Consolidate All Of Your Internet Likes In One Place With Favs
Favs ($2.99) by Dirk Holtwick will keep all of your Internet favorites tidy in one place.
I had been using the Mac version of Favs for a while, and was extremely pleased when the iPhone version came out. I love being able to view all of my favorites from all over the Web in one app, rather than a handful of different apps. It just makes digital life less cluttered.
What, exactly, gets added in Favs? Starred tweets, Facebook and Instagram “likes,” privately liked Instapaper articles, publicly favorited YouTube videos — these are just a tip of the iceberg. If you “liked” it somewhere on the Web, then chances are you will be able to view them in Favs.
So how is the iPhone version? Well, it’s certainly an important app to me, as it has earned a spot on my home screen. The thing that I love the most about Favs is the elegant, pristine interface and design. The app is minimal, but easy to use. Everything you would need for an app that gathers all of your favorites is ready from the first screen, and it even organizes all of your favorites into three sections: All, Inbox, and Archive.
To add a new service, just tap on the “+” button. There is a wide variety of services that are supported: Delicious, Dribbble, Facebook, Flattr, Flickr, Github, Google Reader, Instagram, Instapaper (subscription required), Pinboard, Readability, Pocket, StackOverflow, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube, and Zootool. Each service will be able to display your public or private likes, depending on their own API.
If you have multiple accounts on one service, then you will be pleased to hear that you can add more than one account for each. This works out great for users that may have a personal and business Twitter account, for example.
Once an account is added, Favs will begin gathering all of your likes and favorites. By default, everything new will be marked as unread and in your Inbox. Optionally, you can view them all by service and account too.
If you are like me, though, and have accumulated thousands of items over time, then you probably don’t want to view them all one-by-one again. A “Mark All Read” button appears whenever you are viewing your favorites, saving precious time. Any item can be archived by swiping on it and revealing the button. The All view will display everything, should you feel like going through and digging up some great stuff. You are able to search for keywords, making it a bit easier to find something specific.
Whenever you select a favorite to view, Favs will pull it up in a mini-browser underneath the title. If it’s something you want to read in a cleaner interface, then just toggle the Readability mode. The Share menu allows you to email, tweet, copy, or open the URL in Safari.
Refreshing your list of favs is a delight in the app. It utilizes pull-to-refresh, but rather than the standard fare you see in most apps, Favs make you match up a star to another star to initiate the sync sequence. It’s a stylish animation that is a nice change.
Settings for Favs are in the system settings app, and you can toggle unread count badges, ask for unread all, choose to sync on start, and utilize iCloud to sync between the iOS and Mac versions (coming soon in a Mac version update).
While the price may be considered by some as a bit high for what the app does, I found the app to be a great value. It only costs the same as your cup of coffee (that only lasts for less than an hour, mind you), but you can keep all of your favorites stored in one place for a long time. It would be great to see an iPad version in the future, though.
If you haven’t checked it out yet, I highly recommend you do so. It’s an undemanding app that is extremely useful in the long run, if you care at all about the stuff you favorited for a reason.
