Create And Share Your Own Stories And Prose With Opuss
Opuss (Free) by Seamonster Ltd. provides you with a creative outlet in a social app setting. Instead of sharing photos or random things you like, you share words.
What drew me to Opuss initially was it's gorgeous interface and design. Second, the opportunity to read and share words with others in a social app seemed like a neat idea to me.
First, set up your profile. Post your photo, name, and short biography if you wish — or leave it all blank. You can also add friends.
Now, start browsing the prose to see what the app is all about. You're able to view the live feed of new pieces added if you just want to see recent posts, or you can go look for something specific. For example, you can tap on the Find tab and you're given many options: from stories to poems to scripts. Anything you can create with words is fair game. In fact, you can even add quotes or jokes — so the words you enter don't necessarily have to be your own. However, I personally like reading original posts rather than recycled ones.
You can also browse the top posts for the day, week, month, or year. Unfortunately, though, they're not all great. Some of the things people post are, well, stupid. I guess I expected people to be honest with their shares. By honest, I mean I had hoped when looking for a story with an adventure theme, that's what I would get. Instead, the post was a person complaining about an iTunes App Store review. — What?
That's all the reading and discovering aspect of Opuss. What about writing? You can begin composing whenever you want, but you don't have to write anything if you prefer to just read the stories of others. Create a title, write your piece, and categorize it if you wish.
In your profile you can view your followers, or friends, and see who liked or commented on your own compositions. There is also a "Rank" tab here, which I assume ranks you by how many likes and comments you get. However, when you tap on it, nothing happens. I'm just not sure what the significance of the rank is; it seems to be a number that doesn't actually do or mean anything.
Although I love the design as a whole, and I am quite the ailurophile, I just couldn't get into the cat theme. Plus, I found out the hard way that the app will meow at you. It's Oink all over again. Animal noises for iOS alerts are a definite no-no in my book. No, thanks. Good thing you can turn the alerts off.
I did experience two crashes, but they weren't consistent. As with most social apps, the only thing that would make this better is if more people used it. We need to build the community. Also, if people refrained from posting idiotic drivel, but then again, I guess that's the point of creativity, huh? Free speech: You can write whatever you want.
Opuss is available in the App Store for free (iPhone only) and is definitely worth a look.
