I love Mashable.com, it’s a fantastic site for social media related news and info. I find myself visiting several times each day, and have hoped for a while now that they would release an iPhone app or a iPhone friendly website. Sure, there is a mobile site you can access if you know about it but you aren’t automatically sent there if you have an iPhone.
I was thrilled to see the news yesterday that Mashable now had their own iPhone app. Sadly, I wish it had been a bad April Fool’s joke. The app blows. 
I’ve got a first generation iPhone, and right now it is connected to my home WiFi network (802.11g). The Mashable app takes forever to load up, and yes I am running the latest (released) iPhone software. – The app does suggest to update to 2.2.1 if you encounter speed issues. I think it is the app and not the OS, though if this thing could be slower, lord help us.
Enough on the speed. The app itself consist of 5 buttons along the bottom. Home, News, Events, Twitter, and Apps.
Home – This is a useless screen that does nothing more but welcome you to the app and displays a black and white flowery looking image. Ok, whatever.
News – This is basically just a RSS reader for Mashable. You get a list of the most recent items (looks like ~30) posted on Mashable. When you click on an item to read it, a browser window inside the app opens and loads the Mashable website. You get the exact same experience from opening Safari and going to Mashable.com. If it were the mobile site or a better optimized iPhone site things would be much better.
You know how most iPhone apps will scroll back to the top when you click on the top bar (area with the clock, battery meter, etc.)? Yeah, well the MashApp doesn’t do that. Found that out after scrolling all the way to the bottom.
Events – Just a list of social media related events. Most people will find this useful. Again, no auto scroll to the top.
Twitter – As you might expect, this tab gives you the most recent updates from @mashable on Twitter. Those that care about Twitter are most likely going to have a Twitter app already installed, and those looking at this app probably already follow @mashable.
Apps – Rounding out the list of useless features is an apps tab. It contains a list of “featured applications” and clicking on one will take you to the app store. That’s it.
The Mashable iPhone app was developed by the folks behind iFart, which is rather ironic as the app is literally a piece of crap. I’m sorry guys, but when it comes to Mashable App vs Mashable in Safari I’ll stick with Safari for now.
You asked for it to be rated in the App Store, and right now version 1.0 gets a 1 star from me and that is only because you cannot give an app a 0 star. Out of 27 reviews total in the app store, the app is sitting at 3.
Hope to see some major changes when it comes to version 2… or even 1.1.