Summary
Positives
Yelp is more than an iPad app. Its a community.
Without the community supporting yelp, it wouldn’t be too useful. So what you’re essentially getting with this app, is the amazing community to receive unbiased information from people in your town or city.
Beyond the amazing community build around reviewing local businesses and restaurants, the app also has some great functionality and is very smooth in the way it operates. Overall, this a fantastic app that should be on everyones device.
Negatives
The only negative is that, like many other companies, they try to make you use the app even if you want to just use it on your browser.
For instance, if you search for a restaurant or business in google maps, and click on reviews, it redirects you to the app store to download the yelp app. If you are someone who doesn’t want to use the app (maybe you just have too many apps), this can be annoying.
If however you use the app, it is not annoying and can considered a good thing.
A Comprehensive Look at the Yelp iPad App
Lets begin by going over what the different functionalities are of this app, and how useful they are in a real life setting.
List view
One thing that sticks out about the yelp app is that you can sort by list, map, and photos. All offer different functionality for different purposes. For example, if I want to search for the best pizza place in my town, the list is the best place to sort through all the restaurants.
The list view is nice because you can search and browse by the reviews. It’s very easy to visually see all the orange stars, which are the best restaurants by how many stars they earned from the yelp community.
Using Filters
It’s also nice that it has a filter button where you can filter by the price, whether they offer pickup or delivery, the time that you’re searching if they’re open, deals, and ‘hot and new’.
You can refine your search by the distance, best match, rating or most reviewed. It even goes further where you can filter by whether it’s good for groups or kids, or if they take reservations.
Then you can click see all, and you can filter your results by a bunch of other filters.
Maybe you want to go to a restaurant that has happy hour. Just flip that switch. Maybe also want one that has a full bar and a TV, just flip that one as well. It’s really nice how far you can filter down to get the exact type of restaurant (or any other business) that you want.
Map view
The map view is nice because you can find exactly where your location is (represented by the blue dot), and you could see all the restaurants that are close by to you.
The list view is nice for seeing the reviews from a birds eye view, but the map is great for finding one that is really close to you, if location was a factor.
So for example maybe I want to see what number 16 is. I can tap on that and I see that that is New York pizza.
I can then tap on that and it will bring me to their full profile so I can read the reviews explore the menu, call them, look at pictures etc.
You can also use filters, just as you can in the list you. So if you want to filter by whether they deliver, whether they have a full bar, or whatever, you can do that in the map you as well.
Photos View
In the photos view, it’s going to show each individual restaurant just like the list view accept it will be a photo of their product or food. These are all pictures submitted by individual users of the yelp app, whether they are using the iPad, iPhone, or the online browser version.
Note that it will be in the exact same order that the default list is, except when you tap on, say the first result, it will bring you to the full-size image. From there, you could just swipe and continue viewing all the images that particular restaurant has generated from its users.
To view the next page you have to swipe to the left as opposed to scrolling up or down like in the list view.
Bookmarks
If you see a restaurant that you want to visit later, you can sign in with your yelp account and bookmark individual restaurants are businesses that you want to visit later.
Note that you need to sign in or create an account to use the bookmark and many other yelp features.
Monocle
the models of cool little feature, where it shows the direction that the restaurant bar or everything else’s. It doesn’t work very good in portrait mode, but if you switched iPad over to landscape it seems to be much more accurate.
About me
you can click on the about me tab, and view information about your profile, your notifications (for people that may want to follow you), your interviews, your check in your friends, tips, business photos, complements, and settings.
How to use the yelp app
You can also see the category, the phone number, and hours of operation. You can also tap on more info and it will show you information like the hours that they’re open, the menu, their website, whether they take reservations, delivery status, take out, whether they have outdoor seating, and a whole other options.
Bookmark, Reviews, etc
There are four icons that you can tap, on the right corner. There are options for adding a bookmark, add a review, checkin or add a photo.
To leave a review, set a bookmark, check in, add photos, etc. just tap on the restaurant in the list view or any other view. Once there you can do all the above on the right side.
To leave a review, tap review, add how many stars you deem necessary and add a comment that explains your review. You can also decide to share on Twitter and Facebook as well.
To add a photo just tap out a photo and Take photo. You can also select from your library.
You can message the business by tapping message the business. You can order online by tapping order online and entering in any further information, such as your ZIP Code.
Photos
In the photo section you can scroll photos to see all the food from the restaurants. You can also click to add your own as well.
Using yelp in landscape orientation
When he turned the iPad to the landscape orientation, you will see the list on the left hand side and the map view on the right hand side.
Once you On a restaurant or business, it will show you the information on the right-hand side and have the list on the left hand side and you could just keep tapping on each business with an list.
