Apps for a Personal Passion

Kelci O’Neill

9/8/13

Practicum

Apps for a Personal Passion

For this practicum assignment, we were to pick 5 apps to try out from the app store that aligned with a topic of interest of ours. My favorite animals are turtles, and I have loved them and had an obsession for them ever since I was a little girl. Because of this, found 5 apps about turtles and tested them out.  The apps I found were:  Turtle Run, TortForum, The Really Groovy  Story of the Tortoise & Hare, Turtle Isle HD, and Tap Turtle. I tried to get a variety of different types of apps, but because most of them were not free, 3 out of the 5 apps I found were games. I am going to rank the apps from best to worst. The rating they receive is will be based on graphics, the music/sound effects, how intuitive it is to use, how popular it is, and how useful it is.

Best: Turtle Run

I rated this app this way for several reasons. It would have been rated higher, however the graphics on the iPad were not very sharp and sort of fuzzy.  The music was very fun, and fit the game nicely.  It was very easy and intuitive to use, all I had to do was tilt the iPad from side to side as the screen automatically scrolled forward. This app is very already very popular, and it is the most popular on this list, at 2,480 ratings on the iTunes app store. This app is recreational, and serves no useful purpose other than entertainment. This app was the only app on the list to get downloaded to my personal iPhone and saved to play later. It is very fun!  4.5 «’s out of 5

Second-to best: TortForum

This app is a useful forum app on pet turtles and their care. The forum has lots of members, and it is organized well. It is also rated well because it has species specific topics on the forum, and they are also categorized by continents, so it is easier to find the species you are looking for.  The graphics are minimal, but the ones I see are done well. The app has no music or sound effects. It is not exactly intuitive, and I struggled at first when looking through, but I eventually figured it out.  The app only has 20 ratings on the iTunes app store, but it averages 5 star ratings. This app is very useful, so that bumped up my rating a little. 4«’s out of 5

Average: Turtle Isle HD

This app is a game where turtles enter the gameplay screen and you have to turn the starfish to change the directions of the turtles and if two of them walk into each other facing each other they disappear and an egg appears in their place which you have to collect. There were no instructions for this game and it is unclear when you will get an egg when they run into each other and when you will get them just colliding into each other and bumping shells. The graphics are not bad and the music is not bad, however it is not easy or intuitive to play. It has 200 ratings on the iTunes app store, but it is rated much higher on there, at 4.5 stars. This is a technically a recreational app, but I would not classify it as that.  2.5 «’s out of 5

Second-to worst: The Really Groovy Story of the Tortoise & Hare

This app is the book The Tortoise and the Hare, in app form. It can be read by you or be read aloud through the app as an audiobook. It also has some animations to go with the illustrations that are mildly amusing. The story is not very well written, and it is not as enjoyable as the classic tale should be. The graphics are okay, the sound effects are annoying, and the words scroll out of frame quicker than you can even read them, and it is not easy or intuitive on how to get them back. It has no ratings on the app store, and it should only have bad ones. This app is not at all useful, and also not at all groovy.  2 «’s out 5

Worst: Tap Turtle

This app is complete garbage. There are two turtles on the screen, and you have to tap them so that the ripples hit the frog at the same time and knock him off the lily pad. This would be fine, IF THE INSTRUCTIONS HADN'T SAID TO TAP THE TWO TURTLES AT THE SAME TIME, WHICH ACTUALLY DOES NOTHING. The graphics are terrible, the music and sound makes no sense in the context of the game, and the instructions are extremely misleading, as I have stated.  It has 26 ratings on the iTunes app store, however in my opinion, it has no business even being in the app store with all the bugs it has. This app is not even useful as a recreational game, so I will not call it that.  1 « out of 5