I watched in amusement as the group presented the very app that I had downloaded and deleted in less than 15 minutes when I first got my iPad2 in May. It’s in all honestly a terrible application and I think the group did a fine job pointing out why it was bad and then going on to suggest exellent improvements for it. I’ll just discuss a few things that they mentioned.
First and most despicable of this app is the User Interface. I’m not sure if InClass actually conducts any market research, but if they did they would realise that there are numerous similar applications for students with intuitive interfaces that don’t have you clicking buttons helplessly for every single action. Whatever happened to multi-touch finger movements? It’s an iOS, not RIM technology! Indeed InClass may be the only free application in the market but as an iPad user for lecture notes, I actually purchased Note Taker HD at 4.99! (Before I jailbroke my iPad cos I got annoyed with a few other lousy apps that cost me quite a bit). I only used the app for like 10min back then so it didn’t really have time to crash but the group did show a screenshot of it crashing. That’s absolutely ridiculous if someone uses it to seriously take notes during a lecture. Already tapping away on the iPad’s keyboard slows you down compared to your peers. The last thing you need is for the app to crash and have to restart it.
It’s a pretty simple to understand app so I would deem their suggeston for a video tutorial pretty unnecessary. Rather an example project would make more sense. That’s what most of these productivity apps do because a video would be a longer spinning circle of doom when you launch the app, which is once again not something you want in a lecture. The suggested improvements on integration with cloud sharing apps like Dropbox or Google Docs is something that’s long overdue.
The team suggested a few new ideas to be part of the app, InTown and InSchool. They’re pretty decent ideas but I’m not sure if the team actually wants to integrate all of this into one app or are they looking at different apps? If it’s the latter, sure go ahead but if it’s the former, I think there’s a conflict of niche selling proposition. Sure, it’d be cool to have a whole-world-in-one-app concept which was something almost every group who presented a productivity app kept pushing for (even in a nightstand!). BUT honestly, I think apps exist in the millions because of their diversity. It may be convenient to have everything in one app but that just makes the app a lot less specialized and focused than it could be. I mean take Apple’s iOs for an example. They could have easily built in Safari, mail, notes and calendar into 1 default app with different tabs but they didn’t. I think it’s about the 1-touch concept. You want to get to your note taking app in a touch, just like you would for your ‘what’s happening in town’ app or your ‘module forum’ app. You don’t quite want your screen split 99-way with all the different features.
Lastly, I agree with the team’s view on the commercial potential. Despite its UI flaws, the product actually has huge commercial potential because it’s free. If they build the app right, they will have a huge database of users and their information. Information is a commodity and advertisers would pay for that. I’m not so sure about collaborating with educational institutions because iPad apps are becoming so increasing popular in academia that I would envision these institutions developing and customizing apps for their own students. (It’s already happening all over in the States and Australia btw.)
That’s pretty much my critique. Overall, the team did a good job on the presentation and slides (i like the whole chalkboard theme)!
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