We gave Mikey, one of our designers, one working week with an iPad and the task to find his favourite apps, judging them on usability, interface design and function…

Deja

First up is Deja, designed and developed by Nimrod Ram this delightful little app utilises existing media streams tailored to you, that presents everything that’s happening in your digital world in the most entertaining and visual of ways. Flipboard? I hear you murmur, well no actually the interface uses videos as it’s key content and the manner it delivers them to you is quite charming. Despite it’s initially confusing appearance once you get into the app it is easy to use and the UX is pleasant. Although I do think it would have benefited from an initial “How to use” frame. Despite this its useful, cool and very pretty. 8/10

Flipboard

Yeah I know it revolutionised the way we view our digital but I’ve got beef with Flipboard. While I think it’s beautiful and I appreciate gestures are the future of mobile device UX’s, in my view it isn’t quite there yet.

Admittedly it is one if the apps I initially used most but the UI is difficult to learn, and this taints the experience with a feeling it could do more. The iPad by nature is so fantastically intuitive, it’s the reason you can give it to an 8 year old and watch them work out how to use it. Give them Flipboard and it would end up joining stretch Armstrong in the toy graveyard. Overall this app is like a budget airline, an incredible idea and it’s almost there but you’ll still need a 50 euro cab to get to your hotel. 9/10

Soundy Thingie

As an electronic music aficionado I couldn’t leave this little gem out. Following in the wake of a whole host of tone pad copycats I can almost hear your eyeballs rolling back into your head but stay with me. While it may not be the most original idea the way it delivers the concept is fantastically innovative.

You have an option of 5 unique electronic sounds and you can change the BPM of these individually. The reason I love it so much is the ability to change the type of sounds dependant of the speed and aggression of your movements/gestures. You can throw your whole hand down and set multiple strands of electronic delight, and all this for less than a pint of shandy. It does have some setbacks, while you can save your work it does lack the ability to export your masterpieces meaning it needs an update to make me tell my friends about it. 6/10

Radio Soulwax

Another musical application this time from one of my favourite bands/DJ’s/musical gods, Soulwax. It acts as a platform to showcase the various mixes the band have specifically created for the app. What I love about the UI is how simple it is, you have very few options to select and you can go from the main dashboard to download/stream/play mixes in 3 clicks. Secondly, the mixes have bespoke visuals which play alongside them, this isn’t your standard iTunes visualizer these are the real deal, direct from Soulwax’s Live show. It’s is a great free app for anyone who likes music, visuals and pretty interfaces, but be warned you will end up throwing a house party just to show this beauty off! 7/10

CNN

This App makes news about as beautiful as it can be, I love the grids which this App uses. It’s so simple but amazing what a low opacity banner over an image can do. I ended up reading articles about US foreign policy, a title I certainly wouldn’t have picked out of a text menu and is a great advert for how to increase media consumption through a pleasant UI. I guess my main gripe would be the flip side to my favourite part, you need a really stable connection to fully use this App as articles take a while to render out, and in airplane mode only the front images are cached. So you can’t use it unless you have 3G, this meant I had a great UX while on the overground but the minute I hit the tunnels I had to switch to Flipboard… Great UX and interface but with its connection limitations its only getting 7/10.

5 days, 5 apps just another 90,131 to go…