SousChef for iPad. Find Digital Recipes in a Beautiful App

Digital Cooking Assistant

SousChef for iPad Rating: ★★★☆☆

Even before the launch of Apple’s iPad people were talking up the device as being a multiple-purpose device to be used all around the house including in the kitchen as a recipe and cooking aid. As soon as the iPad was launched the App Store began to fill with cooking apps developed specifically for this device.

SousChef for iPad developed by Acacia Tree Software is one of the first to hit the App Store and offers the purchaser the ability to search 150,000 recipes in a beautifully designed environment.

And that’s the first thing that hits you when you launch the application. The bright design of the app is certainly eye catching and you will immediately be sent to your favorite recipes which you can easily update, all be it only one recipe at a time.

You can browse the recipes alphabetically via the index along the bottom of the page regardless of whether you are using it in either landscape or portrait mode.

More likely though is that you will want to search for a new recipe and you can do that via the search button in the top right corner of the screen.

The search is completely unique in the cooking apps that I’ve seen in that as you start to type your search word a list of options scrolls beneath you. Selecting any of these words will add the word to your search criteria which you can continue to add too before clicking the search button again to find recipes that match the criteria that you’ve set.

The search looks great, but practically it’s not as flexible as I would like, for example there is no way to exclude certain items or specify the occasion that you are looking to cook for.

Once you have found a recipe you want clicking on it will open it up to show you the ingredients list and instructions for preparing and cooking dish.

The ingredients list is clear and listed below it are the instructions for cooking which you can highlight as you step through it to help prevent you from losing your place.

This all works great in portrait mode, however, when turning it to landscape mode the cooking instructions are often pushed off of the bottom of the screen.  The app enables you to switch to Full Screen mode but even then, especially with the recipes with a lot of ingredients the area set for the directions is not as large as it could be.

A solution to this would be to add the ability to collapse the ingredients list that would actually benefit both views.

Ultimately the flaws in the search and in the portrait mode of viewing the recipe far outweigh the simple navigation and its good looks. Hopefully a future update will sort these issues out.

The Good

  • Looks good
  • Simple to use
  • Unique search

The Not So Good

  • More style over substance
  • No ability to hide ingredients

Price: $7.99 (iTunes Store)
Released: Apr 01, 2010
Reviewed Version: 1.0
Size: 6.0 MB
Language: English
Seller: Acacia Tree Software
© 2010 Acacia Tree Software
Rated 4+
Requirements: Compatible with iPad. Requires iPhone OS 3.2 or later.

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