Spar Android app review

Spar have created an Android app to promote their new TV series on RTE Television. The app has 3 sections:

  • List of episodes from where you can get to a text version of the recipes featured that week
  • A store locater 
  • Links to their Facebook and Twitter locations
The list of episodes is nicely designed, but once you click on a week you see an Apple style home button at the top of the screen. This is just not an Android feature and emphasises that this is a conversion and might be a poor relation of the iPhone version. Occasionally clicking on the Android back button quits the whole application instead of bringing you back one level. 

The store locator is a bit pointless. All they have done is take the latitude and longitude of all of their stores and overlay them on a map. I can't really think of when I would ever use this. Showing the nearest stores to the user in order of distance would have been far better an limiting the list to a small number. The full list of Spar stores in Ireland is very big and this makes this section of the app slow. 

The final section is just links to their facebook and twitter personalities. I know they are trying to drive some traffic, but I think this just makes the app annoying to use. 

A better solution to Spar's needs would be to have included a QR code on the screen after each recipe has been shown (as was done on the recent BBC series The Good Cook). This could have linked to a mobile version of the recipe in HTML. No need for custom mobile development. This would also have worked on a wider range of phones without conversion. 

I can't find this app mentioned on the Spar Ireland website. There are a few links to the App AppStore, but nothing about Android. Pity.

Total app score: 6/10
Will I be leaving it on my phone? Afraid not. Some interesting recipes, but the web is awash with good recipes. I'll take a look at the series tonight and see if it is any good.

If I haven't completely put you off. The app is free and you can find it here.

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