When I was growing up, I used to enjoy watching The Cosby Show. Bill Cosby, in all of his hilarity, is now on your iOS device with the Bill Cosby iPhone app by Ustream Media.
When I opened it, I was a little overwhelmed. It seems overcrowded, and I thought the developers would have done better to perfect some of the areas in the app instead of trying to cram so much content into one. Don’t be alarmed when, upon opening the app, short soundbites of Cosby’s most common sayings are playing on a never-ending loop. I found this the most annoying thing about the app. The little soundbite audio player you are greeted with sticks with you throughout the app. The fact that you can pause it and slightly minimize it does not fix the problem. There are only a few recordings, and you are quickly back to the first one.
At the bottom of the home screen, you will have five options to choose from. The Home button will keep you where you are: at a picture of Cosby smiling and the title of the app. Next, the Fan Wall button will bring you to a #billcosby Twitter trend – which hasn’t updated for me since I downloaded the app. The Concerts button gives you a place to see past and future venues to see Cosby, along with the ability to find dates and buy tickets. The Recordings button takes you to three audio selections that Cosby wrote. Finally, the More button presents a whole slew of content, including a Bill Cosby alarm clock that will wake you up to one of the selections from the recordings and soundbites.
The app seemed very buggy, and the presentation layer somewhat unintuitive. More than once, I came upon incomplete content and audio files that wouldn’t stream – even on wifi. The app requires data for any use, and I would recommend wifi if you plan to download it. You do have the ability to connect via Twitter and Facebook or you can send email to share all of your Bill Cosby-ing with friends. However, that’s not enough to turn this app around.
For avid Cosby fans, this will be somewhat cumbersome – hope for updates and more content as time goes on. At 99 cents, I think this app is overpriced. Take a pass.
