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Yelp update gives restaurant-goers full power to review from iPhones
In the past, users of the popular Yelp iPhone app could do just about anything on their devices that they could on the service's full website except one important thing -- leave full reviews. According to Ingrid Lunden at our sister site TechCrunch, here's how Eric Singley (VP of consumer and mobile products) responded in 2009 to a request from users to be able to leave reviews without having to resort to the desktop website: "We occasionally hear from other passionate Yelpers on why we haven't enabled review publishing from our mobile applications. There are several reasons why we do this...Well imagine what it would be like if reviews were done in SMS shorthand: 'OK so, IANAE, but AFAIC this place has THE best Cfood. It was gr8! ADBB' Um, yeah." Well, Yelp has apparently been seeing pressure from other apps that do allow users to leave detailed feedback -- apps like Foursquare, Groupon, Square and Facebook. The new update finally provides the capability, with a company spokesperson now saying that: "Having to wait until you get home to say what you think is a thing of the past – if you've had a wonderful experience, you want to shout about it there and then." Funny how competition can drive someone to change their mind, albeit slowly. Yelp has also made some significant moves recently, re-launching its "Nearby" feature that gives users suggestions about restaurants and other businesses nearby and purchasing OpenTable competitor SeatMe. Whether that's enough to nudge the business into the black is anyone's guess.
Yelp iPhone app now lets you post reviews from within, support coming soon to Android
Here's something that may surprise you: yesterday, Yelp users couldn't actually post reviews from within the company's iPhone app. Wild, right? Today's update, however, changes that, bringing it more in line with rival Foursquare. The revised iOS app, which should be hitting the App Store momentarily, will bring the feature to all users across 22 countries, and we're told that the new button for reviews will appear where the "Tips" button has sat in the past. Interestingly, Yelp intends to still hold some power over what you write -- if your "review" is deemed too brief, it could end up as a tip; thankfully, users can always go back later, add a bit more detail and have it ported over to the review side. Just remember: you can totally get sued for posting negative reviews. Womp, womp.
Yelp gobbles up SeatMe, an emerging competitor to OpenTable
Yelp just made its partnership with OpenTable very, very awkward with the announcement that it'll purchase a competing reservation service known as SeatMe for $12.7 million. The 16-person operation, based in San Francisco, runs a web and app platform that focuses on restaurants and nightlife activities. According to TechCrunch, SeatMe sent an email to its current customers in the wake of the announcement, with a promise that the service will continue operation. Meanwhile, Yelp is positioning the acquisition as a compliment to its existing offerings, which suggests that the company may bide its time before re-evaluating its partnership with OpenTable. If anything, it looks like Yelp's getting very serious about reservations and appointment bookings, and that could mean a more convenient future for you.
Yelp update for iOS adds ability to order food from within app
Yelp today issued an update to its iOS app that now enables users to order food from within the Yelp app itself. The feature, however, isn't yet live in every city and will be starting out in San Francisco exclusively before rolling out to additional locations in the coming weeks. So while most folks won't be able to take advantage of the new functionality just yet, Yelp clearly has ambitions to be more than a stop-and-go review site. Venture Beat reports: Yelp is rolling out a new delivery feature so consumers can not only browse for food, but order it as well. Along the lines of its Open Table partnership, Yelp will partner with local delivery services so that customers don't have to leave Yelp to place orders. Yelp will take care of the entire ordering and checkout experience, and process the payments. All in all, Yelp's new feature is a logical evolution for the mobile app. The full changelog reads: New in 6.9.1: • Reading that review making you hungry? Well, you can now order delicious meals without ever leaving the Yelp app! We'll be rolling this out to more locations in the coming weeks, so check for the "Order Pickup or Delivery" button on your favorite local restaurants. As a final point of interest, Yelp says it receives about 102 million unique visitors per month with about 10 million of those visitors accessing the service from a mobile app.
