Ultimate Sharks Review

The iPad has more than proven its worth as a tool for learning, and as a result, there’s an incredible treasure trove of interesting and engaging educational apps out there. Discovery Communications’ Ultimate Sharks is clearly aiming for this market, but all it amounts to is an overpriced tie-in to the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. At $5, you might expect a thoroughly in-depth study of these fascinating creatures, but all you get is a bunch of short videos, dry text, and minimal extras.

For an app called “Ultimate Sharks”, there’s a remarkable dearth of sharks here. The app focuses on a mere ten sharks. Given that there are well over 300 species of sharks in the world, this seems like quite an oversight. Discovery went the sensationalist route and included only the best known (and goriest) sharks, starting with the Great White. To add to the sizzle, the app is actually rated 17+.

This rating is presumably due to a few gory pictures of shark injuries and attacks, but it’s hard to imagine anyone over the age of 14 finding the dry and minimalist presentation at all interesting. Each of the sharks comes with several pages of text (with no option for audio narration) along with a variety of short videos and still shots, and a 3D-rendered model of the shark. The videos are seldom longer than a minute, and they're usually accompanied by absurdly over-dramatic narration from Mike Rowe, the host of Discovery’s Dirty Jobs.

The videos are noticeably low-res and feel like promotional snippets for a full show. The still shots tended to be higher quality, and there are a lot of them. The app claims more than 250 stills and three hours of video. The 3D-rendered sharks look good and include animations for swimming, pursuing, and attacking. Unfortunately, these models are mostly lifeless and fake in action, and you can only rotate them laterally, not 360 degrees.

The biggest problem with Ultimate Sharks is that there’s nothing here you can’t easily find for free on Discovery’s own website, or by doing a simple web search. The presentation is limited and lackluster, the video quality is poor, and there’s just not much here. Despite the mature rating, this is an app that will only appeal to younger viewers who still get excited for Discovery’s Shark Week, and just like looking at cool pictures of the toothy creatures.