Geodelic is a very cool and popular app (iPhone and Android OS) that touts location-aware discovery rather than local search – a nice touch! The application filters content by distance (a fix on your location is established upon start up) and presents nearby places of interest using a handy carousel UI (reminds of Yahoo! mobile) enabling the user to filter results by category – coffee shops, travel, restaurants, movies, video shops etc…
Using the carousel, if I select entertainment as a filter option I’m presented with details of movie houses and rental shops. As a sample, I see that Blockbuster Video is 6.8 miles away from me. Clicking on the icon takes me to a detailed listing of the shop along with reviews, location, and contact information (provided via Yelp I believe). Back to the navigation, I can easily switch from carousel view to a map view (showing all locations with push pins on Google Maps), or a list view (sorted by distance). Routing capabilities are also provided although it still bothers me when I select an option like “routing” and it kicks me out of the app.. ie. you have to relaunch to go back to search, regardless still very useful.
Other functionality and features:
- Once-click search
- enhanced location detection
- learns what you like and builds your profile
- integration of Open Table for reservations
I’ve tested many local search apps and this one is excellent – note, I’ve tested the app on iPhone 3G S. See Geodelic.com or @Geodelic on Twitter.