Hello Steemians!
Following the latest release of steepshot, I've decided to get off my butt, download the app and start testing it out to bring feedback to the developers.
If you find yourself compelled to do the same, please join us on the steemit.chat of steepshot for us to discuss.
A Photo Centric App is Essential
Every app has it's culture and it's own psychology. I see steemit.com has a great place for content. It's kind of a mix of medium and reddit. With the incoming community feature, the feel will get even more similar.
With Steepshot, the idea is for people to upload photos they take from their phones and share what their life's "looks" like to people they know or share photos about a topic they care about.
Testing and Debugging Makes Perfect!
The IOS version isn't out yet but if you have an android, go ahead and help the team discover bugs and squash them. How to do that? Just open a github account and then add an issue to their repository: https://github.com/Chainers/steepshot-issues/issues/new
Make sure to include what kind of device you use!
My review of the App
I know it's early alpha and that this project is far far from being finished. I am impressed about what the devs have been able to do since I'm sure that at this point, developing on steem is far from a walk in the park. I know that a lot of the issues that I have with the app are temporary and that they will be rectified with time...but just in case, I'll put my concerns here so that the @steepshot team know what I think about my experience.
My Review
The Good
It's fun to post photos that I take from my phone directly on the steem blockchain. It's mostly functional apart from a few bugs but it's been fun to use that feature.
The Bad...
1- First Impression
When I opened the app, I was expecting to see a personal feed just like I would on my instagram. That wasn't the case. What I got was the "trending". I don't know for you but as an "instagram-like" user, I didn't care about how much the post in the trending was making. If I wanted steemit.com app on my phone I would be using esteem.
2- No Feed
I was then looking for my feed...couldn't find where it is. So I guess this feature isn't out yet.
3- Browsing
I then tried to browse around and I couldn't get to the kind of posts I'm looking for...namely, people who posts photos using steepshot. I mean, why would I care for any other type of content when I use an app for the express intent of seeing and posting pictures?
When I went to #life, for example, what I got was all the posts on steemit. So basically, I felt like I had steemit.com without the ability to read the article. Meh...
4- Content discovery focused on Trending/Hot/New
I think it's a poor choice of content discovery for this type of app. It makes sense for a reddit-type user who wants to find what's up in his field. But for an instagram-like user, tags make much more sense. And to find the best quality photos, "popular" and "latest" in every tags is what a user need on Instagram.
Also, I hope they will consider other metrics than rShare to define what is popular content. Engagements, mentions, comments could be a better indicator of "popular".
Conclusion
This app can be a success if the community gets together and give honest feedback. I discovered while talking with them on steemit.chat that they are very open to talk with the people who test their app. So download the app, give feedback on the steemit.chat of steepshot and post issues on github when you find bugs!