Description: PickWEB is an Android application that aims to make finding key info on the internet that much easier. By cataloging some of the most useful websites, and sorting them into categories, PickWEB gives you most of the main websites for each category at your fingertips. Instead of searching for something, the creators of PickWEB would rather you take a look in their directory of hand-picked websites to find what you need. PickWeb’s directory of websites is put together with human curation, rather than based on keywords a robot happens to come across. It’s certainly a novel feature, and one of its main attractions is that the catalogue has already been made, there’s no need to create your own. Read on to see how it works and if it’s any good.
How it Works: To get started with PickWEB, all you need to do is download the app from the Play Store. You don’t have to sign up for an account if you’d rather not, instead you can just give the app a try using the demo feature.
Once you start using the app, you can take a look at the categories of websites on offer. Which you can then further tailor to what you’re looking for.
One part of the app that is annoying, is that when you choose Repair and Renovation for instance, it will take you to a desktop web site, which doesn’t look all that good on a smartphone.
Tablet users will more than likely face no issues, but it can be annoying on a smartphone. As well as the main catalog there are general links to helpful sites across the web.
These handy links can take you to such things as your social networks, YouTube and of course, the Weather.
Opinion: The general concept of PickWEB is a fairly decent one. While you can argue bookmarks do the same sort of thing, you have to bookmark things in the first place and let’s be honest here, managing bookmarks is a total mess. Still though, PickWeb doesn;t go far enough, especially on Android. For one thing, the interface looks more like an app from Android 2.3 and looks very outdated and for another, there doesn’t seem to be a mobile site available. Fixes those two wrongs would definitely make PickWeb more appealing. As we said though, the overall concept is a pretty good one. It’s just a shame that in practice it stumbles.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – There’s no issues when it comes to speed here and the app is really quite quick.
- Features (3.5/5) – PickWEB is a decent idea, it’s just a shame there’s no mobile site or a built-in browser to the app. Making the curated catalog of websites hard to actually use.
- Theme (3.5/5) – It’s 2014 and while KitKat is on a very small amount of devices, we’d expect apps to look much better than this on Android by now.
- Overall (3.5/5) – The concept is great, and for older users it’d be helpful however, the interface needs work and there needs to be a mobile version of the main site.
Pros
- Wide array of categories makes it easy to find what you want.
- Older audiences will be able to find helpful links on the internet with much less hassle.
- No need to keep on going back to Google all the time.
- Curated by humans, so the websites have been tested out by real people beforehand.
Cons
- Interface needs a facelift.
- Doesn’t seem to be a mobile website.
Conclusion: PickWEB has a lot of potential, the concept might seem a little dated, but there’s still a place for something like this and if done properly it could be very useful, indeed. However, the interface at work here is quite dated and there’s no mobile web browser. A built-in web browser could work even better, too. These are small, but fairly noticeable issues, with these fixed PickWEB would be a much better app. The catalog of sites however, is pretty decent and has been curated by humans, which is often preferable to keyword-driven search from Google and the likes. Overall, PickWEB has a decent idea on its hands that just needs some extra polish.