iLick: Less Fun Than a Pet Store

iLick - I love dogs. Love 'em. I have a picture of some random papillon as the wallpaper on my iPhone so I can pretend I own a dog. Big dogs, little dogs, Scottie dogs, Rottweilers, Cocker Spaniels, Great Danes, Golden Retrievers, mutts, purebreds...I pretty much adore anything vaguely canine. So while I hate to give a bad review to an application that features dogs, I have to say that iLick, well, it kind of bites. (Dog pun!)

Presented by Team Awesome LLC (and to be honest, that name almost makes me want to give a good review anyway, but I'll stay strong) and featuring Diggnation's furry mascot, Montana, as well as voiceover work by Diggnation co-host Alex Albrecht, iLick offers users a chance to watch a dog lick the screen of their iPhone from the inside. (See image above.) And...that's it.

Let's talk positives for a minute. There are two dogs to choose from, the aforementioned Montana as well as a puppy named Apollo. And they're very cute. And the icon for the application is cute. And iLick is amusing, briefly. Kids would probably like it?

But that's pretty much all I've got. The video of the dogs is fairly short and I just can't think of any real reason to pay $0.99 for iLick. The reviews posted for iLick in the iTunes store seem to indicate that this app is popular with fans of Diggnation, but many of those reviews even state that they were only willing to buy iLick to support the show. Which I understand — I once bought an incredibly pointless application to support one of my favorite musicians. So if you're a fan of Diggnation, sure, go for it!

To everyone else: My advice? If you really want to look at a dog through glass, go to your local pet store and do it that way. Sure, it's depressing, but at least it's free.

Here's a video of the guys from Diggnation showing off iLick:

iLick Shoutout on Diggnation from Jared Schnelle on Vimeo.