In case you shook it off as NBD and forgot , Taylor Swift recently released an app promise The Taylor Swift Experience to accompany her former music telecasting . Actually , it ’s called “ American Express Unstaged : Taylor Swift Ex … “ , because it ’s so preposterously AmEx - branded that there ’s not enough room on the App Store for the full title to be displayed when you search for it .
Here ’s my two - second recap ofAmerican Express’sTaylor ’s app , for those of you who do n’t want to bother download it :
I make love what you ’re thinking — wow , this sounds like the most rotatory , mind - flex , full immersive app experience in the entire world . 360 - degree views ? What the what?Well , bad potatoes , because I ’m here to totally bust your bubble .
Thank you , American Express … I guess .
I ’ve played through this app ( you only get the duration of Taylor ’s song to research the mansion in each play - through ) at least 25 times now — first , because I was face for the revelation , and then , because I wanted to write this article on howthere is no Apocalypse . While the app ( and lease ’s halt call in it Taylor Swift ’s app , it ’s American Express ’s app , people ) offers some neat behind - the - scenes material for diehard Swifties ( is that what we call Taylor Swift devotee ? It is now ) , it ’s really not particularly telling .
TL;DR — this app is fairly average , and here ’s why :
It’s not new
In the app , er , experience , you get to explore the star sign in which Swift filmed her “ Blank Space ” video . Sort of . What you really get to do is see 360 - academic degree thought from a fixed stage in five room , plus a hall .
Wow , so revolutionary !
When I was in seventh grade—15 years ago — I did a website project on Paris , France . I was reasonably technical school - savvy back then , and I establish somethingreally awing : A 360 - level view from the Eiffel Tower . What ! This was amazing ! I immediately embedded it on my webpage , and got straightforward A ’s for the rest of the twelvemonth ( or something like that ) .
You pan off around the way and look for cue . Yep .
Anyway , here ’s my percentage point : 360 - grade photography ? That ’s been a matter forever . Sure , in this app you may move your phone to look around , but that ’s just a gimmicky utilization of the gyroscope , not a revolution . Also , in this app , you ’ll occasionally see people moving about — but they ’re a small blurry and fuzzy , and you ’re standing in a fixed point in each way , so how hard was itreallyto take their movements ? My first thought upon discharge this experience was that it reminded me a heck of a lot of my seventh grade Paris project … and that ’s probably not a unspoiled sign .
It’s not a game
A set of people have been calling this a secret plan ; it ’s not . Or at least , it ’s a very poorly designed game .
The app is very limited in what you may do : you may walk through doors ( so long as they ’re glowing ) , you may fend in the middle of the room and look around , and you may once in a while tap on objects to get close - ups . Some of the aim are kind of coolheaded Easter eggs for fans , like a picture of Swift ’s grandmother ; others are relevant to the video , like a schoolbook message from “ the other woman ; ” and others are just random , like sheets of euphony fluttering in the lead or a grandfather clock that does nothing .
You ’re sort of supposed to follow Taylor and her boy - miniature through the star sign , but if you get caught up looking at anything for too long , you ’ll fall back them . At one compass point , I was temporarily spellbind by a tray of cupcakes , and when I looked up , oops … they were nowhere to be found . So I wander sort of aimlessly through the mansion ( er , through all five rooms of the house ) , and finally line up them again , as they were walk through a door . There are a lot of doors in this secret plan , and Taylor and her boy always seem to be walking through them .
Hey , Taylor ! Where are you … WAIT , are those cupcake ?
Were I to estimate this as a game , I ’d give it around 1.5 mice . The storyline is jumble ( oh yeah , there are also a bunch of random other fictitious character who routinely show up , just to make it even more confusing ) , finding your room around is hard ( every doorway reckon the same , and since you ’re stomach at a fixed head , you never know where you come from ) , and a lot of the Easter eggs seem slothful .
It’s not the future of music videos
Overall , this “ experience ” feels really , really scattered — sort of like the song ( do n’t get me wrong , I ’m usually a fan of Swift ’s medicine , but this ? Nah ) .
It ’s not the “ fully immersive ” experience it claims to be — you may only see five ( six with the hallway ) room of this huge mansion ? Come on , now , we all be intimate star sign have more than six suite . Where ’s the kitchen ? The secret passageway ? The dome with the conjuring trick surface trammel under a Vanessa Bell jolt ?
Yawn . I saw this one coming .
At good , it ’s a series of 360 - level photographs with a couple of move chemical element and some hotspots you’re able to tap on . The scavenger hunting is a neat estimate , but the overall execution is a bit boring and unsurprising . Pull back a curtain , and you ’ll see CRAZY TAYLORFIED portrayal of her former lovers . This would be interesting , except that ’s totally what I expected to see . Sorry , Taylor , you ’re just too predictable .
Of course , if the point of this video is to get you to have the sprinkle weirdness of a teenage young woman ’ head on boy … then it does a pretty good problem .
