Persona is an application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that attempts to serve as an avatar creator. It falls way short of what an avatar creator should be. It lacks features, functionality, and creativity.

When you start the app, it starts immediately in the build screen. It's a black screen with minimal options. From this screen, your options are to edit, save, or view the archive. The archive is simply the avatars you have already created. So, yes, we understand you obviously have to tap on edit since there is nothing to save. But, why wouldn't you create a nice little button that says "Create Your Avatar!"? OK, so we're going to "edit" our blank screen. You start off with five choices for the head. Five? That's it? Ok, well then you can probably stretch and resize the head to mold it to be exactly what your want, right? Nope! You just get five options, and they are not that different from one another. So, you've chosen a head, but you want the skin shade a bit lighter? Tough! You only have three choices for color, white, black, and brown. Yup, that's it. Also, when you choose a different color, you have to select on your head choice again for the color to actually change. It does not do it automatically.

You can now click on the parts button to choose what to work on next. Your options are face, eyes, mouth, moustache, eyebrow, short hair, long hair, beard, nose, ears, accessories, and background. We don't have to go into each one of these categories to understand the point here. Each category only has a small, limited number of choices for your avatar, and you can't resize anything. You can't make the nose, eyes, or ears larger or smaller. You can't pinch in and out, rotate, spin, or zoom in. You select a facial feature, color, and it's just there. Your accessories are only glasses. There are only two choices for backgrounds and you can't choose your own!

After you've created your avatar you have three options in the "archive" menu. You can edit further, save to photo library, or set as contact. No, you cannot post your avatar to Twitter, Facebook, or Flickr. That would just be too much to ask.

There are flaws even with the user interface. When you select parts and features in the menus, there is a slight delay before the next screen loads. There is hardly anything in these menus for there to be lag. So, navigation throughout the app is another problem.

This app is lacking in so many areas it's ridiculous. Does it make an avatar quickly so you can set it to a contact? Yes. Does it have the options you'll need to make the avatar you really want? Definitely not. I realize it's a 1.0 version. But, it won't impress anyone to want to watch out for updates, especially when it's $2.99! There are other avatar apps out there that do much more than this one. There is absolutely no reason to purchase this app. I do not recommend it at all.