UrbanSpoon Finds You a Place to Eat

MacRumors · Jul 19, 2008, 03:37 AM

One of the early apps in the iTunes App Store was from UrbanSpoon.com [App Store] which tries to help you answer the question: "Where should I eat?"

If you are fortunate enough to live in one of their supported North American cities or in London, then you can try their app. Almost like a slot machine, it lets you randomly choose between locations, cuisines and price ranges to find a restaurant at random. You are also allowed to "lock" any of these criteria and search on the remainder. For example, if you are specifically looking for an italian restaurant, you can lock in that option, and allow it choose the other criteria randomly. And of course, in iPhone fashion, in order to set the wheels in motion, you just give your iPhone a little shake. (Note that we've heard that the app may crash if you are not amongst the supported cities.)

A YouTube video shows the app in action.

Article Link

SFStateStudent · 04:13 AM

I'm adding as we speak...Hope they can find Michael Mina's (http://www.michaelmina.net/) in San Francisco, my favorite...Works just like an NDN casino slot machine

newyorksole · Jul 19, 2008, 09:15 AM

I added it a few days ago and love it.

Small White Car · Jul 19, 2008, 11:40 AM

I love the concept of the program. I only have two complaints:

1) It's a little buggy. I often get error messages (No more restaurants in this category) multiple times. Like, I'll close it and it will re-open again immediately for no reason.

I'm sure this will be sorted out in time, I look forward to updates.

2) The list of restaurants is a bit slim. It doesn't seem to take info from the phone book or the internet...I get the feeling they are manually entered into the program by someone.

This is good and bad. It's good because it's nice to get "real" suggestions and not just the first 10,000 McDonalds it finds. But on the other hand, it will be better once they add some more choices into it.

At any rate, both of these are problems I suspect will improve with time. I'd call it a "good" program now, but I sure hope it will become "great" after an update or two.

deannnnn · Jul 19, 2008, 12:37 PM

This app is definitely a great idea, and really fun.... but does anyone else get the same couple of restaurants over and over? I feel like there's only 10 or so in it's inventory that it just cycles through...

Peel · Jul 19, 2008, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deannnnn

This app is definitely a great idea, and really fun.... but does anyone else get the same couple of restaurants over and over? I feel like there's only 10 or so in it's inventory that it just cycles through...

It's tied to the urbanspoon website, which is a restaurant review/blog site. To see how many restaurants they have in your area, go visit their site: urbanspoon.com

Jul 19, 2008, 03:37 AM	#1
MacRumors macrumors bot Join Date: Apr 2001	UrbanSpoon Finds You a Place to Eat One of the early apps in the iTunes App Store was from UrbanSpoon.com [App Store] which tries to help you answer the question: "Where should I eat?" If you are fortunate enough to live in one of their supported North American cities or in London, then you can try their app. Almost like a slot machine, it lets you randomly choose between locations, cuisines and price ranges to find a restaurant at random. You are also allowed to "lock" any of these criteria and search on the remainder. For example, if you are specifically looking for an italian restaurant, you can lock in that option, and allow it choose the other criteria randomly. And of course, in iPhone fashion, in order to set the wheels in motion, you just give your iPhone a little shake. (Note that we've heard that the app may crash if you are not amongst the supported cities.) A YouTube video shows the app in action. Article Link

Jul 19, 2008, 03:57 AM	#2
SFStateStudent macrumors Demi-God Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: San Francisco California, USA	I'm adding as we speak...Hope they can find Michael Mina's (http://www.michaelmina.net/) in San Francisco, my favorite...Works just like an NDN casino slot machine __________________ MBP 2.5GHz 250GB Mac Pro 3G S⃣ iPhone 32GB Black Last edited by SFStateStudent : Jul 19, 2008 at 04:13 AM.

Jul 19, 2008, 12:37 PM	#5
deannnnn macrumors 6502a Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: New York City & South Florida	This app is definitely a great idea, and really fun.... but does anyone else get the same couple of restaurants over and over? I feel like there's only 10 or so in it's inventory that it just cycles through... __________________ MacBook 2.2 GHz Intel, 2 GB RAM iMac G5 20" 1.8 GHz PPC, 1.25 GB RAM iPhone 3GS 32GB

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Jul 19, 2008, 09:15 AM	#3
newyorksole macrumors 6502a Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: LongIsland/NYC	I added it a few days ago and love it.

Jul 19, 2008, 11:40 AM	#4
Small White Car macrumors 68040 Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Washington DC	I love the concept of the program. I only have two complaints: 1) It's a little buggy. I often get error messages (No more restaurants in this category) multiple times. Like, I'll close it and it will re-open again immediately for no reason. I'm sure this will be sorted out in time, I look forward to updates. 2) The list of restaurants is a bit slim. It doesn't seem to take info from the phone book or the internet...I get the feeling they are manually entered into the program by someone. This is good and bad. It's good because it's nice to get "real" suggestions and not just the first 10,000 McDonalds it finds. But on the other hand, it will be better once they add some more choices into it. At any rate, both of these are problems I suspect will improve with time. I'd call it a "good" program now, but I sure hope it will become "great" after an update or two.