Creatively Cornered

Over at today's WhatTheyThink Creative Corner, I review a smattering of iPhone apps for graphic designers. But first, a caveat about star ratings:

I confess I have never especially liked star ratings; after all, some pluses of a product may not be pluses for everyone, some minuses may not be relevant to everyone, and so forth. And what is “3 star” vs. “4 star” anyway? Or worse: 3 1/2 star vs. 4 star? (I remember once in a high school English class, I had a teacher who was able to assign precise numerical grades to essays. How, exactly, did a 94% essay differ from a 95%? One wrong verb? An argument that was one percentage point less convincing? How exactly do you measure that?)

All this is to say is that there is the expectation in any product review that there will be a rating somewhere. So for Creative Corner reviews, I shall instead use as my rating icon not a star but the official WhatTheyThink question mark. This means that if a product receives three question marks, that’s ostensibly the equivalent of three stars—but the question marks themselves remind you to regard it with a grain of salt.