My Blog: StumbleUpon for Android, now with 'app stumbling'

Sunday, November 14, 2010

StumbleUpon for Android, now with 'app stumbling'

Filed under: Internet, Social Software, Android

StumbleUpon for Android first appeared back in August. Its debut didn't bring much to the table: in effect, it was just a miniaturised version of the desktop browser toolbar. Today, however, with the release of version 1.3 for Android, StumbleUpon lets you stumble the Android Market.

Don't get too excited just yet, though. App stumbling definitely works, but it's not an excellent experience by any means. For a start, the UI is incredibly fiddly -- in landscape mode it's just about OK, but the buttons really are small. The act of stumbling is easy, but page loads can take a while (on Wi-Fi!), and 'Info' pages take even longer.

It also only uses your currently-installed applications to determine what apps to show you -- in other words, it does the same thing as AppBrain. If you have a ton of crappy games installed, it'll only show you more games. That's not to say that the suggestions were bad, however -- I was only shown high-rated and interesting-looking apps. Other than the small buttons, the user interface is good, too.

Finally, let's not forget this is a beta. StumbleUpon for Android already has excellent Web, Flickr and YouTube capabilities, and there's no reason that app stumbling will be anything short of awesome once the developers finish their work. The Android Market, as it stands, is an unsearchable morass of mediocrity. Once app stumbling takes your 'topics of interest' and your previous Web stumbles into consideration I can't imagine using any other tool for app discovery on Android.

Gallery: StumbleUpon for Android, now with 'app stumbling'