Linkedin for iPhone Might be Better than the Site Itself
By: Hillel Fuld
When it comes to the professional social network, Linkedin, I was a late adopter. For years, I had an account, but never touched it. I could not stand the website’s interface and never really got the point. While Facebook and Twitter were a natural fit, Linkedin never really spoke to me. However, when one day, I finally decided to spend some time and make my Linkedin profile more presentable, it wasn’t long before it all became very clear to me.
This is not an article explaining the importance of Linkedin, but I will say that since I began to utilize Linkedin “properly”, the job offers, traffic, and connections generated as a result are never ending. It works, and I highly recommend you get passed the annoying interface, and build up your Linkedin network.
Here’s the thing with the Linkedin iPhone app, it has everything the site has, minus the annoying interface. The UI of the iPhone app is like any other IM, Twitter, or social networking app with an easy and intuitive interface that gives you access to all the features you need in a very clear manner. There are a few things I did not get about the app like the scroll bar on the top of the screen, which seems too small and hidden, but let’s slow down.
Once you log in to the iPhone Linkedin, you are presented with a list of your updates, similar to the one you would say on the front page of the actual website. Along the bottom, like many other iPhone apps, there are five tabs including Inbox, Search, Connections, and Status, which pretty much covers all the things people do on Linkedin minus a few, that are located in that top scroll bar I mentioned above.
The Updates screen gives you a long list of all your connections’ recent updates, including status updates, connections, questions, answers, and even polls made by your connections. On top of this tab, there is an Invite button, which you can use to invite people from your contacts to join Linkedin. Each update includes a link to the person’s profile, but when clicked on, only shows you their basic profile, not their full home page, kinda strange.
Your inbox is split up into Invitations, incoming messages, and sent messages, and includes the standard iPhone bubble notification for unread messages. Pretty basic stuff, but we like basic around here.
Search is a search field with an Options button next to it. You can search Linkedin by keywords, name, company, and title. Useful, but perhaps a little too basic, where are groups, polls, industries etc etc.
Connections is actually more user friendly on the iPhone than it is on the Web with a list of your contacts listed alphabetically. Just as in the iPhone phonebook, you can press any letter along the side and quickly jump to that letter to view the contacts. Each contact has a name, a picture (if available), a short description, as well as the ability to click their name, in which case you are redirected to view their limited profile. From this screen, you can also click My Profile to see your entire profile, which just makes you wonder why the developer did not do the same thing for all your connections. You can also invite contacts from your phonebook on the Connections screen.
Lastly, the Status screen enables you to view all status updates of your connections as well as update your own, that is pretty much it. Basic and practical.
All in all, Linkedin for iPhone is a great app that helps you make sense of the different options supported by this popular social network. This is a definite must have for people who use Linkedin, and Linkedin is a definite must use for almost everyone, so you do the math.
Our Rating: 4/5
Dveloper: Linkedin
