App Aims: Reviews and Directions to Local Hotspots
Reviewer’s Comments
A good rule of thumb says the locals know the best businesses to patronize in their hometowns. A travel guide is a handy thing to have for travelers and residents alike, but those tend to focus on big cities and are written by individuals who may be a little too remote. So how does a person connect with those informed locals? Yelp filled that void with their internet community of “regular Joe” reviewers who are passionate about their corner of the world and love to talk about it. The whole community, called “Yelpers”, is based on the concept of word-of-mouth advertising but it takes it to a new level with potential reviewers in every city and town. It only made sense to bring Yelping to the mobile world of the iPhone. Now Yelp brings that community to the iPhone with their own app.
Yelp’s features include:
- Search for businesses near you using the iPhone’s built-in location finder
- Browse reviews
- Quick links to bars, cafes, restaurants, banks, gas and service stations, and drugstores
- Quick list of nearby “Hot on Yelp” businesses
- Look up addresses and phone numbers
- Detailed list of information by tapping the image of the particular business
- Narrow Searches by neighborhood, distance, price, and what’s open now
Yelp on the iPhone is a pretty complete package. It only lacks a few things including the ability to add reviews using the phone, which would be helpful if you’re sitting in a restaurant, or another establishment, and want to post a review immediately, but, for now, you can always access Yelp’s website through Safari and write a review that way. You are also unable to input a zip code and search in areas other than the one you’re currently in, which is inconvenient when you want to check the reviews in another city outside of the maximum 20-mile search radius.
Overall, the interface is intuitive and easy to follow. The only strike against it is the Details list isn’t very intuitive. During the review testing, it only popped up when the image of the business was accidentally tapped.
The overall look and feel of this app is completely “Yelp” style. The intense red background and lighthearted logo are well done without being overwhelming.
This is a well-written, stable program. Throughout the review period, it ran reliably without crashing.
Yelp’s support is found online on their webpage under a “Contact Us” link, which brings up an email form when you select a support topic. This is support for both the Yelp online presence as well as the iPhone app. It would be best to specify that you’re using the iPhone Yelp app in any correspondence.
Yelp is a free download from Apple’s iTunes App Store and that’s a steal considering the amount of information it puts at your fingertips.
Yelp is a handy reference tool on the internet and the mobile version puts all of that information at your fingertips at any time and in any place. This is a polished app that delivers a lot and it’s free to boot. It’s well worth the time and effort to install it on your iPhone or iPod Touch and become familiar with all it has to offer. You’ll soon be yelping like a pro.
Check out our iPhone 4 review, music and movie download reviews as well as our other App reviews to help you get the most out of your iPhone.
