ASL – American Sign Language – Review
By App Type: Uncategorized
Our rating: 
By: Dipen Patel
Version #: 1.0.0
Date Released: 2010-02-03
Developer:
Price: 0.99
User Rating:
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Sign language is one of the handful of useful skills I managed to develop during my stay in university. I studied hard particularly to get a degree in electronics engineering, but I also tried to pursue other skills outside my chosen discipline. With the help of a friend within the faculty of special education in my school, I got to learn basic sign language and in the process meet some of the good people from our local Deaf community. Ever since then, I’ve been one to take interest in almost anything that is remotely related to sign language, even little iPhone apps focused on it. Sadly, though, there’s not a good number of excellent apps of this variety to go around. While there’s a few good, decent ones, most of the sign language apps available in the App Store leave a lot to be desired. ASL – American Sign Language is, unfortunately, one of them.
ASL – American Sign Language is a bareboned sign language phrasebook, containing 14 (yes, just 14) phrases and sentences that can be used by a hearing person to converse with a Deaf person, or vice versa. The syntax and structure used by the Deaf are decidedly different from those used in normal English, and the app takes that into account. For example, instead of asking, “What is your name?” the more established form is suggested: “You name what?” As with the other phrases and sentences in the app, “You name what?” is illustrated using drawings of the necessary signs and hand gestures. Now this part is evidently the weakest point of the app. Quite frankly, I thought the drawing are really amateurish. For an app that charges a dollar, you’d at least expect to get some decent illustrations, but in the case of ASL – American Sign Language, the drawings are just disappointing, as though they were drawn by a toddler and not by someone who at least knows how to make a working iPhone app.
As a sign language enthusiast, I could say that regardless of how well made they are, all sign language apps share one thing in common: they were created with the good intention of bringing sign language to iPhone users and providing ways of making it easier for hearing people to bond with the Deaf or for the Deaf to communicate among themselves better using their favorite mobile device. As an iPhone app reviewer, though, wont to zero in on the quality of the app, I have to say that ASL – American Sign Language is one of the most poorly made apps of its kind.
Quick Take
Value:Very Low.
Would I Buy Again:For some reason this costs a dollar, but even if it becomes free, I wouldn't bother downloading it.
Learning Curve:Zero.
Who Is It For:For people involved in the deaf community.
What I Like:Like any other app of this sort, it's built on good intentions.
What I Don't Like:It looks like it was built in an hour (or less).
Final Statement:The Apps goal is admirable, but the app itself is not.
