The Good
- 25,000 high-quality music videos
- Excellent interface
- Free
The Bad
- Hit-or-miss performance
Download at iTunes
VEVO is a popular music video website, and the corresponding app (Free) promises to bring some of the experience to the iPhone. The app has over 25,000 music videos to choose from, but will sketchy performance put a damper on all the fun?
Read more about the best free music apps for the iPhone.
Awesome interface, sketchy performance
The first thing you’ll notice about the VEVO app is its slick interface. The app is very well designed, complete with a sliding montage of the hottest music videos and an easy-to-use navigation system. The VEVO app includes a variety of ways to find content, including popular videos, new selections, and top artists. You can also search by keyword.
My enthusiasm quickly waned, however, when I ran into long loading times that turned into total app meltdowns. The first video I selected started playing right away, but I wasn’t always so lucky. I tried several times to view Katy Perry’s E.T. video, and after staring at the loading icon for over five minutes, I started to get a little antsy. Turns out the back button didn’t work either, so I had to reboot the app. This also happened when I tried to launch the Look at Me Now video from Chris Brown. Of the first three videos I tried to watch -- all over a Wi-Fi connection -- only one loaded properly, and the other two required restarting the app.
That’s certainly not a good start.
I had better luck when I went looking for older videos, thinking it was just a problem with the newest, most popular videos. I was able to view a number of videos successfully, but even the older videos weren’t immune -- Give Me a Sign from Breaking Benjamin, which is several years old, also forced an app reboot.
After you view a video, the VEVO app includes a link to buy it on iTunes, share it via Facebook or Twitter, or add it to the in-app playlist.
The Bottom Line
The longer I played around with the VEVO app, the more I liked it. The app is very slick, and the videos that do load have excellent sound and video quality. However, there were some videos that I never could get to load, no matter how many times I tried, so that tempers my enthusiasm quite a lot. Overall rating: 2.5 stars out of 5.
What You’ll Need
The VEVO app is compatible with the iPhone and iPod touch. It requires iPhone OS 4.0 or later. VEVO HD (Free) is available for the iPad.
Download at iTunes