Offering a selection of fake sounds, pick up lines, pep talk and excuses to get out of dates and traffic offences, Bro Lifeline claims to be a “comprehensive wingman”. The app may sound like a bit of a laugh, but don’t let the description fool you, it’s awful.
I headed straight into the ‘fake sounds’ section – of which there are 12 – and selected ‘train station’. I was greeted with an image of a train and the sounds of a train station. Fine. Now how do I go back?
At first I thought I was being daft. ‘Surely there must be a ‘back’ button’ I thought. I was wrong. There’s no back button. I had to quit the app, open the multitasking panel and kill the app there, too, before being able to open it at the first menu again. A fundamental error that needs putting right before this app is in anyway usable. Hopefully my review copy isn’t the same as the final build, and the lack of navigation buttons has been addressed.
Undeterred and in the interests of giving Bro Lifeline a fair review I spent a few minutes exploring the app – quitting and re-launching every time I wanted to go back a menu. But, sadly, the app doesn’t get any better.
The background image on some menus is too small for the screen, leaving a blank gap at the bottom, the ‘funny’ chat up lines couldn’t even be described as cheesy, the ‘romantic’ lines don’t fit in the dialogue box and it’s not immediately obvious that you need to scroll – yet there’s still that blank space at the foot of the screen.
The fake sounds last about 10 seconds each – apart from ‘heavy traffic’ which I thought was never going to stop – so while these can be played while you’re on the phone to someone, the sound of a shower or a train station suddenly stopping isn’t what you’d call convincing.
The ‘excuses’ to get out of a date are plain rubbish; “Sorry I’m getting married tonight” followed by “on my list of things to do, seeing you is at the bottom” then the classic “I have some real hard words to look up in the dictionary”.
Ah yes, the old dictionary excuse, I’m sure we’ve all used that one.
On top of all this, there are even some basic typing errors thrown in for good measure.
This review is of the paid version, available, if you must, for 69. There’s a free one, too, but that contains advertisements.
Yes, I know this app is meant to be a bit of fun, but it’s not even that. It’s fundamentally broken for a start, blandly designed, the sounds are all muffled and the chat-up lines are woeful. Avoid.
Pros: easy to use, cheap
Cons: poor sounds, repetitive content, no navigation buttons (in review copy)
Hi Alistair,
This is John from TechiXoft, the makers of Bro Lifeline. Thanks for your review! We really appreciate your honest insights, and we intend to fix the issues the the app has (typos, etc.)
My only concern is that you may have downloaded a “buggy” version of the app. The “Fake Sounds” screen of Bro Lifeline does contain a “Back” and “Home” button. Here’s a screen shot for your reference: http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2011/08/09/8707932/brolifeliness3.png
I’m sorry that you experienced some inconveniences with the app. If you want, we can send you a promo code so that you can get the paid version for free. Just shoot an email to info@techixoft.com, so that we know where to send it. Kindly email us if you encounter any other issues (especially on the technical side) so that we can sort things out.
Thanks again for you review!
Best regards,
John
Oh, and the “blank gap at the bottom” must be another bug. Other people and websites have reviewed the app, and didn’t have that issue.
Once again, our apologies for the typos–we’re planning to update the app soon!
We hope that you use the promo code, and download the correct and fully-functional version of the app, so that you can see that the Bro Lifeline isn’t technically inept at all.
Thank you, and feel free to email us if you have any other concerns.
Warm regards,
John