Hello Steemians!
It feels great to use this salutation again, after a brief hiatus.
You already know that when I use this salutation, it means I will be writing about something that's related to Steem.

Today, I will be continuing my series about my journey on Steem. I titled the series "Steem Trek".

This series has been ongoing for a while now but, it would seem like I had abandoned it.
Well, I've been quite busy with other things. This hasn't affected my current journey on Steem in any way. In fact, the journey is becoming broader as I learn of new apps on the blockchain daily.

Recall, that this series was set up for me to talk about various steem based apps. This is what I have been doing in this series.
Initially, I started out with a list of apps and projects to talk about. But now, I don't think I will be using that list anymore. This time, I will be talking about any steem based app as it comes to my notice.
This doesn't mean that I will abandon the old list of apps I already outlined when I started this series. Those projects are still in my thoughts.

I started this series last month and so far, it has been great. So far, I have published four (4) articles and there's more to come.

Before I proceed with today's article, I will love to highlight what has been done in this series so far.

I began this series by talking about Steemit in the first article I published.
I decided to start with Steemit because it was the first dApp on the blockchain that gave rise to the creation of other platforms.
I split the article into four talking points to enhance the readability of the article.

These are the talking points in that article;

What is steemit?
Steemit misconceptions
Steemit features
Steemit benefits(My opinion)

Major discussion in that article was on this point "Steemit misconceptions".
I highlighted how often people misunderstood the concept of Steemit. I blamed their misconceptions on negligence to research about the platform.

In the second article I published, I talked about Steemgigs. Another great project on the blockchain.
As at the time of writing that article, the project owner was putting in work to revive the project.
In recent times though, much hasn't been said or done. Maybe the project owner is cooking something behind the scenes or not. But, I'm optimistic about the project.

Here are the talking points I discussed in my article about Steemgigs;

What is Steemgigs?
A general overview of the concept of Steemgigs.
How the platform works.
A very brief review of some of its features.
Suggestions & where improvements can be made.

From Steemgigs, I moved on to talking about another project on the blockchain that I fancied. That is, Dtrip.
Dtrip is an amazing platform for travelers, or, tourists. Whichever may be the case. Touring around the world is something I'm keen on doing this year. Not necessarily because of this platform though. It's just something I wish to do. I was glad when I learned of Dtrip.

I talked about Dtrip in the third article published in this series. As usual, I split the article into talking points.

These were the talking points in that article;

What is Dtrip
Features of the Dtrip platform
Why traveling is fun, and why I want to engage.

You should check out this article, especially because of the third talking point. You'll find it interesting.

The fourth article is where I shook things up a bit. I opted to not only talk about the steem based project I listed but, other apps too. So far they are related to Steem.

In the fourth article, I talked about Steem wallet. Which is a very useful app. At the time I created that article, the project owner had just released an update to the app. I quickly jumped on the app, found it amazing, and decided to write about it.

I discussed these talking points in that article;

What is Steem wallet?
Features of Steem wallet app.
Why the app is amazing. (First Impressions)
Benefits

These are the things I've discussed in the series so far.

Links to those articles are available in the "Links" section below.

Now that I've highlighted previously published articles, let's focus on the content for today.

In this article, I will be reviewing another steem based project.

The project is STEEMER

I got wind of this app a few days ago, and according to the article I read, it is the first native Android mobile app for steem.

I will be reviewing the app in this article.

Here are the talking points I will cover in this article;

What is Steemer?
Features of the app and how it works
First impressions
Suggestions
Summary.

Do have a wonderful read.

Steemer: First free native Android mobile app for Steem.

There are many steem android clients today. But, one is boasting to be the first one to be totally free(rid of beneficiary percentage).
At first, I thought it was a strong claim which could be false. But after some research, it is actually true.

If that was the case, why wasn't the app prominent among other steem android clients.
Until the recent article published by Utopian about the project, I had never known of the app's existence.
What made the app get lost in existence, I don't know for sure. But it's a great thing that it's back, and the project owner is striving to make the app relevant.
To be honest, it would take a lot of work to get Steemer prominent among other steem android clients.
But, I don't know if the project owner is concerned about the app's prominence or not.

Without further ado, let's delve into the discussion of today.

What is Steemer?

According to the project owner;

Steemer is, and will remain the first native Android app, which will be completely free for people to use.

So I rephrased that statement. According to the developer, the app will be free to use forever. By free, he meant that there is no beneficiary percentage when the app is used.

Features of the app and how it works.

The project owner desired the app to be simple, and simple it is.

The app isn't packing a lot of features. It only has the necessary ones.
The app was designed for a more lightweight operation on Steem, which is to create, and, publish articles on the blockchain.

The first thing you do after downloading and launching the app for the first time is to sign in.
To sign in, you have to enter your username and posting key.

This was quite confusing to me at first. That is because I wasn't expecting the app to be only used for publishing content. I thought it was a well stacked mobile app.
So I expected the use of steemconnect login protocol, which is now a standard tool for almost all steem based apps.

I went ahead to sign in anyway. After all, posting key isn't much of a threat to steem accounts.

After signing in, I decided to tour around the app. The tour was to check out the features of the app.

The first feature of the app I will be reviewing is the app's user interface (UI)

Review of Steemer's User Interface(UI).

Maybe, one day, I will share my thoughts about why I'm so concerned about the interface of anything.
But for today, I will skip that story.

