Playstation App Hands On

If you missed out on my last post you would know that Sony has official released their official app, but you might be wondering how it fares in delivering content.

I was quite excited to get this app up and running today and thought many like myself were wondering just how this app handles. Currently there is only one app out there which offers some of the same content but lacks the official touches, however will those official touches be enough to make it usable to the average user?

Going down the menu of options…

My Playstation Network

Arguably the most important feature, features some less than important features. The first thing you will notice is that the list of names is somewhat… Random? You will see them listed from online people scattered in a list of offline with no alphabetical listing. In fact there was no way for me to edit anything on the page… Upon looking at someones name you’re greeted with all the information you could ever want in a simple and easy to understand way. However going over to the other menu you see the most recent four trophies, these trophies will display the default icon and it says naturally what it is.

When moving on to using the compare trophy feature, you’re greeted with nothing but problems and ill advised idea’s. The first problem is if you’re signed into the PSN while using this you can run into network errors and this feature will just not work. However when I signed off it magically started working… The first thing you will notice is that it shows your percent and theirs with the set name and icon. This would be a great thing if it did anyone of the following things. Showed my full list… When I was looking at others information it would stop at “Just Cause 2” for me, but it would keep going for them. In fact with the name I was testing with this there were 23 more games 11 of which I had. Moving past this flaw for the main demographic using the app, there’s the fact you cant see what the percent means. You honestly can not look at what trophies that person or yourself for that matter has earned. This is borderline depressing and makes a big aspect of the app useless.

News and Blog

Much like the PSN aspect the blog aspect is a glorified mobile site and does nothing else. I found no way to read comments which puzzled me, and offered up very little in actual uses. I could easily look over this fault but without a clear way to view the comments its less than the actual site which is just simply unacceptable.

Games

Thankfully this will display information past first party games, it shows every game supported on the SCEE market. Mini and PSN included! The only downside is that you don’t gain much in fact I felt like it was way too basic. Taken from the Lost planet 2 page…

Lost Planet 2

Release date: 11 May 2011

Team up with friends and take on the giant Akrid in explosive four-player co-operative multiplayer

Customise your snow pirate and take your own individual look onto the battlefield in both online and offline modes

Unleash a huge arsenal of weaponry including machine guns, rocket launchers and the devastating armoured vital suits

The only non listed information is the obvious things it includes like action, rating, company, etc. There are also pictures but their basically useless. This could have been a very cool feature if there was more content on the pages or more uses.

More than Games

This is more or less the accessory version of the games area. It looks and works the same as games and offers you nothing more than you could find on say the PS Move Navigation controller.

Settings

Rounding out with such an amazing app so far… you’re greeted with some of the most depressing and useless settings around.

Language: “Currently no support”

Date of Birth: Just a simple area to input your age.

Help: Lists everything you would need to know.

View information on this app: When I clicked it, I was informed I was using 1.0 and nothing more.

Privacy: Standard long form detailing things.

Terms of Use: Same as above.

Overall

Despite all the errors this is still version 1.0… However I am not hopeful this app will ever become truly useful. Many simple things are not implemented like there is an indication when I click a trophy set but nothing more. If this means its coming soon or its just built in has yet to be seen. Beyond the trophy problems the only option I found was “Share” which is one of the most lazy share system out there. When Justpushstart for instance makes a tweet it gives the article title, the PS app just gives you the full link. Among the most surprising issues is the lack of landscape mode… Finally as an android user I can overlook some faults if this app would allow me a widget to keep updated. In fact that might help me a lot for posting news here but currently there are no widgets either. Unless you don’t think a better quality trophy app is worth the price, this might be for you… but beyond that its really a disappointment.

Pictures

Due to the size and frequency of pictures used in this post I opted for a gallery. Everything mentioned in this impression is shown here.

[Editor’s Note: This was used with my US account, on a US IP, with a US android tablet (Nookcolor).]