FoodSpotting
FoodSpotting is one of the leading food applications that not only rates the restaurants but also provides the ratings on dishes by various users. It is a ‘visual guide’ to good dishes and where can the customers find them. Following are some of the strengths of the application:
App Strength:
- It helps in discovering nearby dishes as per your cravings and discover which nearby restaurant offers the dish and at what price.
- It makes finding good food as a real time ‘visual’ experience and gives an experience of looking into a ‘bakery window’.
- It keeps a track of dishes that a user likes and votes up the dishes that the user tried.
- Its ‘bookmarking’ feature is amazing as it helps to quickly look at the dishes that the user had bookmarked and hides the ones that the user didn’t like.
- Its presence over social media space is strong especially on Twitter and Facebook and also its users can get loads of reviews from the other app users.
App Critics:
- FoodSpotting becomes an unintuitive app at many times as users can be seen doing a lot of things like uploading their ice-cream pictures from supermarket and so on.
- This app does not give dish by dish analysis and the Yelp feedbacks are too much to follow (Forbes, 2013).
- It does not focus only on most well-known place reviews but also captures small-time eateries that may serve some exciting food items.
- However, the pictures of different dishes are not very real as showcased on the app and often cause disappointment among the users (Telegraph, 2012).
Urbanspoon:
Urbanspoon is the no. 1 food app to find the best food and dining experience at over million restaurants. Its greatest USP is that it is used by millions of people every week for finding as well as posting honest reviews apart from food critics.
App Strength:
- This app gives an honest food review as well as the detailed review about the cuisine, restaurant and distance related information.
- Sort and map by popularity within restaurant directory.
- Easy to find restaurant menus, location, specialty, hours of operations, etc.
- It enables its users to browse photos and menu of food items and restaurants.
- Its unique option of booking a table in a particular restaurant gives it a special feel.
- It also offers an easy location change identifier which researches where to eat while the user is on the go.
App Critics:
Urbanspoon is a big ‘hit’ in the food app market and is loved for various features that it provides to its users. The only criticism that I could gather was that the app takes time to update and there are times when the users finds it difficult to update their profile pictures on the app on a regular basis.
Features: Rating: 4 by users. Users: Approximately 33,105 in numbers. Compatibility: iPhone and Android.
Forkly:
Forkly is a beautiful way to discover and share dining tastes. It shows its users a new dish around the corner, the best burger in town, or a favorite cocktail in a new city.
App Strength:
- It provides a free social media networking food app for iPhone.
- User can also build their own Forkly social media foodie network
- The most favored social media platform for Forkly is Facebook and Twitter. Also, Forkly app uses an email account authorization for added security measures.
- The Forkly iPhone app has a very smart and user friendly interface that selects and points out to many successful, user-friendly functions and services. It gives its users the convenience of navigating between their feed, discoveries, taste preferences, ratings, and profiles. It also has a single-touch menu bar that is present at the bottom of the webpage.
- With the help of a single- touch menu bar, users can access any restaurant and other related items that are featured in the Forkly app. If a user wants to find a restaurant or any particular dish, the user can see a detailed and a user friendly screen on this app.
Rating: 4.5/5. Compatible: iPhone
Apart from these food applications there are other application available such as Evernote Food, Eat 24, Grub Hub, All Recipes and Zomato. Most of these applications work in a similar fashion where users can find rate and locate the Restaurants and their dishes. Most of these food applications have a social media interface and connect its users through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Of all the food applications that are available on the internet and mobile platforms, Food spotting and Urbanspoon are the biggest and most popular. In India, Zomato is hugely popular among users.
References
Warman, M. (2012) FoodSpotting App Review. Retrieved December 06, 2014 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mobile-app-reviews/9055361/Foodspotting-app-review.html
McCue, T (2013) 8 Food Apps To Chew On. Retrieved December 06, 2014 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2013/01/04/8-food-apps-to-chew-on/
App Safari (2014) Forkly Review Retrieved December 06, 2014 from http://www.appsafari.com/social/19730/forkly/
Google Store (2014) Urban Spoon Review Retrieved December 06, 2014 from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbanspoon&hl=en
