Tucson Festival of Books Reviews

by Thomas - W

Even worse than the last 2 years' versions-the developers of TucsonFestivalofBooks would do well to spend a couple of hours studying usability in software. Just to name a few things that made TucsonFestivalofBooks a mess: there was no map of the campus (to see where buildings were located, some people may have figured out they are labeled in Google Maps as a workaround), insanely long lists of authors, events, etc. were not sortable alphabetically—only sorted in the default chronological by event time, etc. TucsonFestivalofBooks was did not keep up with the frenetic pace that the event demands–I hope U of A can get some beginning programmer college students to do this next year—with a few hours of work they could totally destroy this pile.

by Beren_Camlost

Used to be a pretty good app. I mean, sure, it crashed a lot, but it was really useful. It let you compile a schedule of events for the weekend, categorized by author or genre. But then they chose to upgrade in he name of “improvement”. The problem was the update took away the only thing that was any good about it in the first place. With each year’s update it fails to bring back the one thing I truly want in it: the ability to make a convenient and searchable timeline of where and when the panels and signings are that I want to attend. I’ve gone back to paper and pen, which sadly is an upgrade over this frustrating app.

by Next Action Hero

Seems that whoever wrote the Obamacare website is designing the iPhone app for the Tucson Festival of Books.

There are in fact some iDevices that CAN'T update to the iOS 7, and other individuals who WON'T update to it, and yet this particular app REQUIRES it. So those with older devices and those who refuse to update to the iOS 7 are stuck without being able to use TucsonFestivalofBooks.

And of course TucsonFestivalofBooks is made solely and only for the iPhone. It is not universal for both the iPhone and the iPad, just like the University of Arizona's own school app.

Last year's app left much to be desired in leaving out a grid or way of finding events. I still had to rely on the printed paper that proliferates at the festival. I was hoping that TucsonFestivalofBooks would eliminate the need for such a thing.

I find it disturbing that people at the University of Arizona, who are supposed be on the cutting edge of education, can't even design an iPhone app that does the job it's supposed to do.

by LarsThree

Knowing that the TFOB website would be popular, I downloaded TucsonFestivalofBooks ... warily. I'm not a fan of the AZDS app, and this was developed by the same crew. My skepticism was well-founded. As has been mentioned by other reviewers, the Authors tab crashed TucsonFestivalofBooks - repeatedly. Another big beef - many of the events I clicked on listed no venue. What could have been a useful tool was rendered useless by bad design. The physical newspaper schedule saved the day. Bummer, guys.

by BlainaGuy

I have been attending the festival Since 2009 and was excited to use the first app when it became available. I am sorry to say that each iteration has been a step backward in it's ability to make the festival available to the user. This year's app (2016) is almost useless in this respect unless you are interested in only one category of books. Two changes would dramatically impact the usefulness of TucsonFestivalofBooks : (1) the ability to view in landscape, as phones are much larger now, and (2) provision of a simple grid showing each day of the festival with the ability to touch a lecture to view detailed information.

by Dr Sara V

The alphabetical author sort is sorta useful, leading you to an author's appearances/events.
BUT you can't sort authors by genre, and WORST of all, there is no way to "favorite" an event or create a calendar.
You would think the purpose of an app would be to save time. Unfortunately to use TucsonFestivalofBooks you'll have to tap through multiple pages each time you open it. Your advance work on TucsonFestivalofBooks cannot be "saved."

by CommSon

Good start & definitely better than their web site for ease of locating event info. Five stars if author & moderator names in event listings linked to bios, and if all events contained a one-sentence (or more) description. Some require too much guessing.

by StrawHousePig

A map is there, you can find any location when picked from the list, but you can't find what's near. Dumb.

by Yes.we.can:)

Going just by TucsonFestivalofBooks, you would not even know that some of the events require ticketing.

by Desertkat

I have used TucsonFestivalofBooks in the past years to keep track of which events I am interested in seeing so I know where to go next. Suddenly the newest update no longer has a personal calendar? I can no longer flag what I might want to see and pull up my personalized list? That was the most important part of TucsonFestivalofBooks. I hope you will be adding that capability back into this new version!

by Cactus Flower

It was a good app except for one flaw - it wasn't updated. When I checked on Sunday for times and programs, TucsonFestivalofBooks had all the info for SATURDAY ....not a good thing!

by Hurri47

First I let it update from 2012 to 2013 versions, but then I couldn't figure out how to edit or delete favorites.

Deleting and reinstalling TucsonFestivalofBooks gave me a clean slate that seems to be working OK.

by Mustangfilly

Love the set up of TucsonFestivalofBooks and being able to put things in my festival. But TucsonFestivalofBooks keeps crashing when I go to the authors list!

by Azstarman1

TucsonFestivalofBooks would be really useful if one could choose an event and have it (name, time, place) entered into the iPhone/iTouch calendar!

by Letplane

You can only search authors, events and exhibitors alphabetically. TucsonFestivalofBooks will be handy if you already know what you want to find. It would be much more useful if you could search by genre. I would also love to see a map of the event that could be enlarged to the size of an iPad screen.

by JD-ologist

I didn't end up using TucsonFestivalofBooks because it was mainly a long list of sessions and it was just easier to use the printed schedule, as we could mark interesting sessions and see more details than TucsonFestivalofBooks provided. My advice: 1) add a search function, 2) allow me to mark sessions as favorites so I can view my own custom session list and not have to scroll through the entire list each time, 3) allow filtering the list by time - no need to look at sessions that are over, 4) add a map - since TucsonFestivalofBooks didn't have one, we had to get a paper schedule anyway, 5) leverage the Internet and include links to author websites, etc.

by Questrala

I am giving this 3 stars but that is generous. TucsonFestivalofBooks crashes regularly and there are large portions of data missing (for instance, the authors list is empty and every update that runs crashes TucsonFestivalofBooks ). Future versions also really need some search capability and a map - preferably location aware. Maybe TucsonFestivalofBooks has that already under INFO, but that's another part of the interface that I can't access without a crash. I will forward crash logs via the support site if possible. Thanks for at least trying - it's not easy to manage apps like this that center around an annual event...but please put more time and testing into it next time! It really needs some help.

by Karebear68

Great app for volunteers...I used it while volunteering in 2011. Looking forward to using it again on my iPhone. One problem: any time I try to access the list of authors, TucsonFestivalofBooks crashes! A fix by next week would be helpful

by Trippio

Would be 5 stars if event panelists were linked to their bios. Very good.

by Tucsonjhall

I missed the event last year because the concept didn't capture my imagination. This year, I attended and what an amazing event. I can understand why people come from around the country to attend. Then I found this iPhone app that laid out the schedule in a concise and precise manner and I'm off to restart my objective-c programming. The perfect use of a small application to fill a need for those of us who don't like carrying around newspaper-sized schedules of events. Very well done!

by Rimjournal

Before TucsonFestivalofBooks was buggy, now it works well. I went down the author/venue lists and added events I was interested in. Then could easily see what was in each time slot and where the venues were for my final pick. Because the info was on my iPhone, I did not need internet access during the Festival. Now that the Festival is over, I still have the author info on my iPhone for reference.

by The Irb

Great app! Used it all weekend!