Yelp Platform offers takeout orders, salon and dentist appointments to follow
Well Seamless, it looks like Yelp will see your online food orders and raise you a trip to the yoga studio to burn off that bean burrito. Today the online repository of business reviews launched Yelp Platform, an online transaction system that will let customers order meals and book appointments through partner sites like Delivery.com, Eat24, Booker and Demandforce. At launch only a select number of restaurants are supported, including Harry's Pizza Bar in New York and Layalay in San Francisco, but more will be added in the coming months as Yelp Platform is expanded to additional categories. Now you'll be able to read reviews for that greasy Mexican joint down the block (check its health inspection score while you're at it) and order the steak taco platter all from the same page. Plus, you'll be able to punch in your order both on the web (desktop or mobile) and from the iOS app. Android support should be coming shortly. Of course, this means that Yelp will have to convince restaurants to support Delivery.com and Eat24. Either that, or it'll have to learn to play nice with the newly minted Seamless-GrubHub conglomerate.
Magellan SmartGPS review: further proof your phone is the only navigator you need
When speaking with executives from the Google Maps team earlier this year at I/O, I was reminded that Maps wasn't even a product in 2004. In less than a decade, one of Google's bright ideas has completely and unabashedly transformed the entire routing industry. (Avid readers will no doubt recall this graph, depicting real moves in the stock market moments after Google Maps Navigation was first introduced.) That development, coupled with the explosion in smartphone adoption across emerged markets, has left players like Magellan in quite the predicament. It wasn't that long ago that dedicated PNDs (personal navigation devices) were the gift to get for the holiday season. And indeed, many units from Garmin in particular delighted me plenty over the years. But the reality today is that PND makers have found themselves redundant. A few have resorted to innovating on the software side and nailing down partnerships with automakers and fleet-management firms in order to keep revenue rolling in, while Magellan has opted to create a new piece of hardware. That hardware, of course, is the SmartGPS. Rather than being a standalone PND suitable for mounting on one's dash or window, the device works best when used in concert with an accompanying iPhone or Android app (sorry, Windows Phone and BlackBerry users). In essence, the company is hoping that by creating a product that extends the functionality of your smartphone, you'll be inclined to hand over $250. After a week of road tripping through the US southwest, however, I'm inclined to believe differently.%Gallery-190765%
A Mini mindset: how an automaker's Connected platform could spark a seismic shift in infotainment expectations
Mini sold some 66,000 vehicles in the United States last year, and despite being on American soil (in its current incarnation, anyway) for just 13 years, this market has quickly become its biggest. Those drawn to the brand are likely intrigued by, if not outright enamored of, its quirkiness. Mini likes to say that the company is "Not Normal," and it only takes a glance inside its cartoonish Countryman to see what that means. During a recent kickoff event to celebrate the impending launch of its Paceman model, we sought to get beneath the sheet metal and gear ratios, instead looking at the kinds of decisions that impact the marriage of automobiles and technology. Turns out, Johnly Velasquez and Chris Potgieter -- two gentlemen in charge of determining what technology ends up in Mini products -- were more than happy to discuss those nuances. In particular, we discussed how those details relate to the future of its Connected platform, the role that infotainment plays in its entire range of motorcars and the opportunities that lie ahead for Mini to embrace alternative power. Could Mini's prioritization of technology as a pillar of automotive manufacturing influence the entire industry? That's exactly what we'll explore just beyond the break.
Yelp adding hygiene ratings to New York and San Francisco restaurant listings
Yelp is great for sizing up unvisited eateries, and soon some users will be able to complement review results with a side of hygiene inspection ratings. "Health Scores" will be added to listings in New York and San Francisco over the next few weeks, with Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago next in line. The most recent rating will show up on the restaurant hub, but go deeper and you'll find a history of recent inspections, including notes on any violations. A "new open data standard" called LIVES (Local Inspector Value-entry Specification) is behind the feature, allowing local authorities to add inspection outcomes straight into Yelp. We're sure users will appreciate the extra info when scoping out new places, or even checking up on old favorites -- but they might not like what they find. One example restaurant linked in Yelp's blog post has a Health Score of 92 out of 100, which sounds all good until you see one of the most recent violations was due to "Rodents / Roaches / Flies / Other Animals." Tasty!
