Google ‘s web apps for the iPhone have always been amongst the very best to use “ Google Reader has been, and remains, one of my most used apps since Day 1 of using the V1 iPhone.
Now even the plain old Google.com search site home has got a little extra slickness to it “ in the form of the very nice new ‘Near Me Now ‘ feature, which is a great places of interest finder for things local to you (or whatever location you set).
If you have Location Services turned on on your iPhone, when you go to google.com you should now see a note of your location and the new Near Me Now button just below the main Google Search button. If you don ‘t see those yet, try going to the Settings link at the bottom of the google.com page “ and make sure ‘Allow use of device location ‘ is set to Yes.
When you hit Near Me Now, it presents you with four main categories of POI to look at: Restaurants, Coffee Shops, Bars, ATMs & Banks “ and also the ‘Explore Right Here ‘ section link.
The results in each category are extremely good for me so far, in terms of both relevance to what I chose and in being super close to where I am. The pages shown for individual places are well formatted for the iPhone and very easy to work with “ showing the place name and details, a photo if available, button links to call or get directions, and reviews pulled from citysearch.com, urbanspoon.com, and other sources.
If you tap for Directions, it takes you straight out to the Maps app and auto-populates the place you were looking at in the Directions screen as the destination point (just to be greedy, I have to say it would be even slicker if it could just pop your current location in as the start point).
The Explore Right Here section shows me places within 0.1 miles of my location “ which it seems to get absolutely right every time so far.
Below the four main categories, there ‘s a Browse More Categories link “ which shows you quite a few more useful ones, including Shopping, Gas & Automotive, Lodging, Entertainment & Recreation, Healthcare and Beauty.
You can star places (like you do in Google Reader) to build a favorites list within Near Me Now. I like this feature a lot, and think it should be shown within the main categories screen of Near Me Now, rather than on the second page (using the Browse More Categories link).
In addition to the whole new Near Me Now area, Google search results are also showing local results right at the top “ with handy buttons to call or get directions right alongside.
It ‘s nice to see that even while the Android platform builds momentum, Google is still shwoing some love for the iPhone OS and continuing to enhance its web apps.
Have you tried out Near Me Now on your iPhone yet? If so, let us know in the comments what you reckon of it.
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TAGS: iPhone web apps
