Updating My Rating System for Apps

I started this blog for a few reasons. The first was while being stuck using the internet on a phone due to my internet being interrupted for several weeks, and still a problem at times, I came to appreciate any sites that were mobile friendly. Yes, sites might well re-size themselves for mobile devices, but sometimes it feels like the entire desktop site is trying to squeeze itself into that small screen.

Long articles became a particular annoyance. I am certainly guilty of getting carried away with getting every word in that I can, but until you try to read your own stuff on a small screen the expression "get to the point" evades you.

Making a more mobile friendly site was primary, but also turning that into a learning experience and sharing that with others became a driving cause as well. So reviewing apps that I have tried is something I have added to this blog.

As with anything you can form an opinion about, the more experience you have with it the more you can put it into context. My original rating system was an upstart with me basing it on what apps I would put on my phone's home screen as my go to app and what I would put in my app folder that I'd like to have around. Plus cautionary ratings too.

One app recently had me questioning my newbie rating system. It's a news reader and has certainly become a home screen app and one of my most used apps. It has everything, with the exception of one critical feature that would make it perfect. Well it certainly is a home screen app, but I can't give it my highest rating due to the lack of that one feature, and being my rating system doesn't take that into account, I need to change the system.

For my new rating system I am going from 4 ratings to 5, and am going with the standard school grading system most of us are familiar with.

A - It's on my home screen and has everything it needs.

B - Very useful. A home screen app that could be better.

C - Handy to have in an app folder but not a go to app.

D - Lacking in features or offers useful features but has drawbacks.

F - This is crapware. Not a review but a warning.

I reserve the option to add a + or - to the above ratings if I feel it fits. I do not recommend or review apps with advertising unless it is the only app of its kind and it will not be rated above a D.

As I've said in an editorial before, this is not a mentoring but a journey. I am not an expert on Android or mobile devices but someone finding their way and just telling you about my experiences.

What Size Tablet?

Tablets come in various flavors from iPads to Android tablets, and Windows too. Computer tablets may seem recent but they have been around for decades.

One of the earliest touchscreen tablets was the GRiDPad in 1989 using a DOS based system. The primary developer of this tablet would go on the develop the Palm Pilot handheld which was the springboard not only for pen computing as a vertical market but for handheld computing on a commercial level since.

My earliest tablet computer was a Toshiba model from 1993 running Windows 3.1. It and my later Fujitsu Stylistic 1000, Windows 95, used an active stylus corded to the computer. My favorite though was a Fujitsu Point 510 (pictured), also Windows 95, which used a resistive touchscreen that only required pressure to activate, so you could use any stylus, your finger or even a stick with it.

A later model pseudo-tablet was the Sharp Intermec. It was basically a smaller Windows CE laptop with a touchscreen you could fold completely to the back side and use it purely as a tablet. The 7 inch screen on it was the forerunner of what has become the standard 7 inch tablet screen and is exactly the same screen, minus the touch layer, they used in 7 inch China netbooks, as they're called.

Among the most popular sizes for Android tablets are 7 and 10+/- inch screens. I have tablets with 7, 8 and 9.7 inch screens. The 9.7 inch is a great tablet for reading books and pdf files. The 8 inch tablet has the same resolution as the 9.7 inch model, but it is more responsive and it has a simple camera icon on the taskbar I can click on the take a screenshot; as opposed to the usual method of simultaneously holding down on the power button and volume down button.

Features and looks are great, but when I nearly lost the proprietary AC adapter for my 8 inch tablet, it reminded me of the big advantage 7 inch tablets have over any other size in being able to be charged through the usb port with a cable and adapter you can buy anywhere and probably have extra lying around from other stuff you have, maybe like your phone.

This is not saying what you should buy as a tablet. Certainly a larger screen size has its luxuries, but it also has its inconveniences, such as being uncomfortable to hold for long. However, the next tablet I have my eyes on is a size I can actually hold in one hand, with a 7 inch screen and it charges through the usb port. Handy size aside, check before you buy as to what type of charger the tablet you're considering takes. It's handy as anything to be able to use the same charger you do for your phone or be able to buy one at a local store or even at a stop and go for a few bucks.

This Is a Journey, Not a Mentoring

Having a blog where one reviews stuff, one might presume some expertise on the part of the reviewer. I've spent time from the days of drive-ins watching movies, but that certainly doesn't make me an expert on movies. What I provide in a review of a movie is nothing more than one person's opinion.

I got my first laptop maybe 17 years ago and have proceeded to do unspeakable things to the poor bastards since. I've learned how to dig deep into Windows, edit the registry, setup tcp/ip stacks, get a computer infected and deal with undoing that damage. I'm by no means an expert on computers, but I've delved further into them and the online world of servers than the average Joe.. uhm, no pun intended.

Now here's this mobile internet world. I've had an Android tablet for a few years and mainly used it for reading pdf files and limited internet. I didn't delve into it like I did laptops. When I needed to use an Android device for internet, these Android browsers were still something different to me that I have to learn. They're not as comprehensive as browsers I use on Windows, but they are different enough that it's like first using a laptop all over again; "oh, if I do this, that happens, huh."

In doing app reviews on this blog I'm not presenting myself as an expert but as someone who is learning as he goes. My 'annoying' tendency, as some would call it, to not accept at face value what is handed me but to investigate it further has led me to try many different apps. Like probably 30 web browsers by now; and along the way I've run into the good, the bad and the ugly among them.

