Leave it to Tapbots to show you what a ‘Slick and Awesome UI’ really means. The duo of Mark Jardine and Paul Haddad know exactly how to take a simple utility app and wrap it in a butter smooth UI. They did it with their first iPhone app Weightbot, which we showcased back in December and they’ve done it again with their new app that just hit the App Store — Convertbot.
The App
Convertbot, as the name suggests, is a conversion utility app that will help you with most types of conversions. The app currently supports Length, Mass, Power, Pressure, Speed, Temperature, Time, Volume, Work, Angle, Area and Currency (which has a little bonus we’ll discuss in a bit).
Each of these supports multiple units, so you have a wide option-set to choose from. Here’s how the process works:
Launch App » Select Type of Conversion » Tap to Select Source Unit using the Click Wheel » Select by Tapping OK in the center » Do the same two steps for the Destination unit » Key in the source value
This entire flow is butter-smooth and you start and are done in no time. All it appears to a viewer is — Tick-tick-tick-tap-tick-tick-tap-tap-tap-type-type-type and you’re done.
The UI
I loved the UI of Weightbot so much, that I went ahead and bought the app the moment I saw it on video. And I don’t even exercise. Tapbots have continued that same awesomeness [sic] in this app as well. Saying that the whole User Experience is “amazing” would be an understatement. I happened to show a screenshot of the app to our Editor and received, “Oh! I can smell the paint of that UI till here” as a response.
The app features some splendid animations when you jump from one screen to another and the transitions are done just right. The keypad is hidden under the circular dial and can be accessed by tapping the LCD, just like in Weightbot. Describing the app’s interface in words is not going to do it any justice, so I’d recommend you check it out yourself.
You have the ability the turn off the sounds by clicking the ‘i’ at the bottom right of the screen.
Currency
The currency conversion in the app comes along with a special something — Regular Updates.
Convertbot has the ability to synchronize the currency rates so you have the live and most recent rates to work with. The app also tells you when the rates were last updated. Although, there is no mention in the app as to what is the source that these rates are updated from, we spoke to Paul and this is what he had to say.
We grab the data from Yahoo, parse it out and then store it on our server every 15 or 30 minutes. When the app starts, it contacts our server and grabs the latest data. This way, if Yahoo ever goes down or we find a better feed, we can [simply change to that] without any modification to the app. It also means that we can pass a very small amount of data over to the app (no need to parse XML or HTML or anything on the client side) which should speed up the download over Edge or any other slow connection.
That said, the only currencies supported by the app are USD, AUD, BRL, CAD, CHF, DKK, EUR, GBP, JPY, MXN and SEK. While those are the major ones in the market, my usage of the app was cut down by almost half due to the absence of INR in that list. Looks like I’d still need to head to XE.com for that purpose.
The Verdict
Available for just $0.99 in the App Store [iTunes Link], Convertbot is an great conversion utility with an even better interface. If you find yourself, fiddling around with the calculator with calculations that take longer than required, Convertbot is the app you’re looking for and it’s all set to become the gem of the App Store conversion utilities.
