Kaleidoscope

Spot the difference

With Kaleidoscope, the app’s almost as important for what it represents as what it does. This is a filecomparison app with a razorsharp focus, geared towards productivity. In other words, it’s the kind of thing you’d expect on a Mac, not an iPad.

In fact, Kaleidoscope does exist on the Mac. For $70, it rapidly enables you to compare two text documents, a pair of folders, or a couple of images. It’s fast, efficient, stable, and very much geared towards the power user. On iPad, it tries to do the same, although ends up coming off second-best.

This isn’t initially apparent, especially not when working with text files. Throw a couple of TXT, DOC, HTML or code documents at it, and you can quickly spot differences in a two-up or unified view. The app also supports Split View, which is just as well, given that it lacks the text merge that’s part of the Mac version.

With images, everything suddenly feels fiddly. You get a number of viewing options — an A/B switch; a two-up scrolling view; a split view with a sliding bar — and all do the job. But the A/B view has small buttons and the split view’s slider has drag handles that work independently, so you can’t swipe it back and forth across the image with a finger. It would be good to be able to “lock” the handles in place.

When it comes to folders, import appears to be an issue. Drop a couple of text files on Kaleidoscope and you’re comparing them almost instantly. Open a couple of web archives, and the app appears to seize up. You’ll have more success if you reduce folders to a dozen items each, but even then import can take several minutes. However, the app clearly indicates files that have changed or are unmatched, and double-tapping a file opens it and its twin for comparison.

There’s ambition here, not only regarding the app but also the iPad. Kaleidoscope is also a good iOS 11 citizen, usable and useful. Just be aware of its limitations, and be sure to put it through its paces during the two-week free trial.

The bottom line. A solid but occasionally flawed app for comparing files on iPad. Craig Grannell

Kaleidoscope is at its best when you’re working with a couple of text documents.

With images, Kaleidoscope’s controls are sometimes fiddly.