What my inquisitive nature spawns from I do not know. I've always been obsessive to a degree. Also back in high school and shortly after I did work as an electrician, anybody who has done work as an electrician has experienced the joy, sarcasm, of several hundred volts coursing through them. Replace every outlet in a room and find the one that is wired on a different circuit. Or that person who swears they shut off the right breaker. You learn fast to check things out and double check before you commit yourself to a job.

That inquisitive nature now extends to Android devices and the mobile internet. My app reviews and experiences with Android and mobile internet are part of a learning process drawing on past experience with computers, Pocket PCs and webmastering, and delving into new realms with a 'safety first' inquisitiveness. Electrocution ain't no fun I can tell you and neither is accepting things if you can change them to make things better. Checking things out before I commit myself might seem like overkill to some, but it may help both of us avoid a shock.

All Apps Are Made in India?

Looking around the Google Play Store or on APKPure you would think so, at least where utility apps are concerned. Being that several of these apps are identified in some way with a lion, could you say Indian app developers have the lion's share of apps? ;)

Origin of apps aside, a problem that becomes very noticeable on Google Play is bogus feedback and ratings. Seriously? 10, 100 or 1000 comments, and most if not all of them are from India with one or two word praises, and it's not uncommon to see someone claim the designer is his brother; apparently app designers have large families.

This is just the same BS that went on with PLR software for Windows. Of course a lot of that software was actually useful to some degree, even though it was just re-branded a hundred times; it mostly wasn't 'all' of what they claimed it to be. Like any other group looking to make a quick buck, webmasters would gang together and promote each other's software sales pages with glowing reviews. Now that's taking place on Google Play.

There are some nice looking apps on Google Play that you will see under 100 different names. They look just slightly different with altered colors and start pages, but they are just re-branded crapware for the most part. Some might even be useful or even great apps if it weren't for all the ad pages that keep popping up. I mean seriously, what kind of effing fool thinks that irritating the hell out of someone and potentially crashing their device is going to inspire them to click on an ad?

I hate to generalize, but it is unfortunately an obvious trend taking place on Google Play. If you are looking at an app on Google Play and the designer is from India, or claims to be, and it has good ratings and reviews but those reviews are from India as well, it's a good bet to avoid that app. Unless you really like having your phone crashing.. then go for it.

We're Born... Customers?

I do, like any of us, have pet peeves. Among those is I don't like having ads shoved in my face and assumptions made for me. The internet is bad enough with sites loaded with ads and autoplay videos when you visit a site. On my laptop I have adblockers and block Flash as well to disable this crap, and ads are the number one source of malware infections so any site that wants me to disable my adblocker to use their site goes on my permanent #$&@list (you fill in the blanks).

Google and their Android system have taken the internet to a new low. I don't know about Apple as I don't use their products, but I suspect Google is not alone in this. I don't think this was Google's intention, it's what happens when you invite the wrong people to the party and they take over.

What has been PLR (private label rights) and MRR (master resell rights) software has become a standard on Google Play Store. These are software that can be re-labelled by someone who buys the rights to them. This has been a practice for years for some limited PC software; limited enough that the majority of you have probably never experienced PLR software. Well Google Play Store has changed that.

Do you really think all those apps are individually designed? Certainly many from known software publishers and some independent designers are, but when you start looking through the hundreds of titles in a search for apps like web browsers, pdf readers and other utilities and think that a lot of these apps look the same or very similar, well, you're right because they are. They are just re-labelled PLR apps with their ads inserted for your discomfort.

It has to be some mighty good software for me to recommend if it has ads. But for the most part I treat apps with ads the same as I do the cable/internet salespeople who constantly approach you at Walmart, I dismiss them quickly. 

Unfortunately it seems like we have become conditioned to expect to be treated this way and accept it. I don't accept intrusions and disrespect. Big corporations and big retail especially have forced out small business and changed the attitude from "we're here for the customer" to "the customer is here for us". We're treated like we were born to be sold to 24/7 and privacy and peace of mind is something we don't deserve if it doesn't benefit somebody else financially.

My objective with the Android app reviews on this site is to filter out the crapware and only recommend those apps which have a usefulness and no ads. I'm not going to change the internet, and certainly won't be able to give a conscience to the basement dwellers responsible for crapping it up, but I can provide some recommendations for you to avoid some of the crap.

Mobile Internet? What's That?

My experiences with mobile internet have been relatively recent, as of this date, with it having been necessitated by an interruption of my regular internet. Having a smartphone handy, not one I use, I was able to connect by going to a location I could reach WiFi. Then the difference became apparent.

The thing is I had not realized how many people now exclusively access the internet via their smartphones. It even seems like for some that the desktop computer, even laptop, are becoming more office equipment as the smartphone is replacing the portability of the laptop and certainly takes up a lot less space than a desktop.

There are many, though not all, sites with mobile versions, even some with multiple versions depending on the mobile device you are using.

With the proliferation of smartphones and an increase in what is the standard size, like it doesn't seem too long ago people were using flip-phones, and also an increase in screen resolutions, that line between mobile and desktop sites is diminishing. A 1024x600 screen resolution could be found on a netbook several years ago and now that is near the lower end of smartphone screen resolutions. If a netbook could access desktop sites and smartphones are more regularly coming with laptop screen resolutions, is there really a mobile internet?

My 4.5 inch screen Android phone is certainly for mobile only internet. But it is a dinosaur probably to a lot of people now, and it takes even less time today for dinosaurs to go extinct. With an increase in screen resolutions and the proliferation of smartphones, is the internet really a desktop world or have smartphones dominated? If not today, it won't be long before the mobile internet is the internet, period.