Uber-hyped question and answer site Quora has finally released its long-awaited iPhone app today and it’s ok. I wish it was better but I’ll probably use it more than the website. As expected, location is a big part of it, though I wish location was more granular and involved automated categorization.
That’s not really the biggest let-down though. There are a number of other issues with it. TechCrunch’s MG Siegler says he’s been testing the app for days, yet he didn’t offer any critique of it in his write-up. So I thought I’d focus on three things I’ve noticed this morning that I wish were better.
This should be an iPad app, not an iPhone app. Quora is all about in-depth discussion. As Siegler says, “You visit the site just to see what’s going on, 30 minutes later you’re still there.” That’s true – and who wants to spend 30 minutes navigating around inside lengthy posts and comments on a phone? I don’t – I want this Quora app on my iPad. Unfortunately, that’s not supported at launch.
It really needs a “mark as read” function. I almost never complain about info overload, but when you’re following a lot of different topics – you get a lot of notifications on your home page. If my brain has to see and skip a question about “why shrimp turns grey when you cook it” one more time, I’m going to scream. Especially on a mobile interface – there needs to be an easy and well executed mark as read function. Personally, I’d like everything I scroll past on the app’s home page to be marked as read, with a “view all” button at the top of the page if I want to see all the day’s notifications again.
Navigation is funky. Click on a message in your Quora inbox and you land at the bottom of the page and have to scroll up to read the message. Reading comments on posts takes like 3 clicks to get into browser mode. I’ve got a notification of new content in the Nearby tab and I can neither figure out what the new content is nor make the notification go away.
I love Quora, I love what the site is trying to do and I want to love its mobile app. I can’t yet, though.
