Pros & Cons
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- Easy to use and navigate.
- Clean UI.
- Useful amount of information displayed for mobile users.
- Relevant business details provided (hours open, map, and so on).
- Can post reviews and photos from phone.
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- Slightly confusing interface.
- As with any user-generated content app, all subjective information must be taken with a big grain of salt.
- Tips are a little buried.
I've long had a love-hate relationship with Yelp, but I can't seem to delete the app for very long from my iPhone. Sure, the site is rife with undue complaints from an assortment of crankypants, but it also gives key information about businesses when you need them. What's nearby? Is it open now? Can I see photos so I know what I'm in for? What tips should I know before using this business? Yelp answers all those questions, and many more.
Yelp's ability to provide detailed information and reviews of businesses is rather remarkable. Of course, it's best digested with a big honking grain of salt. As with any user-generated content, you'll need to turn on your critical thinking skills to wade through the bias. Thankfully, Yelp's iPhone app has a pretty good design, which makes doing so relatively simple, though it could stand some simplification. Still, Yelp is an Editors' Choice iPhone app because it absolutely makes life on-the-go better and more enjoyable.
Interface and Usability
The free Yelp app is jam-packed with tools, features, and various sections. In the past year, Yelp has gone a a bit overboard with all the button and features, and it could stand to trim a few things here and there.
The key, however, is that when you find a business you need, whether it's a restaurant or a doctor's office, the app gives you the most important information upfront in a digest: hours open and an "open" or "closed" note for the current time (when available), a map to the location, the aggregate review rating (1 to 5), the total number of reviews, the phone number, a link to open directions, and the distance from you to the business.
As with any service that relies on user-generated content, Yelp requires some critical thinking skills to use to tactfully. Crowd-sourced reviews in aggregate are very often accurate, or at least indicative. It's rare you'll find a place with hundreds of four- and five-star reviews that truly sucks. On the other hand, bias is rampant, and when a business has fewer than, say, two dozen reviews, you often need to read the body of some of them to get a real sense of whether they are fair and objective. I can't tell you how many times I come across a negative restaurant review, only to realize that the reviewer never even ate at the place, or that they had food delivered and were cranky that it took too long. But a smart decision on Yelp's end to make all user profiles visible alleviates this problem, by which I mean it's easy to spot the crankpots when you dive into their profile and read their other reviews. Of course, this type of investigation takes time, which is often in short supply when you're on the go.
A main menu runs along the bottom of the app, with a Nearby at the far left, and subsequent buttons for Search, About Me, and More. I miss having a Home button, which Yelp has ditched. A neat star icon now pops up to reveal a few more choices: Check in, Review, and Photo or Video.
There are more buttons at the top, one of which opens yet another menu of options. Like I said, there's a lot in the app.
You can search for businesses with any terms, like "latte" or "dentist," or look for businesses nearby using GPS. You can also search within a specified category, such as salons or drug stores, or pull up businesses in categories that are nearby. The search options and capabilities are thorough.
Once you've landed on a business's entry, you can write a review, check in, bookmark the place (save it to your Yelp account), read highlights from other users' reviews, read tips about the business, browse photos, and more.
Tips are helpful, but a little buried. They're way at the bottom of a business's entry, below the address, mapped location, basic information like open hours, and snippets of reviews. To add a tip from the business's page, you have to scroll even further down, to the end of the section showing snippets of tips.
Tools for filtering search results are particularly helpful when you're in a particular place and need to find a business that meets certain criteria right now. The mobile app is less adept at helping you search other cities, say while doing a little armchair travel, but it can be done. It's just that the mobile app is better in real time for those in-the-moment experiences.
Yelp's Effectiveness
The real selling point of the Yelp iPhone app is that it gives you succinct but essential information about businesses you might need or want to visit that are nearby. There's a lot more going on—maybe too much—but that doesn't detract from the critical information that most users want and need. Yelp's iPhone app provides a great service, making it an Editors' Choice and one of the 50 best free iPhone apps available.Best iPhone App Picks
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Further Reading
Final Thoughts
Yelp (for iPhone) Review
The Yelp app provides key information about businesses from user-generated content. The type of information it displays in a short digest is ideal for mobile users looking for quick answers, recommendations, and directions.