Mobile

What’s VEON all about: An in-depth review of the application

VEON, the connectivity application, was launched merely a month ago in Pakistan by Jazz. Since then, the application has already made a lot of buzz and people seem to have been downloading it and using it a lot. Realizing that this application might be a major up and coming internet forum, TechJuice decided to review this application for its audience. So, follow along as we describe to you that what this hype is actually about.

Generally speaking, VEON is a connectivity application which aims at becoming a comprehensive internet infotainment and utility application down the line. Right now, the application is giving its user the option to connect with the other users and communicate using free messaging and call services. Apart from that the users can also follow different publishers and read articles online.

The parent company to this application claims that once fully developed and deployed, this application will serve as a one-stop content discovery platform for all of its users. The application will transform from just being a connectivity application to a full-scale internet content aggregator, collecting data content from across the internet based on its user’s specific interests. Using this application, the users will be able to read articles, order taxis, book hotels and what not.

But, this all is something that we have yet to see. Right now, we will be reviewing this application as it appears on the application stores as of now.

Main features:

The application provides its users the option to

Send and Receive text messages to the other VEON contacts
Make and receive calls over the packet data
Read personalized lot of articles from news and media outlets
Get discount offers

The Good

The data is organized from different platforms at one forum, saves time
Application personalization for the user’s preferences is good
The VEON’s share of packet data is completely free if accessing through Jazz network

The Bad

Very slow startup
Visually not sound
User Interface very immature
Jack of all trades and master of none. Tries to do a lot without succeeding to do all of them well

First Impression:

When I first got to know about VEON and what objectives it aimed at, I was pleasantly surprised. The world of internet is very big and there is literally a very small portion of this domain which, depending upon our needs, is of interest to us. VEON aspires to gather all of that stuff at one point. Right now the application seems to be in infant stages, it provides you the options to make calls and send messages over the internet. Apart from that, you can surf through different articles and read them right at the platform.

The Interface and Design:

The user interface of VEON application is pretty simple but effective. The whole application is divided into four sections or tabs. There is a front tab which shows you a selection of recent articles which might interest you. Apart from that, the notifications are also displayed in this area. The second tab gives you the option to make calls to your contacts that are present on VEON. The third tab displays your contact list. This tab is where you would find different channels and all the discoverable content. The fourth tab is a settings tab. All of the user related settings and the customization of one’s profile can be done here. The users can also see different offers which they have saved from here.

As far as the design of this application is concerned, the application comes with a very minimalistic design. The main interface isn’t cladded with too many options and all of the content is distributed evenly. This, in my opinion, is a fairly good take considering that this application has to take on a lot of data and content and merging all of that data at one forum would be one big task. All of the content on this application is downward scrollable and the application wears a Yellow theme which is home to the company VEON.

The Usage Experience:

I have been using this application for some days now and every time, especially after the RAM is cleared, the application takes time to load. Firstly this made me think that maybe, as this application has to pack a lot data, that data was being downloaded at the back-end. However, even after a very slow startup, the content on this application especially the images took their time to load on the main interface. This was one of the issues which pinched me, apart from that the application didn’t hang and the swiping was fluid. I also made a few calls and messages to my VEON contacts and these were all seamlessly connected. I wasn’t able to spot any considerable lags or hiccups.

Lack of features and users hampers the experience

Considering the scope of this application, right now it seems to be in its basic stages. VEON aims to do a lot, but the implementations for all those functionalities is half-baked to say the least. The users get the option to make calls and messages to their VEON contacts or to the brands/companies that are currently present on it. Apart from that, the users can also surf through readable content i.e different articles. Even in these domains the options you get are fairly limited. Another aspect which hampers the whole experience is lack of users. As this is a relatively new platform, I wasn’t able to find a considerable number of contacts. The number of brands and media outlets are also fairly small. So mostly it’s just you who is checking out the application and that gets boring real fast.

Offers and discounts

VEON also partnered with Daraz in their Big Friday Sales. So, there were a bunch of promotional codes and vouchers that were up for grab through VEON. Although I didn’t use any of these promotional codes, VEON says that using these codes the shoppers can get discounts on top of the other discounts that they might already be getting.

Conclusion:

The domain which this application plans to serve is a very untapped field in Pakistan waiting to be unlocked. Filtering all the data as available on internet to serve the interests of one individual will save a lot of time and hassle for that individual. However, it seems that the application has been published for general population quite ahead of time and there is considerable room as to what more options could have been added in the initial release. Right now, the application gives you the option to make and receive free calls over the internet, that too only to the contacts that are on this application. There are already a lot of dedicated applications for these that have fully developed their markets. Likewise, there are already a lot of applications which are integrating readable content from different publishers and they are also pretty established and have a lot of publishers.

In order to capture this user-base, VEON might have to introduce some big changes and options. Here I am talking about featured which aren’t currently available on the other platforms. Integrating different services at one forum could be one such option, but even then there are better alternatives out there. Will VEON be able to acquire a sizeable chunk of WhatsApp users in Pakistan? Only time will tell.