The popular Motor Trend magazine and website have finally made their way to the iPhone with their new application. Motor Trend has always been a primary source of automotive information for both the casual consumers and the hardcore auto enthusiasts. Now, you can get that some of that same information on the go, wherever you are.
The first, glaringly obvious thing you’ll notice about this application is that it is ad supported. From the load screen to the articles, the app screams Mercedes Benz. There’s even a Mercedes Benz icon on the front page that allows you to read and watch video about all of their cars. While you’re reading an article, the ad will stretch to take up two thirds of the screen until you minimize it to the bottom. I understand the need for advertising to support free applications, but it’s a bit much in this one.
After you’ve fought your way through the ads, you can start checking out the content. There are several categories to explore: Wide Open Throttle, road tests, features, future cars, photos and videos. Wide Open Throttle and Features are both blog sections that talk about a variety of automotive topics. The road test section contains reviews about vehicles that have been recently driven and tested. The future cars section discusses the innovation of the automotive industry and what’s to come. Each of these sections contains photos and substantial, well-written articles by professional writers. However, there are many features missing that have really become standards in these types of applications. There is no support of landscape mode; so all of your reading must be done in portrait. There are no options for resizing text or pinching to zoom in. There is also no way to save an article for reading it later. Support for Instapaper would be a welcome feature. Also, it would be nice to have the ability to share articles with family and friends via Twitter and Facebook. These social networking features have become a standard and should really have been included here. Lastly, the photos and video sections are fine, but you can’t view the photos full screen. You can’t even view them in landscape mode, so they remain pretty small images in portrait.
This application is undoubtedly a disappointment to many Motor Trend fans. There is so much more content included on the web site that is missing from this app. What about the car finder feature? How about the ability to log in and post comments to articles? I think the developer could have added a ton of additional features and content that would have justified charging for the app. A fee would also get rid of the annoying ads.
Being free, it’s still worth checking out. However, I truly hope that both Motor Trend and the developer put much more thought and energy into this application to turn it into what it really should be; a full-featured automotive resource.
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