Monday, May 5, 2014

Review of Findery for iPhone

I’ve been fortunate in my life and career to be able to travel a lot of the world.  If there is one thing that is always the challenge though it is finding the local knowledge about a particular place.  There are plenty of apps out there to help you plan your travel and give you the highlights but what about the local knowledge of a place?  What are the secrets that a city holds?  That’s where Findery for iPhone can help.  It is a social, local and crowdsourced app that allows you to leave notes â€" text and photos â€" as you travel so others can find out about little discoveries and in return, you get to see others notes and discoveries.  It is a great app for finding out about a place â€" the real place, not just the touristy stuff â€" in a beautifully designed and easy-to-use app.

Findery â€" Free â€" Download Now [1]

Let’s first set straight one fact:  Findery is much more than a travel app.  It is what allows you to find out anything that any Findery user has put into the app (assuming they have made it public).  You can find the local information about shops, historical plaques, etc but you can also find out about local events that have happened or are happening.  It really can be for anything.

When you start Findery for iPhone you are brought to the Discovery page.  This is where you will find note maps from

The Discovery Page of Findery

around the world to explore.  Some of these will be local or will involve local places while others are global.  At the top of the page you will see your location and the current weather conditions.  Tap on one of the Discovery panels and you will be brought to description of that discovery.  You can then view the notes associated with it and follow the creator of the note map.  By tapping the View Notes for that discovery, you are taken to the Map within Findery.  There you will see pin markers for the locations on the map that the creator left notes.

When you tap one of the pin markers in Findery for iPhone you are brought to the detail of that particular note and the photo of that location or event.  There you can read what the author of the note has penned or copied from an official source.  Here in England there are

Viewing a Map Note in Findery

Blue Plaques throughout the country that denote important locations and people in the country’s history.  It is a great way to discover the local history of a particular city or town that you are visiting within England and there are literally hundreds of these plaques in London alone.

It is this kind of discovery that makes Findery unique.  Yes you could go and find out information about the Blue Plaques through a variety of sites and even other apps.  But Findery gives you all of the notes others have made in the app right around your immediate location.  But it isn’t just historical tidbits.  Remember, any Findery user can put in notes about events, restaurants, pubs and bars… anything.

As a user of Findery for iPhone you too can add notes to the app that can be shared publicly or privately.  You can use those notes to keep a travel log of a holiday or that epic pub crawl with your mates.  Adding a note is easy.  On the menu at the bottom of the display in Findery, tap the Create button.  There you can add a note about your specific location but you can also tap on the small map area at the top of the notes section to navigate your way around to a more precise location.  With the location set, use the Note

Creating a Note in Findery for iPhone

field to start adding your note about that location.  You can also use the camera icon to snap a photo of the location which will be added to the note.  As you are creating a note you can add tags to it to help other Findery users find it and you can add it to a Notemaps.  As you would expect, you can share notes on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook so your friends and family can discover them on their own travels.

Expanding horizons for a moment, Findery could prove to be a valuable resource when planning that next trip abroad.  Because you can search for notes anywhere in the world, you can find out what things to see and do in a particular place before committing to the trip.  You are getting the real information on the location, not just what the travel guides say.

Findery for iPhone is one of those apps and services that has a huge amount of potential.  Crowd sourced information is ever increasing in popularity and this is taking full advantage of that but putting into an organised, efficient app.  Plus it can serve as a travel diary â€" public or private â€" of the places you have gone and discovered yourself.

Findery on the whole is still very new and there is certainly a lot of room for growth.  As more people take up the app and add notes the more information will be there for you to discover.  The app has a bit of growing up to do as well.  For example, you cannot add a photo to a note that is not in your Camera Roll on your iPhone.  I tend to keep photos in my Camera Roll for a very limited time, relying on iCloud to keep a copy for me until I can synchronise with iPhoto at home on my Mac.  From a usability perspective however, it is hard to find any fault with the app.

Findery for iPhone is a free app and available now in the App Store.  Registration of an account is required which is also free.  The app requires that your iPhone be using iOS 7.0 or later.

You can follow Findery on Twitter at @Findery [2]

Findery â€" Free â€" Download Now [3]

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