you could do a draw of things from the comfort of your iPhone — manage your to - do inclination , download an ebook and flip your agency from page one to the close , even snap a pic , blue-pencil it , and share it with others . sure enough , a relatively simple chore such as say flowers and having them pitch to that especial someone should be well within the considerable capabilities of Apple ’s smartphone .
It ’s not — not even remotely . For the preceding few weeks , I ’ve been test apps that lease you patronise for and order floral arrangements directly from your iPhone : Flower Coach by Teleflora ( ) , California Blooms ( ) , and mobile offering from theProFlowers ( ) and 1800Flowers ( ) service . As it turns out , you may be able to do a lot of things on your iPhone , but say it with bloom is n’t one of them .
A small portion of the blame fall upon the phone itself . The iPhone ’s intent is revolutionary in many regards , but its screen size of it and onscreen keyboard do n’t lend themselves to prolonged tocopherol - commerce shopping sprees . Even so , the peak - ordering apps I ’ve been testing do very little to take these restriction into account . In fact , the four iPhone apps we ’ll look at for this article suffer from a variety of design misstep that make put flower a effort fit only for the foolhardiest of mobile users .
ProFlowers
Shopping shortcomings
It ’s when you search for floral arrangement that the limitations of the iPhone as a gimmick for fluid shopping become most apparent . charge it on the cover — while there ’s plenty to love about the iPhone ’s 3.5 - inch display , it does n’t leave a plenty of way for exhibit goods or services . Shopping apps either have to pile their product on top of each other , forcing you to scroll down a lengthy list of product , or they put a single mathematical product on each screen , making you tap to jump back and forth . counterpoint that with shopping apps on the iPad — Catalogue , a catalogue aggregator from TheFind.com offers an ideal example — where you may flick from Sir Frederick Handley Page to paginate on your pad just like you would in a printed catalog , and the iPhone shopping experience just does n’t equalize up .
ProFlowers
Three of the flower apps I face at rely heavily on beg to navigate through their ware . The ProFlowers and 1800Flowers apps include categories to help you find what you ’re looking for , but in realism , it just adds more tapping . water tap Occasions in ProFlowers to begin shopping for arrangements , then knock another class ( natal day , say , or Anniversary ) , andthentap one of the 30 or so itemisation to get more information about a fussy merchandise . Want to view another arrangement ? wiretap the back button and then go back to the leaning of floral arrangements to start the process anew .
ProFlowers
thing get even more frustrating with Teleflora ’s Flower Coach app , which forces you to use an automatic note generator of dubious note value before you’re able to even begin shopping for flush . Once you ’ve choose an occasion and let Flower Coach car - generate a sincere message from the bottom of its algorithm - driven heart , you ’re presented with a swipeable listing of floral arrangement . The worry is , the piloting arrow in Flower Coach are so faint , it ’s hard to recount when you ’ve strain the destruction of the selection .
California Blooms offer perhaps the best shopping sailing of the apps I prove — it ’s a scrollable list of that florist ’s offerings . But that ’s largely a product of the app ’s special survival — it specialize in roses , so really , you ’re just selecting the color of rose wine you want to send to your intended . Still , it ’s a relatively painless way to encounter and prize flowers , even if California Blooms did come at that approach by default option .
California Blooms
California Blooms
None of these four apps offers a means to search for specific blossom or arrangement , nor can you star favorites for comparability shopping . That ’s a particularly glaring shortcoming , as it means you ca n’t stack up arrangement by Mary Leontyne Price or appearance — not without relying on your memory , at least . With the exclusion of ProFlowers , the apps give you the option of emailing radio link and data about a peculiar agreement . It ’s a cumbersome workaround to a favorites feature of speech , but it ’s better than nothing .
A few of the apps I look at offered their own unique features to improve the shopping experience . California Blooms keeps a phonograph recording of your preceding order of magnitude so you could see if you ’ve extend to the yellow heighten well one too many times . ProFlowers offers a prissy reminders feature , where you’re able to send yourself notification in forward motion of a adult social function like Mother ’s Day , a natal day , or anniversary . Nice though these add - ons may be , they are n’t enough to make mobile flower shopping the variety of seamless experience you ’d ask from an iOS gimmick .
Out of order
If shopping for flush on the iPhone is wordy , then really place an social club from a mobile florist app borders on the involved . When it comes fourth dimension to order flower , you not only have to choose a delivery date , but enter in the address of your recipient as well as your own charge information . That ’s a lot of fields to navigate on a small screen and a lot of information to remark on a on - screen keyboard .
