Get Jon Stewart on your iPhone with The Daily Show App

By
On December 30, 2010

I picked up The Daily Show app on a whim to see what it had to offer over just watching the TV show or going to the actual Daily Show website. The application is put out by MTV Networks which is neither a good thing or bad thing in my opinion.  According to the blurb on iTunes it provides the Quote of the Day and video clips spanning a large back catalog of Daily Show episodes. This is an app for the true Daily Show and Jon Stewart fan, it may not be for the casual fan, but this is most definitely for the super fan, those who need to have their dose of The Daily Show and Jon while they’re going to the bathroom. I do not suggest the use of your iOS device while in the bathroom, I can neither confirm nor deny my own use though, that is all I will say.

The interface of the application is not the most intuitive I’ve ever found, it’s not bad, just not the best I’ve used. The main navigation of the app is along the bottom and will take you to the sections for the Quotes, Topics, Schedule, and Tweets. There is quite a bit of content for the quote section and you can choose from the days quote or a random one, and it links to the video for the that quote with buttons to share with friends. The Topics section is probably the most interesting it consists of tons and tons of different topics from different segments on the show, you can tap them or drag multiples together to find videos related to those topics. It displays in a large cloud of video tags and is the sharpest portion of the application. The other sections display the show schedule and the latest tweets from the show and the different correspondents Twitter feeds.

The application is nice for those who want their Daily Show chopped up into bite sized bits for you on the go. But for the purists looking for entire episodes, this is not the app for you. The amount of content you get is very limited and the $2 price point seems a bit steep for what you do get. The content other than the Topics section is pretty generic and plain. The app is put together fine but nothing sticks out except for the Topic section. Overall I would not suggest forking over the $2 for this application, the superfan out there will need their fix, and would pick it up either way, but those casual fans out there, I can not say this would be a good purchase. There’s not a lot of content available, perhaps if they were to move to having full episodes it would be worth revisiting, until then I cannot give this app the go ahead for buying.

  • Features –                        2.5/5 Stars
  • User Interface –             4/5 Stars
  • Ease of use –                    4/5 Stars
  • Pricing –                            1/5 Stars
  • Personal Opinion –      2/5 Stars
  • Overall Score –               2/5 Stars