Explore your locale with Travel Channel GO for iPhone
By Will Park on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 9:03 PM PST In Announcements, Apple, Applications, Palm OS, Services, Symbian, Windows Mobile, iPhone, iPhone OS
There’s nothing worse than being stuck at home asking that dreaded question of your significant other – “What should we do today/tonight?”
To help ease the brain-racking search for new and fun things to do in your area, the Travel Channel is bringing their travel-expertise to the mobile space. Travel Channel GO is a web-app that puts the power of the Travel Channel’s worldly knowledge in the palm (NSDQ: PALM) of your, well iPhone.
Find out about food, nightlife, shopping, and events in your area (or while on vacation), as well as the Travel Channel’s “Top Picks” – complete with maps to get you to where you want to go. Or, if you’re a bit more certain about the type of adventure you want to partake in, Travel Channel GO offers a search feature to quickly bring up all relevant events/places near you.
The new Travel Channel GO interface has been optimized with sliding-panel graphics for your iPhone. And, with the iPhone 3G on the way, we’re sure Travel Channel Go will be a hit for some time to come.
But, that doesn’t mean the Travel Channel has left other mobile platforms out in the cold. The entire gamut of major mobile platforms is covered – Windows Mobile, Mac OS, Palm OS, S60, BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM).
Simply point your mobile phone’s browser to go.travelchannel.com, and you’ll be offered a choice of mobile applications or web-applications depending on the mobile platform you’re currently using.
I am soo looking forward. It has been sold out in UK. I was willing to fly to London from Portugal to get it, well I guess in couple of months…..
My Review of Travel Channel GO.
Goods:
- Very detailed list and wide range of items on the Explore button.
- I like how the food selections in places to eat are broken out in many types and showed pretty much every local business, no matter how small.
- “Show nearest on map” is a great function to quickly narrow down the closest target.
- “Free WiFi” list is complete with business name, however, it’s displayed on a non-scalable map, and numbering doesn’t match list, although I assumed #1 on the map was the first on the list.
Bads:
- Maps are not resizable like Google Maps, and only sometimes show the business, not me and the business so I know where to go.
- The Directions page was quick, but it was one-third directions, two-thirds commercial from Walgreens or other sponsors. Hard to believe the Travel Channel needs to subsidize this project with a sponsor. “Information provided by Citysearch”. Get rid of the 2 page commercials, please.
- Once I connected to my home wifi and did a find-me by “internet connection”, it correctly found my location. However, earlier in the day while out and about, I got either Los Angeles, Sunnyvale, or Costa Mesa CA, although I was well connected to various wifi’s, including an Apple Store.
- Checked “Business Travel” then ATM’s, and it showed 6 in my area. However, it was a generic label of “ATM” on the list, and they were numbered on the map. No way to match the list with the map unless each is checked.
- Dots on the map should be linked to what it is. So when I tap on green dot 1, it should take me to that item listing.
- Directions on the map should have a hilighted trail showing where to go that matches directions. As shown, the map is too small with only a fraction of street names.
- “Bus Stations” I thought would show bus stops and routes, but listed taxi’s, limo’s, tour buses, charters, etc. Those are good for those functions, but please add a city bus route button with maps for the bus stops and timetables.
This app has great potential, but needs some serious fine-tuning. I look forward to using it regularly when it’s tightened up.