Flower Coach by Teleflora
The developer of the four apps I try seem to know that fact . Each one either features a consecrate phone picture or a tappable number which let you circumvent the app and point your order over the phone . It ’s as if the developer are saying , “ Yes , we pull in it ’s absolutely dreadful to tip out delivery destination and credit card information on that keyboard . Why do n’t you just call us up and tell apart us what you want ? ” Which is all well and good unless you ’re using any of the apps on an iPod touch sensation .
Flower Coach by Teleflora
Still , the purpose of this exercise was to testeveryaspect of these four apps , and that intend placing an real ordination . So I tapped out my name , charge information , and the address of recipients on each and every app — and boy , do I wish I had just broken down and tapped that consecrate sound push button instead .
ProFlowers deserves being singled out for an especially awful carrying out . While the other app shaper at least made an attempt to optimize their ordering pages for the iPhone , ProFlowers seems to have involve a Web Sir Frederick Handley Page and get up it onto the iPhone ’s screen ; in lodge to see any of the fields , you ’ve got to use pinch motion to zoom in on the Sir Frederick Handley Page . It ’s unco wanton to miss a key data point airfield using this pan - and - scan plan of attack , which will put you right back at square one .
In dividing line , two of the other apps make a bit of an effort to remove some of the pain out of all this data entry . Both California Blooms and 1800Flowers let you spell recipient data from the Contacts app , which saves you a small typing . California Blooms also let in a progress legal profession in its ordering process , letting you know that there ’s at least a light at the end of the data - entry tunnel . It does n’t totally take aside the trauma of manually placing an ordination , but it ’s a footstep in the right focussing .
1800Flowers
The aftermath
1800Flowers
Unlike with other iOS apps , your experience with these florist apps does n’t end once you rate an purchase order and generate to your iPhone ’s Home screen . There ’s also the not inconsiderable matter of whether your flowers will arrive at their think destination .
This would seem like a no - brainer , would n’t it ? After all , delivering flowers is the entireraison d’êtrefor these variety of apps . And yet , the flowers I order via the 1800Flowers app never materialized on the agree - upon date .
Did I mention I ordered these flowers from 1800Flowers for my wife ? For Mother ’s Day ? For herfirstMother ’s Day as a new mother ?
After a series of progressively pointed e-mail , I was able to secure a refund from 1800Flowers . ( The companionship ab initio offer me a discount on a future rules of order . ) A abbreviated glance at the substance abuser reviews in the App Store suggests my experience was not atypical . Since the basal reason to apply an app like this would be to make trusted that bloom get extradite , it is concentrated to see 1800Flowers as anything other than an abject loser .
The other apps managed to deliver my flowers to their appointed destination , with varying degrees of client fear . Flower Coach fork out its order , though latterly in the day — the flowers arrived at 7 p.m. local clock time — and only after a aflutter e-mail to client financial support . California Blooms deliver its order as scheduled ; however the ship’s company never sent a confirmation e-mail that it get my order , a sore fleck with me . I did get an electronic mail from the florist shop several sidereal day after placing my order that it would be delivered the next solar day as scheduled , but the want of an contiguous order of magnitude confirmation made me worry that my leverage had melt into the diethyl ether .
Interestingly , it was ProFlowers — the app with the clumsy interface and horrifying order procedure — that offered the best post - order customer service of process . I obtain no less than three e-mail from ProFlowers about the status of my order , from the sentence it was range to its eventual pitch . It was a pleasant experience that almost — almost — made up for the general clunkiness of ProFlowers ’ app .
Final thoughts
If ProFlowers were able to utilise the same variety of attention to the browsing and grade aspects of its app as it did to customer service , it would be the ointment of the iPhone flower - ordering crop . As it stand , California Blooms finds itself at the head of this particular pack , though my endorsement is less than full - throated given its lack of confirmation emails and the fact that its specialised focus creates a rather narrow floral selection .
Apple likes to cue iPhone user that “ there ’s an app for that”—a marketing slogan that ’s become so omnipresent that it ’s almost a cliché at this point . After my test of these florist oblation , I do think that there ’s an app for ordering efflorescence from your iPhone . Unfortunately , it turns out to be the phone app .
[ Macworld.com executive editor Philip Michaels has found his popularity skyrocketing among the citizenry who receive flower as part of his app testing — except for the person who was supposed to get the 1800Flowers gild . ]
