Exactly What Photos Are We Exploring In Flickr Explorer?
Flickr Explorer ($0.99) by Patrik Weiskircher is a very straightforward app that allows you to do one thing: view a stream of Flickr photos.
Let me preface this review by addressing what I think to be the most important issue with this app: the title. Clearly, the title should be Flickr Explorr. I am unsure how this was overlooked, but will assume this will be addressed in the next update.
Okay, now on to less important things (not really, just go with it). There really isn't much to say about this app. It's designed to display photos and allow you to browse them seamlessly on your iDevice (yes, it's universal).
You will be presented with pages of thumbnails. You can then click on a specific photo to view it in full screen mode. The app supports both portrait or landscape orientations, as well.
The interface is simple, clean, and crisp. You can even share your favorite photos with Twitter, Facebook, and many other services. Please see my screenshot of the available services below as there are many at your disposal.
For what this app does, it seems to work pretty effortlessly. At times, though, I found myself staring impatiently at the "loading wheel of death." It didn't always take a long time for photos to load, but even the littlest bit of loading time takes away from the functionality of the app.
Although we're not given much information on the app — and visiting the website for support offered no resolve — I am not sure where on Flickr these photos are pulled from exactly. I assume they are the top rated photos or possibly most viewed. The app does not specify anywhere that I can see. And the number of photos shown is not endless — it's actually pretty limited, though, the photos shown do change.
I was disappointed with this app because I opened it up thinking that I could browse and view my own Flickr account photos and photos on my friends accounts. Unfortunately, this was not the case.
I respect what this app is trying to do, but do not see why anyone would care to pay $0.99 for it. It's sometimes slow and has very limited use and information. You're better off viewing photos you actually want to see via mobile web, and for free.