After I launched the app and signed in, I was expecting the User Interface of the app to have the blue and white color scheme. Blue and white is the most common color scheme used on steem based apps.
Well, I was proved wrong in the case of steemer. Instead of blue and white, I got a purple and white color scheme.
Well, inasmuch as I don't like purple, I liked the fact that the developer tried something else.

I can recall calling out developers to mix things up when it came to designing their app's interfaces. The blue and white color scheme isn't really the best there is.
When I talk about this, I always make reference to Steemhunt's user interface. Although Steemhunt is not a mobile app though.

Steemer has a dark mode theme, and I prefer it over the light theme. The weird thing is that, on dark mode, the purple color changes to green. I didn't really like that though. I think the dark mode would have blended nicely with purple.
But then, this one isn't bad either.

Overall, the User Interface of the app is nice. I wasn't greatly impressed with it but, it is something I can work with.

Review of Steemer's functionalities.

Like I already said, Steemer isn't packing a lot of functionalities. I think the point of the app is to be simple.

Post editor.

This is the most basic and common feature of any steem based app.
The post editor is available on any steem based app that deals with the publishing of content.
The post editor on Steemer is quite simple, or permit me to use the word basic, again.
The reason I said it is basic is because of the unavailability of markdown shortcuts. But, that didn't affect my user experience. I'm already accustomed to writing in markdown manually. But, I don't know about the case of others.
I think the developer should try to include it though.
Lest I forget, you can also add pictures easily from your gallery or with your camera.

After you are done with content creation, you can decide to preview it, then post it.

Drafts.

Drafts are un-published posts. This is done automatically as soon as you exit the post editor, without publishing a post.
So the drafts are saved on a page called "Drafts" on the app.

Favorites.

Adding authors as favorites is quite important. It lets you keep tabs on your favorite authors without having to stress your brain.
I can recall that I stressed the importance of this feature when I reviewed esteemapp. Same value applies for this feature on Steemer.
This functionality is currently faulty though. The app crashes when I try to view the favorites list.
I have already reported the issue to the developer on Github. Hopefully, this would be fixed soon.

Push notifications.

This is another nice feature on the app.
You will get notifications for activities related to your profile.
I don't know what activities you could get notified for though. It wasn't specified on the app.
I've been waiting to receive notification from the app and so far, I've got none.
I think this is an issue too because I received notifications on other steem apps that I use but none from steemer.
I'm yet to report this issue though, as I'm waiting to confirm that it is actually an issue.

Search

You can perform a search on the app. The search is only restricted to search for users though.
The search is powered by AskSteem.

Share user profile/article URL

If you find an author or article interesting, you can share the URL to other platforms. Quite an important feature, although I rarely use it.

These are the features that you can see on the app without having to use it for long. But, there are other features of the app you may not readily notice.

Claim rewards

You can claim rewards with this app. This is something that is not common in steem android clients. Before I knew of steemer, I think it's only the new esteem mobile that allows claiming of post rewards.

Information of Steem app used in publishing a content.

On Steemer, you can tell what steem front end was used to publish an article. That is because the app shows you this information.
This information is displayed just beneath the author's name.
This is a minor feature but, I think I like it.
From what I saw, Steemit is still the most used dApp for publishing content.

First Impressions.

Was I impressed by the app?
Well, maybe I was, but I wasn't overly impressed.

First, I loved the simplicity of the app. I guess that's the idea of the developer. To make the app simple.
But in an era where people are getting freaked out about designs and features, the app needs more.
Like I said earlier, if the developer is striving to make this app prominent amongst others, more needs to be done.

The only attractive feature in the app is the fact that the app doesn't eat up your rewards, unless you set it to.

But is that enough to make people use it?

Esteemapp gets beneficiary rewards when their app is used. However, users are compensated with upvotes from their account. So to some users, the upvote from esteemapp equals their beneficiary percentage. Although that is not true.

The app is used mainly for content publishing which is fine. I think there isn't too much I should expect from it.

Overall, I will the app is good. Maybe little adjustments here and there and it will become great.

Suggestions.

There aren't more suggestions I have for the app.

But I think the few ones I will suggest are necessary.

I would love to see a user profile page on the app. Although I can see my blogs and followers/following list, it would be great if those were grouped in a profile page. I would also love to see my wallet information, even though I will be unable to make transactions with the app.

Another feature I would love to see is markdown shortcuts on the post editor. The absence of this isn't a problem for me though. But, it could be for some other people.

The last feature I will suggest is "bookmarks". I've come to find out how important bookmarks are. Recently I had an issue with finding an article I need to read for insight. Well, I thought I had stored up the author's name in my head. Turns out I was wrong. If I had bookmarked that article, it would have been easy for me to get it back at any time and read.

Steemer already has drafts and favorites. I think adding bookmarks to the mix would fit nicely.

These are my suggestions for the app. When I'm less busy, I will suggest them to the developer. Hopefully, he will like them.

Summary

In this article, I have been able to review another nice steem based app.
I was quite shocked to know the app has been around for a while now. The latest graphics task request brought the app to my attention and I decided to check it.
From my review, you can see that the app has good potentials, and just needs little adjustments.
I give the app an A1 score for simplicity. I just want to see more services offered.
Aside from the fact that some basic features are missing, the app still has some bugs. Those(the bugs) should be squashed in the next update I'm sure.

Overall, I think the app is cool and I can't wait to see more of what the project owner has in stock for users. As the developer said in his latest blog post that there is a new release coming.

Thanks for reading.

Steem trek (My journey on Steem Part 5): Reviewing Steemer, the first, free native steem android client.