Windows 8 App review: Allrecipes

     Overview

         Windows 8 originally started out with 2 cookbooks: Cookbook by Bewise, and icookbook. Now we have 9 food and dining apps available in the store including the Allrecipes and videorecipes apps. I used to use the Cookbook by Bewise app, but it didn't have printing features. This app has a great printing feature, can share to virtually any app, and features the largest library of recipes that I have seen. The live tile is very beautiful and the layout is very intuitive. It could be faster, but that is yet to be seen for the Windows 8 release.

     Functionality

          I have used the website before and was very surprised to see a Windows 8 app. The app opens up in around 3 - 6 seconds or more depending on how many more programs running. After it loads it takes you to a beautiful and slightly cluttered home page. You can log into your Allrecipes.com account or join allrecipes.com to save recipes to your lunchbox. First comes up are ideas and then there is the ingredient section which shows you an ingredient and you can click on it to see recipes to get rid of your bacon from your fridge. There is a lot of creative ideas and recipes and you can always search for a recipe. The search is slow too and can take up to 12 seconds to load. Sharing is one of the Allrecipes app strong suits where I can share to any app that can share. There is a nutrition fact sheet that tells you all the calories and such. Not every recipe has them, but the majority do. There is a review section, but you can't add reviews. Allrecipes.com is user based, but you can't add recipes. Still this is a stellar app worth your time.

     Conclusion

     The app is very well designed and has a lot to love and little to hate. It is the only app that I know of that I visit more than the parent website.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Windows 8 App review: PhotoVault

     Overview

     Usually I don't give apps 5 star ratings but when an app does everything it says it does pretty snappy it is hard to go lower. The app does have some ground to cover like more content and a sharing function. Still for what it offers it does. Channeling through the high res photos was as smooth as butter even on my T3400 Pentium dual core laptop. The app loads very quickly and the design is pretty simple at its base.

     Functionality

     It loads up very quickly even with a lot of other tasks open. Opening up categories takes around 2-4 seconds and can be a bit tedious waiting. Cycling through photos is very fast and has no lag at all. The pictures do not take up the full screen which is a bit weird, but I guess makes the app go a bit faster. The live tile is very pretty and has different picture from time to time. There are different categories and it is very slow loading them. The app itself is very low on content and the content itself is a bit smaller than it should be. The pictures look of high quality and the app itself is very well designed. Each of the pictures has a little description underneath talking a bit about it. 

     Conclusion

     There is not much to say about this app except it could use a little work, but so far so good!!

Rating: 5 out of 5