DeviantArt

Before I begin this review, I want to make it clear that this is directed at the app itself, not the website. DeviantArt itself is a good platform for artists. Yes, it has its stereotypes online, but if you can ignore that, you’ll have a good time sharing and browsing art. Unfortunately, the mobile app for this art sharing site is beyond broken. So broken that sometimes the entire app breaks, and you have to restart the app (or if you’re lucky simply rotate your device). Many notifications are not sent, so when I check my account on desktop, I end up with a ton of unread notifications. There’s also a lot of errors; profile bios do not show up, and many arts that aren’t marked as mature normally are only marked in this app, even if they are innocent. Profile customization is also much more limited. The site is far more superior; but even that has its bugs; you can’t even log in with Google without errors. Save your trips to DA for your computer if you’re a frequent user, but you should be fine if you only use it once in a while.

For most of the time that I have used the DeviantArt app, I’ve barely ever experienced any logging problems, but recently since DeviantArt began introducing two-factor authentication, which I don’t trust as much. I’m starting to experience login problems more frequently, because if I use the DA app it logs me out of my DA desktop, and when I use DeviantArt on my desktop it logs me out of the DeviantArt app, and so I end up going back and forth. I have no clue of what can be the root cause of this issue so I guessed it must be the DA app, do I uninstalled it from my phone and haven’t experienced any account problems, for a while. Until I began getting logged out of my desktop more than once and that I fuss around trying to regain access to my account, but DeviantArt won’t even accept my new password that I reseted, and the reset password page is a joke since it leads to a 404 Not Found page. It has gotten me to the point that I have been feeling more insecure about the security of staying logged into my account. even if I have the “keep me logged in” button turned on, the website can randomly boot me out at any given day. So this is a problem DeviantArt needs to fix and make its account security more secure for users like myself to not have to worry about these things.

I’m giving it a 3 because this app does have potential. However, there’s no buttons to actually join or search for groups— you can only click on “Watch” and that’s it. I find it very odd that they didn’t add the “join group” feature for mobile. I’m new to the app and I really do enjoy it, however the app is completely different and lacks many features. Along with that, the app crashes, the scrolling is a bit off or “chunky”, nothing loads properly, etc,. I think adding buttons for joining groups and maybe fixing more glitches and bugs would improve this, along with the focus on the report system or dealing with art theft. Not many people can stop art theft but reporting and deleting the accounts that do these things can help out a LOT. Please, please add some new features and fix all the bugs, the app really does have potential. The desktop version is also very confusing for me, so I have to use this app…