Shake Up Your Saturday Nights With Shaken
Shaken ($0.99) by Riot is an app to add a bit of randomness to your life in the form of cocktails. Sounds good already, doesn’t it?
The first thing you’ll notice among opening the app is the beautiful interface. It’s absolutely stunning. The graphics of the lime, ice, and leaves around the paper pop out at you – are you even staring at an iPhone anymore? Actually, you are. Crazy, right? In the middle of these stunning visuals is a piece of paper that will either instruct you to “Shake to make!” or show you the cocktail recipe (with the app saying “Make me a…”).
With Shaken, you don’t get a way to search for a specific cocktail. That defeats the purpose of the app. Simply shake your iPhone, just like you’re mixing up a drink (complete with sounds!), and then a random cocktail recipe will show up on the paper. You’ll get a list of all the ingredients and nothing else. Hey, if you just want random drinks to spice up the night, the app will assume that you already know how to make them.
When a recipe comes up, there is a tab that will appear at the bottom of the screen with a heart. Tapping this will add the current recipe to your Favourites for easy access later. If you change your mind, just un-tap that heart and it will be removed. A button to lock the recipe on the screen is available as well, to prevent your drunk friends from shaking your phone before you save a recipe.
To access your Favourites, tap the button at the top right corner (it resembles a list). You’ll see the recipes you saved and when you added them. Selecting one will show the recipe again, in addition to saying “I enjoyed a…” message at the top, rather than “Make me a…” You can also edit your favourites with the Edit button or just swipe to delete.
The app is very simple, but very beautiful and fun. If you’re the adventurous type with your drinks for the weekend, then this app will fit the bill perfectly.
However, it would be nice to see some additional features in the future. Perhaps a way to save your Favourites off of the device (e.g., email or SMS) in case you need to restore your device. Even though the purpose of the app is to get a random result each time, I think there should be a way to search, or at least access all the recipes available in the app – just a suggestion.
If you are looking for a way to make the weekend nights even more interesting, then give this app a try. You may be surprised at the results.