Magellan's smartGPS navigator has built-in Yelp reviews, syncs with your phone (video)
It's no secret that the GPS business has faced an uphill battle these past few years. Thanks to smartphones there's less of a reason to invest in a standalone navigator, and while GPS companies have been selling mapping apps of their own, that doesn't quite make up for plunging device sales, now does it? Well, Magellan has an interesting solution: the firm just announced the smartGPS, a dashboard navigation device that's designed to work in tandem with an iOS / Android app. Naturally, both the smartGPS and the app have turn-by-turn navigation, so you can use either when you're in need of directions. But really, the device does so much more than that. Thanks to Magellan's new cloud service, all of your data -- recent destinations, etc. -- will get pushed across your various devices, including the navigator and mobile devices with the mobile app installed. (There's also a website where you can manage all of this.) By default, this syncing happens over your home WiFi network, but if you already left the house and are out of range, the smartGPS will instead use Bluetooth to talk to your phone. So what does this all mean? For starters, if you search for a restaurant on your phone, you can send it to your navigator so that you don't have to enter the address manually (and we all know how annoying that is). What's more, the navigator and app both have Yelp reviews and Foursquare offers built in, so if you wanted you could peruse reviews of cafes on your phone and then push the directions to the device. As an aside, it's neat to see user reviews built into a personal navigator, which isn't exactly a typical feature. It also seems pretty well-implemented: there are big, yellow stars indicating the overall rating, so you needn't worry about having to drive and read a two-paragraph write-up at the same time. By default, the driving map takes up the whole screen, so you can keep those Foursquare offers hidden if you find them distracting. The smartGPS will be available in March (price TBA) with applications for both iOS and Android. (Note: these won't take the place of Magellan's existing apps.) Turn-by-turn navigation will be a premium feature -- an in-app upgrade. That's all she wrote for now, but if you want to see the whole setup in action, we've got a demo video embedded just after the break. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
Yelp for Android gets updated with Yelp Talk, new action bar UI
Yelp on Android has reached version 3.7, and it's gotten a little more social with the addition of Yelp Talk. Now, users can discuss whatever their recommendation-seeking hearts desire by starting and replying to threads. In addition, a fresh action bar UI element has been added to the app's navigation, and users who're the first to add a tip for a business will now receive a "First to Tip" commendation. To round out the update, the folks at Yelp have gussied up their logo with a hint of holiday cheer. Hit the bordering source link for the download.
This Is the Modem World: Review Sites Are Broken
Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology. I'm about to walk into my favorite restaurant in the world. The food is yummy, healthy and fits my budget. The staff knows my name and rarely has to ask how I'd like something served. And the location couldn't be better. It's the perfect place. But before I can pass the threshold to nosh nirvana, a stranger on his way out gives me a sideways glance and whispers, "This place is horrible. Don't bother." This place? My place? The best restaurant on earth? How can this be? Perhaps something has changed. Did the chef leave? Is the cute hostess gone? Have I been wrong this whole time? But I have faith. I follow through, and the best restaurant in the world is still just that, just as I remembered.
How Yelp's flaws affect Apple Maps
It's been clear from the start that Apple Maps isn't perfect. In fact, in some instances it's proven to be downright broken. And while the blame ultimately lies at Apple's feet, it turns out that you -- yes, you -- might have played a roll in the new app's less-than-stellar debut. You see, Apple Maps relies on data from Yelp for location information on certain businesses, and Yelp relies on everyday users to provide that data. Google also leans on crowdsourced data to flesh out its location services, but as Dave Greenbaum of GigaOM points out, details about a business location on Google Maps must be confirmed by the owner of that business before it becomes gospel. Yelp doesn't have such a safeguard, which is why at times a store might actually be located across the street -- or across town -- from where it appears on Apple Maps. Yelp relies on its local community managers to ensure that duplicate entries for venues are promptly deleted and to help sculpt the user-created information into an accurate picture of each city. Unfortunately, much of the information appears to be too inaccurate to be considered reliable, especially in locations without a vibrant Yelp userbase. Apple's official stance on the app's issues is that the service will continue to improve as more users jump on board. However, it's going to be tough to convince most consumers that it's their responsibility to fix a broken system rather than be able to rely on it from the start.
