My review of the Categories iPhone app…
First, it pissed me off that I’m stuck with AdMob to use this (I even hate the name “AdMob”) but since the ads show only when you’re editing within the app, I can live with it…I guess. Since I had to take it out of hosts, that means I’m stuck with “the mob” system-wide. I’m not thrilled with that. Release a paid version, FFS, so those of us who absolutely hate ads can cough up the cash and be spared. Put it in Cydia’s new store, facrissake–I have PayPal.
Really, really crash-y! I lost count of the times this app crashed (it claimed it was probably due to low memory) when all I wanted to do was choose a fucking icon. Maybe organise them into icon themes so that 654356 PNGs aren’t loading all at once? Either that or get rid of the goddamned ads because the app would crash every time I happened to be scrolling through the images when the ad flipped to change. It would hang for a second as the ad changed, then I’d end up with whatever icon I hadn’t meant to touch, and it would promptly crash. I was getting very frustrated, and at one point had to restart the phone because Springboard wouldn’t come back up.
The selection of sorry-looking icons makes Baby Jesus cry. Three hundred thousand ugly Vista-ish folder-y icons that don’t look anything like they belong on an iPhone, and a handful of others ranging from “meh” to “thirteen-year-old armed with MS Paint”. There are icons for WMP and IE. I rest my case.
Overall, I think the app is a great idea, and although it will take a while before I get used to looking for my stuff in folders, it is a lot neater. No faster–I can page faster than the folders can load–but neater. The icons are ugly, the ads must die (die, DIE!!), and the “loading icons” memory issue needs to be fixed, but I’m going to give this a shot and see whether I like it better than just turning off seldom-used app icons and paging through the rest. Goddamn, those are ugly icons, though, and this comes from someone who has a collection of “explosion at the crayon factory” wallpaper!
