadside AmericaRoadside America

    Roadside America

    This Exit LLC

    With Roadtrippers, you can find the hottest spots as well as the most offbeat highlights along your trip. All you have to do is start your new trip, give the app your location and where you want to end up, and then choose what kinds of things you want to see. After that, the app will calculate the best route for you to take and what sites and other attractions might be along your travels. It's all quite easy, and very comprehensive.

    Roadtrippers has a lot of great features. It will help you plan your trip, and has a comprehensive catalog of locations that you won't want to miss. You'll be able to find gas stations, restaurants and diners, as well as historical landmarks with ease. Roadtrippers also helps you locate campgrounds, if you want to rough it along the way. It even includes points of interest that aren't quite on the beaten path, like the world's largest wicker basket.

    The app also allows you to browse pre-planned trips, if you need some inspiration. Just visit the Guides tab, and Roadtrippers will provide you with a treasure chest full of possibilities, like the ultimate Route 66 road trip or a week-long drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

    While overall the app is easy to use, it has its drawbacks. There's no easy way I could find to plan legs of your trip, so you may find yourself using another map to plan stops for really long road trips. Once you figure out where you need to stop for the night, though, you can pretty easily add that to your itinerary.

    The other drawback to Roadtrippers might not be a bad thing after all. There's just so much to see and do, and the app can create maps that are downright overwhelming with how many options they provide you. You have to pick and choose, since you won't be able to see everything and still get to your final destination.

    Finally, the app ships you out to another title for actual navigation. While it includes its own map, Roadtrippers doesn't do turn-by-turn navigation. It works with Apple Maps and Google Maps, though, and sends you straight to those apps with your start and end points preselected.

    All in all, this is a terrific choice for planning your next road trip. It's not perfect, but few apps are. What Roadtrippers does, plan your sightseeing, eating, and refueling locations, it does very well. I just wish I could do everything in a single app, even getting my turn-by-turn navigation.

    8.8

    OVERALL

    iPhone Integration 10

    Lasting appeal 9

    Does it well 9.5

    User Interface 8.5

    Is engaging 7

    FREE

    Roadtrippers - Trip Planner Map & Travel GuidesRoadtrippers - Trip Planner Map & Travel Guides

    Roadtrippers – Trip Planner Map & Travel Guides

    Roadtrippers

    Source link: http://appadvice.com/reviews