Yelp's new picture-heavy menus give you a better look at that Baby Back Rib Tickler
Needless to say, we're all well aware of Yelp's popularity amongst people who love a thing or two about visiting restaurants and, in turn, eating some good ol' food. And while the service could be considered relatively great as is, it never hurts to see a few new features added here and there -- especially one as useful as the new "Explore the Menu," which is made possible by everyday users like yourself. The newfangled menu system will allow folks to upload pictures of any grub item they've tried at frequented restaurants, making it easier for future goers to have a slight idea of what to expect should they be interested in trying a particular dish from one of the many places listed within Yelp. The novel menu pages will be rolling out to business pages today in the US, with Yelp noting that this will be the "first time ever" it's simultaneously launching a fresh service across its OG site, mobile website and applications.
iPhone 5 / iOS 6 app update roundup: new versions for a taller world
Call it a hunch, but we suspect that at least a few of you picked up an iPhone 5 today, or at least made the leap to iOS 6. If you're in either position, you may be wondering just what apps to feed Apple's flagship (or that fresh new firmware) once it's ready to go. We've got a quick-hit list of titles that have been updated to take advantage of the tall display and new OS that go beyond Apple's own work. The biggest upgrades of the lot come from keynote darling CNN as well as Flipboard: both have done more than add extra columns on the iPhone 5, offering an interface you won't see on any mere 3.5-inch iPhone. Some bread-and-butter apps have made the launch week cut as well, such as Facebook and Twitter. There's even more if you're willing to dig deep. Third-party Twitter client Tweetbot beat the official app to the punch by days, and we've likewise spotted updates to Evernote, its rival Remember the Milk and Yelp. We know some apps aren't fully iPhone 5- or iOS 6-native -- Instagram, for example, and most anything from Google -- but it's apparent that the holdouts are increasingly the exception, rather than the rule. Did you catch any other noteworthy apps that received a boost in recent hours? Let fellow owners know in the comments. CNN - App Store Evernote - App Store Facebook - App Store Flipboard - App Store Kindle - App Store Pulse - App Store Remember the Milk - App Store Tweetbot - App Store Twitter - App Store Yelp - App Store
A report of poor Maps performance in iOS 6 gold master
iPhone owners looking forward to the new Maps application in iOS 6 might be disappointed when they try to search for points of interest, says Josh Carr, former TUAW writer and founder of Rocky Mountain Mac Repair. Like many developers and enthusiasts, Carr installed the Gold Master version of iOS 6 when it was released last week. He quickly discovered that search within the app has radically changed, and it isn't for the better. Carr points out that previous versions of Maps used Google for its mapping data and all its points of interest. Consequently, a keyword search for a business or a restaurant would pull up of dozens of local business names and points of interest for each search term. This robust, Google-powered keyword search is gone in iOS 6 and has been replaced by Yelp. Not only are you limited to Yelp's database, which is not as extensive as Google's, you also have to search using the exact wording of the Yelp category. Carr says that iOS 6 Maps app is "a tremendous step backwards and something that cripples iOS for Apple's customers." You can read more about his experience with iOS 6 Maps on Rocky Mountain Mac Repair's website.
iOS 6: On partners and partings, sources and sinks, and the dreaded word "open" [Updated]
At yesterday's keynote to the 2012 WWDC conference, Apple made a number of simultaneous moves in its global chess game with partners and rivals. Let's try and unpack what we can of Apple's overall strategy by analyzing the tactical choices it has made. The biggest loser from yesterday's announcement, clearly, was Google: the new Maps app will bite into Google's traffic and revenues. Mobile is a huge growth area for search, and "where am I and what is near me" is clearly a crucial part of that. Make no mistakes, though: this isn't a black-and-white win for users. Cartography is a complex area and the devil is in the details: the quality of realtime traffic monitoring (which Apple apparently intends to crowdsource), the up-to-dateness of road layouts, the speed of the pathfinding algorithm. Apple has much to prove here, even with the cooperation of license provider TomTom. The current beta of Maps in iOS 6 loses Street View as well as public transport and on-foot routing support, all of which Apple has presumably been unable to source alternative partners for (yet). Apple claims that public transport will be added later, according to Macworld editor Dan Frakes, although we don't know if "later" means before or after iOS 6 launches in the fall. Update: according to several commenters below, walking directions are indeed present in the beta iOS 6 Maps app. As I am not in the developer program (and hence not under NDA), I couldn't check that for myself. Street View could be more problematic for Apple, though, as Google