iPad Apps that just don't work -- Fix Contacts App for iPad -- it stinks

One of the big problems with the iPad is the system of Apps. Not all of them work. They are designed by people intent more on making a buck than an application that really does address someone else's need, like a user.

So I will review Apps for both the iPad and iPad2 that I am using.

The iPad comes with a worthless "Contact" app that is unmanageable. For all the things they are saying about Apple and the late Steve Jobs, they ignore the shortcomings. It seems Apple and Jobs sped so fast to do things, they didn't care if what they were doing was sufficient, or inadequate. The "Contacts" App that comes with the iPad is horrible and not very user friendly, which means you'll need to download an App to deal with the shortcomings.

It's tragic that you pay $1,027 for a new iPad or iPad2 with 3G and the 3G only works sometimes, the system crashes often and it has so many shortcomings. It's a great idea that lacks completion, and it is certainly far short of its vision.

My first choice was to mistakenly believe that price reflects quality. Many Apps are "free," but they are intended as advertising platforms that are annoying, and the developers who don't care about you at all, believe that you will eventually purchase the premium app for money so they can become the next Steve Jobs billionaire.

One of those is "Fix Contacts" by Giacomo Balli. It csts $7.95. It's horrible. It's supposed to help you manage your contacts. Being a journalist and writer and media consultant, I have 800 contacts on an active list, and even more on a backup list I won't put on the iPad because the iPad can't manage large lists. (Another shortcoming the Jobs cheerleaders won't discuss, of course.)

The software layout is pathetic and not user friendly at all. It gives you a list of things you can do to filter your contacts. You can identify the contacts that do not have an email address or a telephone number, and then slowly and tediously -- one at a time -- highlight, then delete and then confirm delete. What a laborious waste of time process.

It brags that it is the App to clean your address book. But instead of using a bucket and scrubber, you are using a toothbrush with no soap. It takes forever. And it is limiting, too. You can't really manage your contacts.

Worse, you know how the Apps always allow you to enter a review? Well, this one offers it but like the software app, the review app doesn't work, so you can't warn anyone about how it is a waste of time.

I think some of the App developers need to hire users with commonsense to help them make their ideas worthwhile. Instead, greed drives a lot of the Apps development, by people who know how to program but have no life experience to understand the reality of what their programs need to do.

-- Ray Hanania
http://rayhanania.wordpress.com