This application used to be called Diggerific(as you can tell by the video below). But it seems that the infamous Digg Lawyers have attacked and forced the developers to change the name. Also I’m pretty sure this application used to be free(now I see it costs $0.99).
This application lets you access the front page(or specific categories) of the website Digg.com. Instead of opening Safari and going to the website, now you can access the stories from a native application.
You can read the summary and comments for the stories. . .and even go to the page in Safari(to read the entire article).
We all want to be able to interact with these stories(digg, comment, bury). . .but sadly the developers say we can’t(Digg doesn’t allow it).
Maybe the popularity of this application will spark an official Digg app from Digg themselves.
Next to NetNewsWire, Shovel is my most frequently used iPhone app from third party developer. It is also one of the buggiest apps on my iPhone. It crashes constantly (even after resetting the phone via power cycling) — about once every 2-4 articles or within 10 minutes, which ever comes first.
And although the app looks sleek at first, it is ripe with usability issues, such as (1) no progress animation to indicate data is being retrieved, (2) “Load in Safari” button being on the left of “Load in Browser” screen instead of right where “Done” button is located (which should be renamed to “Back”), and (3) long comments getting truncated abruptly.
Despite these issues, it has been weeks since the app was last updated.
The shovel app is currently being rewritten and is very close to release. The original bugginess had a lot to do with memory management and has been reworked completely to correct these problems. In addition, the new Shovel app (3.0-ish) includes much more intelligent story loading and is much faster in browsing between multiple stories and accessing the stories themselves (through an in app browser window).
The current build features access to Instapaper and Facebook and has features in place to allow digging up/down as well as leaving comments which will be made available as soon as Digg releases these features through their API. Overall the rewritten app feels much more streamlined and quick, and I expect current users of Shovel to experience a massive boost when they upgrade to Shovel 3.0
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