I play pool a lot and wanted something to diagram problem shots to practice them later. So I bought this app.
It gets the job done for the most part and I would have gave it 4 stars if it was free. But the fact that it’s a paid app I am basing my rating on a higher standard.
Things I like about it:
1. You can save your diagrams in the app.
2. Has 8 ball, 9 ball racks plus billiards.
3. You can draw lines and add curves to them.
4. You can load saved diagrams to make variations of the same shot.
Things I would NOT expect from a paid app:
1. There’s no FAQ and tutorial videos has no voiceover. They are just silent videos of the app in use.
2. User interface needs a lot of work.
a) From what I can tell there is no way to delete saved diagrams once they are saved (the silent tutorials didn’t show how)
b) you cannot load saved diagrams from main menu. You have to first start a new diagram then you can load it from there. It would take 10 minutes for the programmer to add and test.
c) no clear way to get back to main menu from a diagram. To get back to main menu you use the reset button (nothing intuitive about that).
d) Reset button isn’t a reset button. It takes you back to the main menu (as previously mentioned) instead of clearing the diagram. So now resetting a diagram is a two step process (reset, open new diagram).
3) it doesn’t have 10 ball rack. 10 ball is the game of choice at the pro level so it should have been included in the app. It wouldn’t have took that much work to add it since they could copy/paste existing code (I’ve done some programming before and have experience working with programmers on projects)
Those things should not exist in a paid product IMO. I understand first releasing a product without all the bells and whistles but the stuff mentioned here are basic. As it is, it’s the quality of a free app, not a paid app, especially not a $2.99 app. If all the things mentioned here were corrected I would think of it as $0.99 app. If it had better color scheme and UX I would say $1.99. For $2.99 I would like to see better UI and UX, the balls stick to each other to better show contact and collision, and more options like changing line from solid to dotted, adding position zones, etc, and maybe even a share feature.
For now I think I’m going to print out diagrams and draw them by hand.
Oh and another thing the developers of this app must consider is there are free pool shot diagramming software online. Once they make there programs more mobile friendly there will be less of a need for this app unless it has unique features you cannot find in those online versions.
3.5