clearly owns all the data outright. This is, of course, why Google spent so much money outfitting cars and even backpacks with expensive cameras. It remains to be seen how much users will care about this. I fully expect a Google Maps app to appear in the iOS App Store, too, so the users who do care will have something to fall back on; albeit something that isn't at such an advantageous position within the OS (more on that in a second). Moving away from Google as the sole provider of geocoding on iOS also means that developers won't be bound by the separate Google Maps API agreement when their apps use location services and display maps. Oh, and neither the 3D "Flyover" view or turn-by-turn directions will be available to iPhone 4 users (it's in the small print at the bottom), although users of the iPhone 4 and 3GS will maintain their free and paid options for TBT wayfinding. This is another part of the reason I expect Apple to approve any Google Maps app from Google directly -- to mollify any users who miss the old features. You'd be forgiven for thinking that makers of third-party satnav apps like Garmin were obvious losers too, particularly based on the chat I saw on Twitter during the event, but that remains to be seen (and Garmin gave TUAW a predictably bullish statement). As long as I'm driving places without 3G coverage -- quite common in rural Wales, which I drive through quite often -- or travel to countries where I cannot afford swingeing roaming data charges -- which is all of them! -- there'll be room on my iPhone for a satellite navigation system that stores maps offline and doesn't rely on a data connection. I suspect I am not alone in this (although Dave Chartier of AgileBits thinks I'm in a minority), which suggests satnav app makers like Garmin, Navigon and TomTom will still have a market, albeit perhaps a shrunken one. I've seen a few comments along the lines of "of course Apple cut Google out; Apple doesn't like to depend on others" but that line of reasoning ignores that there were also winners in the keynote. Siri has been upgraded, offering deeper integration with Yelp, as well as new links to display results from Rotten Tomatoes, OpenTable, and a whole heap of sports data from a currently undisclosed partner or partners. The new Maps app pulls in data from TomTom as well as, no doubt, other suppliers; world-wide coverage for maps, satellite views and traffic data would be logistically tough for even a company as rich as Apple to assemble alone. So what we see, then, is an Apple that is picking and choosing which companies it works with. It elevates some to premium positions within the OS, whilst demoting others to the comparative hinterlands of an unprivileged App Store app. Why does this matter? What is Google so scared of here that it invested heavily in an entire mobile OS and then (more or less) gave it away to counter? It's all about Siri, which is the pivot all this turns around, but not for the reasons you might think. It's nothing at all to do with the voice support. The importance of data sinks to iOS As a computer scientist, I was trained to think about data flow through systems in terms of sources and sinks. The source is where the actual search query comes from; in the case of a web search entered into the mobile or desktop version of Safari, for example, it's the search box the user types in. The sink is where the search query is consumed and processed; Google, say, or Bing. Then the search results reverse the flow: the search engine becomes the source, and the web browser's content pane becomes the sink. We're not concerned with this secondary step here, however. Traditionally, ever since web search boxes appeared in browsers, users have been able to select their own sinks. Safari bucks this trend a little by only offering a restricted selection of Google, Bing or Yahoo! on both mobile and desktop (although there are extensions for desktop Safari that address this). Chrome and Firefox, however, allow users to add any search engine they like. This is good for smaller search players like DuckDuckGo, as it elevates them onto a level playing field with the likes of Google. It also means users can write custom searches for, say, Amazon Kindle book titles in one step. There's a lot of flexibility here for users and site owners. I'd argue that this democracy, this absence of hierarchy, was an essential part of the early success story of the web, too -- that any blogger with a domain name was, in a sense, on a par with the largest media organisations in the world. iOS doesn't offer this flexibility. Mobile Safari has only the three options on offer, the user can't install any extensions to change that behaviour, and custom web browsers from the App Store are second-class citizens on iOS because all web links in other apps will always fall back to Safari. This makes a search engine's presence in that little list in the Settings app really important to its viability on iOS -- which, if we really are moving to a "post-PC world", is really important to its viability overall. Sources and sinks: beyond web search The obvious other source to consider in iOS today is Siri. The importance of Siri is that is aggregates multiple search engines together, but the user cannot choose which ones; Siri itself selects based on the type of query. So restaurant searches automatically