Consumer Reports has launched an iPhone app. In the abstract this makes a lot of sense and would be welcome by mobile consumers. 

When I discovered the app I wondered how much information it would give away -- Consumer Reports is a subscription-based business. After loading and examining the app I can say that it offers some valuable information but is generally not useful.

You'd ideally want to be able to search for products and product categories and get ratings in the store. However, there is no search capability; and out of a fear of cannibalizing its subscription business Consumer Reports has not provided any easy-to-find ratings information.

Instead what you get are "roundup" style articles and narrative reviews of products (e.g., the BlackBerry Storm) in a number of general categories. But, importantly, you don't get ratings or buying recommendations among competitive products. 

When you click/select some of the links in articles you're taken to the main site and asked to sign in (which requires a subscription). This represents a frustrating user experience and probably won't be highly used. if Consumer Reports is really going to get any mileage (other than PR) out of mobile, it will have to consider changing its model and/or giving some of its ratings information away. 

I would suggest a one-time fee (<$10) for the mobile app that perhaps doesn't offer quite as much to the end user as a full subscription but provides more useful data (together with search and ratings) than this app offers currrently.