Shotz Is A Beautiful And Simple Little Dribbble Client For Your iPhone
Shotz - A Dribbble Client (Free) by Ninja Lab Studios is a beautiful way to browse through Dribbble.
Even though I am not a designer, one of my favorite things to do to pass some time is to browse Dribbble. There's a lot of talent in the designer and creative community, and plenty showcase it off in Dribbble. It's a place to "ooh and ah," and perhaps even find inspiration. I love finding out about new Dribbble clients, so I was a bit surprised when I stumbled upon Shotz. It seems to have slipped under the radar, but it's a great little app for browsing Dribbble, especially for the price (which is free).
When the app is launched, you’re presented with a beautiful looking splash screen with Ninja Labs’ logo. Once I saw that, I knew I was in for a treat – and I was right. The app itself is simple and intuitive, and the bottom navigation bar reminds me of Tweetbot. Overall, the visual presentation of the app is top-notch, from viewing shots to comments to profiles.
The bottom navigation bar contains four tabs, which are pretty easy to understand, even without text: Popular, Everyone, Debuts, and Profile. If you have a Dribbble account, then you can log in on the Profile tab. This works with Spectator and Player accounts.
Once you’re logged in, you can view your own profile, which shows the number of shots you have uploaded, how many you’ve drafted, who you follow, who follows you, and how many likes you’ve given. This profile view applies to any other user you decide to check out as well.
To start viewing the wonderful shots in the Dribbble community, just tap on the preferred area (Popular, Everyone, or Debuts). Shotz will show nine shots at once on the screen, presented in a 3x3 grid. Users can scroll by swiping the screen up and down, with each scroll loading more shots.
Tapping on a shot will take you to the shot page, where you can view a larger thumbnail of the shot, see the title and player, as well as how many views, likes, and comments it has received. If you would like to check out what others have said about the selected shot, just scroll down to view the comments. Tap on anyones avatar to view their profile, and tap on the image to view the shot in its full size (fully zoomable), save to the Camera Roll, or share on Facebook or Twitter.
My only problem with the comments is that it seems to be in reverse order – newest comments are displayed first. If you like to see what the creator said about the shot (this is what I do), then you have to scroll to the bottom of the comments and go through them in reverse. Not sure why this is this way, and I hope that the developer can fix this in a future update (or at least provide the option of displaying comments in ascending or descending order).
If you have navigated through multiple levels, then you will find the “home” button in the top right corner to be extremely convenient. This will take you back to the main screen of the app, where you can continue your exploration of Dribbble.
Besides the comment order, I don’t like the “Refresh” button in the top left. I am so accustomed to other apps utilizing the pull-to-refresh mechanism that it just feels backwards to be manually pressing a button for a simple refresh. I hope that the developer rids the button and implements pull-to-refresh – it just feels much more natural.
I also can’t “like” shots in the app – I’m not entirely sure if this is because my account is Spectator level, but I’m fairly certain I was able to do that in other apps. Hopefully the developer can add this feature as well.
If you're a Dribbble user looking for a decent app on the iPhone, then give Shotz a try. It gets the job done and it's pretty beautiful to look at, as well. I'm not a huge fan of the icon, though -- it seems a bit bland compared to other Dribbble apps (like Pick'n'Roll, which I also reviewed). This is just a personal preference, though, but maybe the developer can give it a bit more polish in the future.
Shotz is a pretty good app for Dribbble users, especially considering that it’s free to download. Let us know what you think of Shotz in the comments!