go to Yelp, navigation requests to Maps, general factual lookup to Wolfram Alpha, and so on. TripAdvisor, Navigon, and DuckDuckGo are out in the cold because the list of possible sinks is baked into iOS. This makes Apple a kingmaker in terms of iOS user's web traffic; it can (and just did) cut off longstanding "obvious" choices like Google from vast chunks of traffic whenever it wants. Siri puts lower-rung options like Yelp on an equal or higher footing than Google's search. This is what Google is scared of. This is why Android exists -- it's an attempt to keep Apple honest. This is also why Google gives Android away -- it doesn't need to make money on Android itself, it only needs it to have a significant enough installed base to use as a lever against Apple. It's a moat, not a castle. We can only guess at the terms these partner firms agreed to to get a privileged place on the largest (by traffic) mobile platform. It seems safe to assume Apple secured a good deal for itself, though, and likely applied the same hardball bargaining to its software partners as it does in negotiations with hardware component suppliers. It reminds me of the famous adage that a deal with Walmart can be the best and worst thing a small farmer can do -- the farmer get exposure to a massive market, but at terms strictly dictated by a powerful entity that doesn't have the farm's best interests at heart. This is the commercial argument as to why we might never see the mooted Siri API. There are technical arguments, too; the level of integration Siri demands makes it hard for third parties to integrate to without risking the slickness of the end product. But technical difficulties are always resolved over time. My weak hunch is the commercial argument is strong within Apple, and it's unlikely that Apple will relinquish absolute control over Siri anytime soon; I certainly don't think we'll see it before iOS 7 at the earliest, now, and (I contest) we might never see it. Like the iron grip Apple has over the App Store, this control brings power of significant strategic value, and I imagine it's loath to give that up. That all sounds rather negative. I should note that this is, generally, what's best for iOS users. Arguably the single biggest factor in Apple's rise to strength over the last decade or so has been its impeccable taste -- its sense of what people want to see. Siri's deep integration into various search providers is key to it working as well as it does. Still, I find it hard not to be concerned about the distorting affects Apple's concentrated power might have on the online services market in all sorts of segments. So far, Apple has handed out competitive advantages to chosen partners in social (more on that in the next section), search, mapping, restaurants, and cinema bookings. Who knows which ones come next? Sources and sinks: the post-PC play Factory-standard iOS is strongly sandboxed, meaning that applications have very few opportunities to bridge data or settings between themselves. One app can't open a file saved from another; the only way to move data around is copy/paste (text and images) or the Camera Roll (images only). This makes the built-into-the-OS services even more important than they would be otherwise, because they are easily the smoothest path a user can choose to move data from source to sink. As with Siri, though, Apple has absolutely control over these. Tumblr, for instance, cannot offer the user a "post this link" option via the action button in Mobile Safari. Only services blessed by Apple get into the default sharing options, which is why Twitter and soon Facebook get a competitive advantage over other social networks. Users who prefer more obscure sites -- don't forget about the fans of Google+! -- are left out in the cold. Users can work around this, of course, but it inevitably feels clunky. To share a link on Twitter on my iPhone 4: tap Share, tap Tweet (slight pause, there, probably because of my older iPhone), and enter some optional commentary. To share on Tumblr (assuming I'm not posting by email): tap and hold Address Bar, pause for the menu to appear, tap "select all," pause for menu, tap "copy" and hit Home. Locate Tumblr app, load it up, select Post, select Link, tap and hold on URL field, pause for menu, select "paste" -- and now I can write some commentary if I want. Like I said, clunky, comparatively speaking. This isn't just for social network sharing, either. It's inherently easier to add a web page to Safari's built-in Reading List than it is to put it in competing apps like Instapaper or Pocket. Apps can work around the limitations, to some extent. For example, Tumblr offers a Javascript bookmarklet that accomplishes the same task, as does Instapaper -- although Tumblr's one uses popup windows so it doesn't work very well on iOS. One can also post to Tumblr by email, but that's neither as obvious nor as accessible; the process for adding tags to posts isn't very discoverable, for example. Apps can also pass data around via URL schemes but only if the data sending app is explicitly programmed to connect to a specific receiver app. Apple could, of course, release an API for this, and allow users to permit apps to add themselves to the Sharing menu. It could also add a "default app" bit in Settings to allow, say, all web links to be opened in iCab, or all mail links in