Digg's iPhone App Is Released

This morning Digg released their official iPhone app. It allows you to browse and interact with the popular news aggregator. You can view the top, recent and upcoming stories in any category; clicking a headline will lead to a built-in browser that will display a requested page. At the bottom of the screen you'll find a buttons to Digg or Bury (like or dislike) the story, Save The Story button (for this you need to be logged in with your Digg account), and an option of sharing the link. The latter is pretty convenient, as you can send the story to the Email, Twitter, Facebook or to the iPhone's clipboard.

At first sight the app looks handy. But the dozens of comments reveal that it has serious disadvantages. People who use iPhone 2G say the app is crashing out every time they need to log into the service. After the crash it works fine but the experience could obviously be handled better. The app also doesn't give you an ability to submit and comment stories. This is a real disappointment for those of the Digg users who take an active part in the service. By the way, the app will work fast enough only if your OS version is 3.1 or later.

One of the Digg users with a nickname cpdylan wrote:

"Trying it, but can't see my profile, or friends. Blind upcomings, recents, blah, blah. Took them this long for a generic app? Fail."

Indeed, Digg created an interface for iPhone in June 2007. 2,5 years for making an app is a long period.

So what's the conclusion? The Digg app didn't make a big step forward if compare to functionality given by Safari web-browser. It seems like the app was developed to be compatible and easy to port to other platforms as soon as possible. There are no any unique or interactive features, but still it is handful enough for those of the users who prefer to read more.

The app is free so you can download it here.