Doing Good Works: works, but not so good

Of the thousands of iPhone apps available, we all know there are varying levels of usefulness, interactivity and quality. Of course, that's why you come to sites like TUAW, to help sort through the good and the bad and hopefully make an informed decision before hitting that "Buy" button.

The problem comes when we consider an app like Doing Good Works. It has a few really good things going for it: it's free, it's free of ads, and it's informative. What it lacks comes under the areas I mentioned at the start: usefulness, interactivity and quality.

Doing Good Works (Think Big Press) has a very simple purpose, and that's to tell you how to have a positive outlook on life and the world around you; to try to make a difference — in helping yourself and others — one step at a time. Sounds good so far, right? Well, where this app falls short immediately is in its delivery.

Essentially, DGW is a 144-page book in app form; nothing more. Oh, we've seen plenty of book apps before, but how it is executed here is neither revolutionary nor practical. Selecting from the nine chapters is done via a basic scrolling list, though actually selecting the chapter you want can actually be a bit confusing. Instead of simply selecting the chapter from the list and having it appear, you have to touch a difficult-to-read image of text above the list once your selection is made.The pages of the book themselves are not at all formatted explicitly for an iPhone interface. You are presented with the page completely unmagnified, causing you to have to double-tap to get it in a readable form. The app also does not support landscape orientation, making the reading experience all the worse. Thankfully, the one handy feature the app does have is remembering the last place you left off when you exit it.

The one other part of the interface you can select is a "More Info" link, which merely directs you to visit the official site for the purpose of purchasing their services for a fundraiser. Let me point out that I do not at all fault these fine folks for providing this information in their app, as it's certainly for a good purpose and it is, after all, a free app.

If you're truly interested in the information DGW has to provide, I'd recommend the actual book it's based on rather than this app. Sure, you're paying money that way, but it'd be a much more practical way of going about absorbing the text and, hopefully, putting into practice and actually doing the good works they're trying to teach.