I remember the very first time I reviewed any app on the App Store. We were on holiday in the Lake District, I couldn’t sleep, it was 3am and I had just found an app called Vicinity. I so clearly remember sitting on the side of the bed, using this app that showed me what was nearby. Directions to a restaurant, details of local attractions. It was so immediately impressive that I wrote a gushing review of its cleverness and was certain I’d use it daily.
I haven’t used Vicinity in years.
But only because many others came along and, I believe, Vicinity fell a little behind. I was right that I’d use something of this sort daily and I pretty much do. For about two years, though, I’ve bounced between one called Localscope and one called Where To?
Recently Where To? has been winning and so much so that it’s become the standard for me: I no longer look to see what a similar vicinity app can do, I look to see if it’s as good as Where To? So I thought this was it, I was sticking with that app and that I was done with swapping about. Only, Where To? isn’t the greatest-looking app and even though it has been updated to use iOS 7 features, it still looks oddly old. I know that looks aren’t everything and actually they shouldn’t matter, but they matter and they are everything. The sole reason I will never try replacing Reeder with Mr Reader is that I cannot bear the icon on the latter. I don’t want to see it every time I look at my iPhone or iPad.
Where To? has an icon with a US-style highway logo saying Exit (so prominently that I have to stop to think that the app is not called Exit) and that’s fine, that looks good. It’s the innards that feel just a bit old.
So when Localscope updated to iOS 7 in the last few days, I decided to try it again. I’ve replaced Where To? on my iPhone front screen with Localscope and am trying to use it exclusively.
It’s very good. It’s very slick. Also rather quick. I like very much that it shows you search results from many places. So I was looking for a particular shop for Angela and Localscope returned results from Google, Yelp, Facebook and many more, all saying the shop was 70 yards away. Actually, it says 70 vd: there’s a display fault on the results. In this case, I think having several search results returned was overkill. But then later I needed a post office and by only looking at the top result, I missed better answers below.
All results are dependent on how good the source data is and in that case, one or other of the sources was significantly poorer than the others.
So you need to keel a few sources but you can have too many. Localscope lets you switch off whatever you don’t like so I’m experimenting with what sources I do and don’t want to schlep through.
Which means I’m still playing. And I miss the old Augmented Reality feature of Localscope. I liked how you could hold your phone up and it would overlay results on the camera screen. This way to the post office. That kind of thing. According to the makers, that feature is still there but I can’t find it.
So maybe it’s not as easy or obvious to use as it was or as Where To? is but what I can see and use in it seems quicker, stronger, better than Where To? so now I’m comparing everything to Localscope.
If you haven’t already got it, Localscope is US $2.99 or UK £1.99. It’s iPhone-only, there isn’t an iPad one. Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/localscope/id409869453?mt=8
Where To? is also iPhone-only and costs the same. Link: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/where-to-discover-your-next/id314785156?mt=8
And it turns out that Vicinity is still available. Also iPhone-only, also the same price, link: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/vicinity/id284496131?mt=8