Ulster Savings Bank

It takes several attempts to get checks to deposit on app. It’s terrible.

I had high hopes for this app for various reasons, but it did not live up to my expectations. The app is typical of local bank apps in that it feels janky in a corporate way—it doesn’t feel like it was developed as a native app and is probably a skinned version of a software package that Ulster SB has no control over. In other words, it doesn’t feel like someone who really loves and appreciates both the iOS platform and the bank itself had a hand in ensuring a premium experience. Here are two gripes which each would earn another star from me were they to be fixed: 1). The login does not properly integrate with iCloud Keychain. Apple provides APIs to app developers so that inside of a native app, keychain autofill can use credentials saved from the organization’s web login in Safari. The user can still manually find their web credential (though they have to know to look for an unfamiliar domain name), but this is a tedious process and is not the seamless experience Apple has provided for with their APIs. 2). The checking mobile deposit does not autofocus properly. I have seen this in a variety of apps and I suspect it is because the camera integration is rarely tested with devices that have macro lenses. Again, the root cause is an improper use of iOS platform APIs. The check scanner is fixed to a single lens and does not allow the system to switch to a macro lens if one is available. On my device, that means if I move the device close enough to the check for it to fill the green brackets, it is unreadably out of focus because the lens it is locked to cannot focus at that distance. In the native camera app, or with a better integration, the camera would automatically switch to the macro lens at that distance. This creates a frustrating experience for the user especially if they expect they can “tap to focus” like they do in most camera apps; this will of course capture the out-of-focus image and force the user to try again. The user must then draw the device away from the check until it appears to be within the focusing range of the fixed lens, which is difficult to discern because the image appears smaller on the screen at that distance. Many competing apps run algorithms on-device to assess when the check is in frame and in focus and capture the image automatically instead of requiring the user to manually tap to capture.

Took forever