Idea Store Review

Friday, June 3, 2011

Idea Store Review

at 8:04 AM

Idea Store Review

By Jennifer Allen on June 3rd, 2011
Our Rating:

:: LIMITING
Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

Store ideas with Idea Store – it does exactly what it says in the title

Developer: Spore Tools
Price: $2.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 4

iPhone Integration Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars
Re-use Value Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 3.08 out of 5 stars

My brain is frequently a flurry of ideas that, once I get somewhere that I can write them down, I’ve completely forgotten about. Only time will tell just how many of these ideas are good ones but it’d be nice to remember them for any length of time. Idea Store appreciates this problem is a common one and offers up an attractive solution.

Essentially, Idea Store is a notes making app that doubles up as a To Do list tool quite admirably. To an extent it needs to considering it weighs in at $2.99 making it one of the more expensive apps of its kind.

The Idea Store is divided up into three sections, each overlapping. There’s the Entries side of things allowing users to quickly and simply input their text based ideas. The Groups section does exactly what the title suggests enabling users to group their ideas according to the specific genre. For example, I set it up to cover recipe ideas and writing ideas thus encapsulating the main two things that seem to float around my head at any one time. The third section covers dates ensuring that users can check at the touch of a button just what ideas they came up with and on what date.

It’s all pretty simple but it means there aren’t any gimmicks to get in the way when the user wants to quickly get on with the matter at hand. This simplicity is a double edged sword though as it does lack some pivotal features. While users benefit from Dropbox integration, there’s no other form of sharing. There’s not even a method of emailing the ideas elsewhere, let alone Twitter or Facebook support. The ability to take images for inspiration would have been useful too rather than being restricted solely to text.

Idea Store is a nice idea, providing an easy way to collect up ideas, but it is a bit limited. Priced at $0.99, it’d be easier to recommend but at $2.99, it’s a tough sell.