I Can Has Cheezburger has branched far beyond photos of cats with humorous captions, as its network of sites now numbers more than 40. The site lost its luster for me a few years ago, but since a photo of a cute animal doing odd things can still evoke a giggle, I decided to take a look at I Can Has Cheezburger — the official mobile app for iPhone and iPod Touch. The experience was LOL-worthy, and not in a good way.
I Can Has Cheezburger simply doesn’t work very well. The app loads 12 photos as thumbnails at once, and the speed is extremely slow. When you’re ready to see more, you pull up to get more, or down to see the newest submissions, but the interface is awkward and would only work for me after multiple pulls. You can also view images individually and swipe through the submissions, but again, the load time is lengthy. I liked this view more, but photos aren’t full-screen, typically appearing in the center of the window. Viewing in landscape fills the space better, but the background doesn’t extend all the way across the screen, which is distracting. Sizing wasn’t consistent, as some images displayed larger, occasionally cropping the submitted text. Overall, it was strange. In this view, Cheezburger also only grabs 12 images at a time, so once you hit the end, you’ll need to pull to load more. This, again, only worked on occasion. Photos you like can be shared via the built-in Twitter, Facebook or email form.
The app offers access to all of the sites in the Cheezburger Network — including I has a Hot Dog, Failbook and This is Photobomb! — if you can get the screen to fully load. On my first few uses of the app, the menu screen, accessible by pulling up from the bottom, displayed nothing but the About and LoLMart buttons. Once I was able to get the site thumbnails to appear, the loading time was atrocious (a common theme in this app), and some spaces remained forever black.
If you must Cheezburger, stick with the website.
Download the free Appolicious iPhone app
