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Corkbin a Must-have Android App for Wine Lovers

Posted Thursday, November 17th, 2011 at 11:21 am by Paul Wilks 0 Comments

User Rating5.00/5

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Corkbin is a beautifully designed mobile blogging platform for wine lovers. It lets you store the wines you like and see what your friends are drinking, in addition to providing recommendations for wine based on the food you’re eating. Easy to use, pretty to look at- it’s great for people who enjoy the odd glass, right up to true wine connoisseurs.

Price: Free

Tested on: HTC Desire HD
Content Rating: Everyone

AndroidTapp.com Android App Review:

Pros & Cons:

Pros

• Gorgeous UI!
• Ability to log your favourite wines!
• Search for other user entries!
• Recommendations in ‘Pairings’!
• Lets you share on Facebook and Twitter!
• Loads of cool mini-features!

Cons

• No means to search for wines.
• Could perhaps be better to include a barcode reader to log wines accurately.
• Opening splash ads are little intrusive.

Features:

Now, I’m not a huge drinker of wine but I do like the odd glass from time to time. However, I’m incredibly fussy- not in a ‘wine-snob’ way, but rather I like very few wines. Keeping track of those I like isn’t easy as it will be in some restaurant or someone’s house and I won’t be expecting it. Next time it comes to possibly having a glass of wine, I’m left thinking ‘What was that wine I actually liked?’ It would seem then, that Corkbin is just the kind of app for people like me.

The app lets you record the wines you like, or perhaps even note the ones you don’t like to make sure you don’t have it again. The process is simple, take a picture of the wine label, add a small comment if you like, then upload it to your Corkbin account. The wine then goes into your accumulated ‘Bin’ of wines and you can peruse your collection as and when you need to. Your log is also posted to the Corkbin platform, so people can see what others are drinking. You can also add friends or even share your favourite tipples on Facebook and Twitter.

Corkbin is also a very good-looking app, well designed, responsive and full of additional mini-features that make it really great. For example, there is a Pairings section that helps you work out what wine will compliment what meal, or vice versa. There is a regularly updated blog too, featuring all kinds of wine information. You can even create a HTML widget for your own blog which will display the latest wines you have tried.

It’s a great app but I feel there could be some simple improvements. When you log a wine, you snap a picture of the label and add a note. While this works, surely scanning the barcode would be better- and it would give more information. Also wouldn’t it be great if you wanted to get a review of a wine as you are looking in the supermarket? While you can search for the wine’s people are drinking around you geographically, you can’t search for a wine to see if people like it.

With these tweaks the app could improve. The only niggle I had with the app was the slightly intrusive advertising model is employs. When you open the app you get  a 5 second splash ad that you have to wait to pass. Now, these ads are thankfully suitable for the app- wine tasting sessions and other such services- but having these forced on you isn’t particularly welcome. This aside, it’s an incredibly smart app and definitely worth a look if you like wine.

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Usefulness:

It’s hugely useful for people who want to keep track of their favourite wines. There’s the social element too so, if you are inclined to do so, you can follow what other people are drinking and recommending.

Ease of Use:

The app is simple to use and it takes just a few seconds to record a wine. With a little more time, there is loads more to explore within the app too. If a barcode reader was implemented this would make the whole thing even easier- and would create an accurate log of the wine itself.

Frequently Used:

Well, hopefully it might not be something you use every single day, unless it’s your business to do so- but depending on your interest it might be something you use a few times per week- or more often if you like seeing what other people are drinking.

Interface:

The interface is beautiful!

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