Features:  

The app contains a number of useful features.

• Free account online (chefslittlehelper.com)
• Search online database of recipes
• Add your own recipes online
• Build custom online cookbook
• Recipes automatically sync with the iPhone/Touch
• Create comprehensive grocery lists
• Add other items to established grocery lists
• Check off purchased items on grocery list
• Ability to rate recipes

Search through over 2000 recipes on the website or add your own to the growing database, then create your own online cookbook. It’s easy to add and delete ingredients in the grocery list with a tap of the finger.

The addition of some missing pieces would greatly increase the usability of the app. Adding a simple meal planner feature would be helpful in organizing a menu. Options to increase or decrease the serving sizes of each recipe and have the app adjust the ingredients to match would be very useful for cooks who deal with large groups; other welcome improvements would include modifications for someone cooking for two as well as nutritional content fields for individuals with special dietary needs.

Incorporating the ability to snap a photo of the prepared dish with the device’s camera and add it to the recipe without first emailing it to the website would save time and cut out unnecessary steps. Sharing your own recipes with others via email would also be nice.

Being able to adjust database recipes once they’ve been placed in your cookbook would be useful in case there are spelling errors, unclear instructions, or if you’ve added or omitted an ingredient when you’ve made the recipe. An easy solution to this would be to include a notes field where you can at least type in a quick reminder of any changes.

Interface:  

Overall, the existing app is very easy to use. The buttons are instinctively placed to make for easy navigation. The most irritating interface issues occur on the website. Currently, it’s a long and rather painful process to add new recipes to the website. The tool isn’t very intuitive; it’s really just a slightly spiffed up database interface. Another area of frustration is that the text field is limited in the number of characters per entry, which results in words being cut off. Using the iPhone’s accelerometer feature and viewing the recipe in landscape mode would easily address that problem.

Graphics:  

Chef’s graphics are lovely, from the delicious shot of fruit on the app’s main page to the images displayed with some of the recipes. The font for the app title is nice and easy to read, although it does look off-center on the app icon.

Stability:  

Throughout the review period, the app ran reliably well. Browsing the recipes, which requires the internet, was smooth even with moderate signal strength.

Support:  

Chef has excellent support and involvement from the developer on the website, a good FAQs page and email contact. The developer hosts several forums and responds to comments and questions from users. His commitment to his app is evident in the multiple avenues of contact he offers as well as his diligent and prompt responsiveness to comments and questions.

Value:  

At $4.99, Chef is a pretty good value for the money. As the developer adds features to both the program and the website, the app’s value will only increase.

The convenience of having recipes available wherever you go and the ability to see the ingredients and create grocery lists is well worth having and while there are a few areas that need some fine-tuning, Chef has a solid beginning with a lot of potential. The developer has proven himself to be responsive and concerned about the quality of the experience he has provided for users.

Check out our iPhone 3G review, music and movie download reviews as well as our other App reviews to help you get the most out of your iPhone.