Review: This Is Not An App is one, and it's rather cloying
This Is Not An App is, despite its name, a $5 app from Penguin Group, authored by writer and illustrator Keri Smith. Like much of Smith's work, the app’s focus is on artistic creation and freedom. As an app, it’s cleverly executed. As an experience, it left me wanting.
This Is Not An App is clearly a successor to Smith’s book This Is Not a Book. The reason Smith labels the app and book as, respectively, not an app and not a book, is this: Each consists of a series of loosely guided prompts, meant to motivate you to create something.
Scrawl right: Each page of This Is Not An App encourages you to do or create something. How enjoyable that experience is will depend upon how you feel about the prompts.
When you first launch the app, which runs nicely on iOS devices of every size, presents a typewritten note urging you to enjoy This Is Not An App pretty much however you’d like. And you’ll discover, likely accidentally, that you can actually scribble all over the note. At first, your scribbles are just made with a virtual black pencil, but then you’ll spot the scrollable bar at the bottom containing oodles of other tools: a paint brush, a smudge tool, a typing tool, the camera and your photo roll, a marker, and more. Among the “more” is an innovative, dripping wet brush of sorts; it streaks down the screen in whatever direction you tilt the device.
When you’re done mucking about with and defacing that typewritten intro, you’ll eventually spot the page-turn curls near the bottom of the screen. When you tap on those, you’ll realize that you’re on the first page of a virtual book, and advance to the next one: “This is a dare: Write a list of things you would like to try in your lifetime.”
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http://www.macworld.com/article/2021502/review-this-is-not-an-app-is-one-and-its-rather-cloying.html
