Collaborating with Apps Foundry, Kaskus as the biggest Indonesian Forum launches its official application for iOS universally and compatible for iPhone and iPad. With a minimum requirement of iOS 3.0, I’m sure it will still function properly on older version handset such as iPhone 3G or even first generation iPhone. Apps Foundry is known as a leading application developer with products such as Scoop for iPad.

I don’t remember when was Kaskus launched an application for iOS but the current one is already version 2.0, where according to the iTunes page, besides additional support for iPad, this new version claim to have fix various bugs and more enhanced performance. Previously, Kaskus already had several application for multiple platform like BlackBerry, Java and Symbian.

Even though the appearence is such an eye catch, too bad for this version that was release on June 16 still have a lot of error. For instance, when I log in with my account, besides the authentication process, the shift from one menu to the others also took a long time, even though i used a high speed connection at that time. Theres also occured numerous crashes within the application from random reasons in various menus.

The way this application displays the thread is not fun both from UI and from UX. Furthermore, Kaskus iOS application display a thread reply with Show Replies menu, for me this is decreasing the experience got from active in a forum which has been enjoyed by Kaskus users. For an application that is deemed ready for public release, this can be include as a “failure”. No wonder in a thread discussing the iOS application, lots of Kaskus user aggreed with someone who said, “it’s more comfortable accessing Kaskus through Mobile Safari than the application itself”.

In my personal opinion, I welcome this new application because it will give the users more option which application to use for accessing Kaskus. But of course from the developer must ensure the application is functioning normally. Remember that everybody knows Kaskus have a million members so an overload can’t be use as an excuse. The developer must consider how to optimize the application so users feel comfortable and consider the application as the primary means to access Kaskus. I hope there will be an improvement in the near future.

Disclosure: DailySocial and Kaskus are under one company.