Ever since the site launched in 2009, Kickstarter has been radically transforming individuals' and small businesses' ability to get their pet projects off the ground. The site took the concept of crowdsourced funding mainstream. No more begging venture capitalists for money. No more changing the business plan to suit what VCs want to hear. Just straight talk from creators directly to people who might potentially back them—with as little as one dollar per backer. Kickstarter has another medium for backers and creators to continue their conversation with the free Kickstarter iPhone app, the official mobile app from the company with tools for both funders and inventors.

Slick, quick, engaging, and charming, the Kickstarter iPhone app undoubtedly opens a few more doors for people with drive and a dream. As potential project funders, we were drawn in through videos, bright images, and unbridled passion that exudes from the creators, whose works are showcased on little cards in the app. Meanwhile, those who post projects to Kickstarter get tools in this app to let them share their progress and keep an eye on pledges as they grow.

Finding and Funding Kickstarter Projects

To use Kickstarter for iPhone, you do need a Kickstarter account, although creating one on the spot takes little more than an email address and password, or a Facebook authentication. Downloading, installing, and logging into the free app takes mere seconds, so you can quickly start browsing all the quirky and sometimes unbelievable projects out there.

After signing up or logging in, you get right into the discovery area, where you first land on a page of staff picks. Each project appears as a little card that has a huge photo illustrating the project and a play button superimposed (although you can't watch the video just yet; click the button, and you'll move to a new page with the video). Below the image, the name of the project appears with a green progress bar showing how close the creators are to reaching their pledge goal. Additional details appear at the bottom of each card: actual amount pledged to date, target total pledges, number of backers, and how many days are left in the project's campaign to raise money.

Click on any card, and more details emerge on a new screen where you'll find that playable video summarizing the project. If you'd rather read about the project than stream a video, which isn't always ideal sans Wi-Fi, you can read about the project by tapping on the snippet of text directly below, where you can also see the city or region where the inventors are (hopefully) hard at work. Continue scrolling, and you'll see the number of comments on the project (which open in another page), number of updates from the creators (which also open in another page), an Additional Details link, and then a list of options for the different level of contribution and what each pledge level will award you as a backer.

Ways to Browse for Projects

As casual Kickstarter users, we love exploring potential projects by theme: art, comics, dance, design, fashion, food, and so on, with their own subcategories as well. Staff Picks turned up some interesting content across the various themes, as did the Popular filter. Another way to explore is the Favorites button, for all the project cards you mark with a star.

The redesigned interface has been slightly divisive here in the PCMag office. While the updated cards look and act much livelier, especially on the perky iPhone SE we used for testing, the way they are laid out doesn't always immediately make sense when you're trying to figure out how to navigate forward. The menus on the Kickstarter Android app are more sensible, but that app is missing key creator features included in the iPhone version, which we'll detail later.

Another nitty-gritty issue: If someone emails you a link to a Kickstarter project and you click it from your iPhone, the site launches in Safari, rather than prompting you to download the Kickstarter app, where you could potentially read about and fund the project with greater ease.

Goodies for Creators

While the app does have some tools for Kickstarter creators, it doesn't offer the complete gamut, yet. If you're not already a Kickstarter creator, there isn't an option within the app to become one. But existing creators will find some tools for helping them manage existing projects, such as notifications when new backers sign on to support their work.

The best use of the mobile app for creators is that they can post updates about their projects. A creator can share updates with written notes, as well as videos and pictures taken from their mobile devices. These capabilities bring a new and welcome level of social interaction, and maybe even intimacy, between inventors and backers.

Kickstart From Anywhere

Kickstarter for iPhone is so because the service reaches so many people who are ahead of the tech curve, people who may be mostly leaving behind their PCs and navigating the Internet exclusively via smartphone and tablet. In other words, it's not just designed to give backers and creators a new way to use Kickstarter—it could very well become the primary way many users interact with the site. Furthermore, the ability for creators to post updates from their mobile phones can greatly enhance the social nature of the service and create stronger relationships between funders and the projects they back. PCMag holds the Kickstarter for iPhone app in high regard, and gives it an Editors' Choice award for the ways in which it not only allows the Kickstarter service to go mobile, but also strengthens the connections between the people who use the service.