I don’t want to review iPhone, Android, or whatever apps come my way because there are a million other websites that review apps much better than I can. That being said, Tune Out came my way advertising to “Ignore the Noise” and “Follow my Favorites.” Ignore the Noise? Follow my Favorites? Count me in!
So, after the splash screen, you get another screen asking to load your Facebook account. This seems great, because I get most of my “noise” from all the crazies I’m “friends” with on Facebook.
However, this screen is a lie. By other accounts “like Twitter.” Tune Out means only Twitter. Also, you can’t screen by Twitter accounts individually, you have to be Facebook friends with that person and link their Twitter account to their Facebook. It’s very annoying, and very useless. Personally, have many friends on Twitter I am not friends with on Facebook. I don’t want to have to tie it all together and friend more people I don’t really know. This could easily be improved, and doesn’t need to be deceptive and crappy.
Otherwise, the interface is pretty clean and self explanatory. You add friends to your grid from your Facebook friend list, and then it gives you the selected few’s updates in the latest feed, or you can just look and their profile. You can search for friends, or just scroll in your giant friend list until you find the people you want to find. To remove someone, you go back to the list and remove them. Pretty simple.
I had some issues with the app pulling the most recent updates, as the second time I loaded it, it still had the same “Latest” updates from Friday. Also, I had several crashes. I’ve never had the Facebook app hang or crash in anyway, so this is inexcusable for an app trying to emulate part of that experience.
You don’t need this app. A decent Twitter app like Tweetie 2 or Tweetdeck and the Facebook app do their job very well. Using Twitter Lists and Facebook’s Privacy and Newsfeed features will do a much better job than Tune Out can.
On a final note: Altoids, why? How and why should app make me want to buy breath mints? If anything, the people who buy Altoids are social people who want other people to stay near them because their breath doesn’t stink. Maybe you should rethink where you are spending your advertising and marketing dollars instead of churning out half-baked, crappy apps.
Anti-Social Media