Sparrow. Calls for these things to be added into iOS date all the way back to the birth of the App Store but we're yet to see it. It's perhaps something Apple simply hasn't gotten around to yet, or -- and this is just baseless speculation on my part -- maybe something it's not planning on doing. As with Siri, this is an aspect of iOS that puts Apple into an enviable kingmaker position, and maybe Apple wants to hang on to that control. (It's very possible Apple will make an announcement in the future that makes me look stupid for saying that, but hey: nothing ventured, nothing gained.) I'd argue this is somewhat more toxic to at least some users than the Siri thing, though. This lack of flexibility, of control, of (dare I say it...) openness feels significant to me when I ponder the idea of using an iPad for the majority of my computing tasks. I suppose, in a way, my iPad never really feels like mine. It's rather more like a games console for apps than a computer, which is (of course) a well-worn simile. This makes me feel uneasy. I must accept, however, that I am a curmudgeon in these regards -- I've been using computers for almost three decades and I came to OS X after a long spell of using Linux as my primary desktop OS. I like lots of control over my environment. I frequently feel like iOS's limitations get in my way. I miss Alfred and the Services menu and having lots of windows open at once. However, I don't think my feelings on this matter represent those of the majority, and therefore I don't think they spell any sort of doom for the idea that the iPad is the post-PC future of computing. (I do see problems that I believe stand in the way of the mainstream user moving to iPad, particularly for work rather than play; but that's a subject for another day and another overlong post.) Wrap up As our own Dave Caolo said, "Begun, these map wars have." Apple's announcements, in aggregate, speak to me of a company positioning itself strongly against Google -- and unafraid to align itself with numerous smaller partners to do so. I would prefer to see Apple to move to an iOS model that allows more user configuration of the wiring from source to sink, but that doesn't seem to be on the cards. It's possible that it may surprise us with some extra features when iOS 6 is formally released but that seems unlikely to me because such features would only work with developer support, so WWDC would have been the perfect time to announce them. As we're entering iOS's sixth major iteration without these customization options, I think there's some reason to believe that such openness is simply not part of Apple's plan for the platform. That weakens it a little bit, in my eyes; but many will disagree. Photo by Lori C. | flickr cc
Foursquare 5.0 hands-on
Foursquare just posted its promised mobile app overhaul this morning, and it's a doozy: virtually everything in 5.0 has been given a fresh look or, in some cases, a complete rethink. The changes are, ideally, to goad us into using Foursquare to find places to visit, not just to check in after we're already past the front door. But is Foursquare pushing too hard? Will mayors want to resign in protest? We're digging in to find out. %Gallery-157474%
Daily Update for March 21, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Siri Yelps a bit louder with iOS 5.1
One of Siri's more convenient features has always been its integration with Yelp, the business-rating social website. When Siri first showed up in October, a query about finding restaurants or other nearby businesses would give you a response showing a listing by either Yelp ranking or distance. However, tapping a listing wouldn't take you to Yelp to check out comments by others about the business. Now the Yelp Official Blog reports that iOS 5.1 adds even more powerful integration between Siri and Yelp. The responses from Siri now list those Yelp-ranked businesses, and a tap on the star rating transports you directly to the Yelp business profile page. That page supplies review highlights, hours of operation, the address, phone number, and more information than Siri can shake a virtual stick at. While this is an improvement, I'm still waiting for the day when I can ask Siri about a specific restaurant and get a verbal response like this one from fellow TUAW blogger Dave Caolo: "Siri, should I eat at this restaurant?" Siri's response: "Do you have Imodium at home?" or "Pfft. It's your money!" Yelp has helpfully provided a video showing how the new integration with Siri works. Enjoy it while you eat lunch at that greasy spoon diner down the street. [via Gadgetsteria]
Mercedes-Benz intros mbrace2 at CES, brings apps to the car
Here at Mercedes-Benz's CES keynote (its first), the creator of the automobile just unveiled the successor to its telematics system: mbrace2. This second generation builds upon last year's release, focusing heavily on adding social media into the mix with app support like Twitter, Facebook and Yelp via a smartphone interconnect -- much in the vein of BMW Apps and Ford SYNC AppLink. Rolling out first in the 2013 SL and later eventually to all US models, CEO Dieter Zetsche also mentioned it'll update itself, as lets face it, visits to the dealer just for new features isn't pleasant nor speedy. Stay tuned for a hands-on from the show floor in a few. Joe Pollicino contributed to this report.
