For those who love snow globes, it’s sometimes fun to have one running on an iPhone or iPad. This iPad-only snow globe has some nice features, but also, for three bucks, leaves a lot to be desired and won’t make snow globe enthusiasts happy. Save your money.
Awesome Snow Globe Isn’t
In my frame of reference, being a snow globe enthusiast, snow globes should have certain essential features. They should be 3D, that is one should be able to rotate them and look from various angles. If the snow globe is responsive to shaking, the snow should kick up a storm, then settle down. The flakes should be fine and swirl realistically. Some mathematical technique is called for here. Finally, if music is an option, then the user should be able to select a song from the iPad’s iTunes library.
Awesome Snow Globe HD does none of these things.
To be fair, the app does a few nice things. Santa, the dog in the basket, and the little girl will move around. You can see the dog breathing. You can select your own picture for the fireplace from the photo library, as I have done in the screen shot above. That is this app’s major feature. (I used Dropbox to load a picture into GoodReader, then took an iPad screen shot. There are many, many other ways to do this, including the quintessential method: iPhoto sync from a Mac.)
You can change the type of snow flake from the settings, and have continuous snow or let it settle down to nothing. (Just touch the screen anywhere.) Shaking the iPad will kick up the snow, but it doesn’t look great. And you can change the color and texture of the globe’s base. These are not exciting options.
Regrettably, the settings have a cartoonish look and don’t reflect the best practices I’ve seen in iPad settings.
This snow globe app plays a single, cheery Christmas tune, but it’s fixed. You can’t change it, so the app is going to get boring in a hurry. Thankfully, you can mute the music form the settings. Finally, the app only works in landscape mode.
Settings
Do I Recommend It?
No. This was a disappointing $3 to spend. I think if the developer were more serious about the art and aesthetics of a great snow globe, it might have potential, but I can’t recommend it now, even at the US$3 price. If you’re looking for an alternative, I recommend the “Cute 3D SnowGlobe” by Noon Studios for the iPhone. I reviewed it last year for the iPhone, and it looks very good on the iPad, even at 2X.
Awesome Snow Globe HD for iPad is priced at US$2.99 and requires iOS 4.2 or later.