Review: Cooliris for the iPhone and iPod Touch
October 22, 2008 by Ross McKillop
One of my favorite Firefox add-ons is Cooliris. In a nutshell, it makes browsing pictures a totally entertaining experience in and of itself. Now there’s a version of the iPhone and/or iPod Touch as well.
Cooliris for the iPhone/iPod Touch is a free download from the App Store. Once installed, launch it from your springboard.
Launch it, and immediately the screen switches to “horizontal” view, and the splash screen will display.
The initial screen will load a bunch of default pictures. Boring. Tap the Discover button from the top toolbar.
From here you’ll be presented with a series of frequently updated categories. I opted to check out Sports first.
Here comes the fun part. Slide your finger across the screen, and the pictures will scroll in a “3D Wall” format. This also works if you tilt your device, but I found the tilting method didn’t work very well (perhaps because this is the initial/first release of Cooliris for the iPhone).
Tap a picture, and its size will increase and details of the picture will be displayed.
Tap the picture again, and it goes into full-screen.
Now select Search from the top toolbar, and again you’ll be presented with a list of default categories - this time they’re sites. The sites currently included are Flickr, Google, Yahoo, SmugMug and DeviantArt. Select one of them.
Then the on-screen keyboard will appear and you can enter your search term/phrase.
Exactly as you’d expect, the search results will be displayed. Again, you can scroll through them by sliding your finger back and forth, or tilting the device.
If you select a photo, and then click the link below it, you’ll be taken into “WebView”.
At this point you’re basically just using Safari. The features of Cooliris kind of “disappear” - if you visit a Flickr page you won’t be able to return to the 3D Wall view of that photo stream (as you can with the Firefox add-on).
Hi Ross,
Thank you so much for writing about us! I’m so glad that you like Cooliris for the iPhone, and I hope you and your readers will continue to enjoy using it! We’ll be adding lots more features, so stay tuned!
Also, just wanted to let you know that we have just released new content in our Discover feature in the Cooliris web client that includes full-length movies and TV episodes (courtesy of Hulu), edgier gossip in “Entertainment News,” a finance focus in the “Business” channel, full-reel tech shows in “Sci-Tech,” and more viral videos in “Around the Web.” Check it out, and get back to us with any feedback you have!
Warmest regards,
Jenny & The Cooliris Team