Thanks to the ever steady growth of social networking, savvy users are keen to use specialist services. While those seeking work may look to LinkedIn, foodie types can revel in the wonders of DishPal.
DishPal allows users to share dishes and ideas with friends and other food fans, all from within the app. Offering Facebook style commenting services along with photo uploading capabilities, DishPal goes one step further with the ability to participate in themed parties in which people can share their preferences and tastes while learning new ideas connected to the theme. Tagging functionality also aids users in discovering new ways to cook and new friends.
Also offered is a magazine section that can be customized according to the user’s tastes, comprising of exactly what they enjoy most in the food world.
It’s all tantalizingly attractive and a great way to share new recipe ideas and creations.
On Twitter, it’s a dilemma that would be referred to as a ‘first world problem’ but it is sometimes difficult to decide which restaurant to go to for a meal. So many choices are out there and when it’s a decision that has to be made between many friends, things can get tricky. Enter Hngry, an app that may lack an ‘u’ but certainly doesn’t lack functionality.
At its most basic, Hngry lists all the restaurants that are nearby to the user’s location, along with the ability to add opening hours, all in an attractive manner. Users can then choose from the list and flick through the selection, gradually narrowing down the selection before coming to a decision. For those with iPhone owning friends, they can share lists directly on individual devices using the Hngry app. The app can even find menu details for any restaurant on the list if one is available on the internet.
Once a decision has been made, users can dial the restaurant directly from within the app then Hngry offers a place to store order details for that meal and any helpful notes required. For those with favourite dishes, it makes it all the easier to check what meals were so nice the last time the user visited a place.
There’s even the ability to take photos of a meal as a reminder of what was so tasty and Twitter integration ensures that sociable diners can share their choice.
Throughout, the app keeps track of how many times the user has visited a restaurant, making for an ideal guide at a glance as to what place is best for the user’s tastes.
For those who dine out regularly, Hngry is a great resource that combines many useful meal planning features.
The term healthy fast food sounds like a bit of an oxymoron but it is possible to an extent. Some types of fast food isn’t as bad as other types. Knowledge is power, so the occassional treat is no bad thing if planned carefully. This is where an app like Healthy Fast Food could help a ton.
Tracking the likes of McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Taco Bell and more, the app cleanly and simply lays out the healthiest menu options available. It gives users that chance to know how they can enjoy their favorite food without consuming more calories, saturated fat, and other bad-for-them-stuff than they need to.
While obviously none of it is going to be quite as healthy as a home made salad with no dressing, Healthy Fast Food does allow users to take a calculated break from their diet, thus encouraging them to stick by their regime.
I can’t even count the number of times when I have been sitting around with my fiance on a balmy weekend day and asked the question, “Where should we go for supper tonight?” While we don’t eat out on what might be thought of as a frequent basis, when we do decide to venture out we tend to not take any risks in our dining destinations. Let’s face it, there is nothing worse than rolling the dice on an eating establishment and getting let down.
For this very reason the new iOS app Alfred was born. Based on receiving a list of a user’s favorite eating establishments, it goes to work finding new places that might suit their fancy. No matter the type of meal, Alfred will have a solid recommendation of a place to get a bite, on any budget.
Is this some new form of dark magic? Highly unlikely. But I can tell you with all assurances that it could change eating habits forever. Give this free app a download and let us know what you think of it in the comments.
Introducing a new nutritional app that you’ll want to have with you every time you pop out to go buy some groceries. Fooducate offers UPC spanning and a database of over 200,000 items (and growing) to not only give you a full nutritional rundown of the items you’ve bought, or plan to purchase, but healthier alternatives too.
Fooducate plans to help educate the public by making learning and understanding nutritional information about the food products you buy easier and more interactive. Instead of having to read the nutritional data and ingredients for every single item you wish to purchase, you can simply can the UPC into Fooducate and get an overall health score for that particular item.
Fooducate takes all the nutritional information available about each product and provides you with an overall score. It will also give you any particular warnings and important information about the products themselves, in additional to the Food Points value for dieters.
You can use Fooducate every single time you shop to make healthier choices, without having to scour the labels and nutritional facts of each product. This app offers several Healthy suggestions for each item you choose, giving you alternatives to help you make better food choices.
It’s worthy to note that Fooducate is not affiliated with any brand, product, label or food manufacturer. So the suggestions you’re getting are not meant as marketing or advertisements in any way. The Fooducate people are simply trying to promote healthier lifestyles by giving you an easy way to know exactly what you’re buying and eating. Please do keep in mind that this app is still for information purposes only and that they can not be held responsible for out of date or missing information when it comes to products listings, and nutritional information.
Fooducate can be used on any iPhone, and iPad 2, and iPod touches (with cameras). It is available for free from the iTunes App Store, have a quick look at the video below to see how it works:
I wish I knew something about wine. I enjoy wine. I know what I like about wine. But I have to rely on advice and iPhone apps in order to have a clue about them. By the looks of things, WineStein Pro is right up my street offering some pretty comprehensive information on all things wine.
WineStein Pro is a wine calculator, basically. You enter the meal you’re planning on eating, right down to how you’re preparing each ingredient, tap the button and WineStein Pro determines the best wine to go with it. Giving you a score out of 10 as to its compatibility, WineStein Pro explains what type of wine it is (such as red or white, dry or not), what kind of price you should expect to pay (using Euros as a guide rather than dollars) and the grapes used. If you pay the $2.99 annual subscription fee, you can also look at more than one result and filter according to wine type and price if you’re on a budget.
It’s all pretty comprehensive covering more than 2000 ingredients, 600 wine types and hundreds of sauces. While an internet connection is needed to process the calculations, WineStein Pro has pretty much everything covered. It’s free to download and the extra options such as filtering and more variety is only $2.99 for a year or $0.99 for a quarter. Plus it’s an universal app. What more could you ask for?
Condé Nast Digital’s latest addition to Gourmet is the launch of the official application for iPad, called Gourmet Live, allowing users to explore their “passions for every aspect of food in a brand new way” (Condé Nast). The application is free, includes some recipes to get started, and is available to download now.
“This app brings together the key components of a good meal — great company through access to social networks, the best ingredients in the form of fantastic content, and a beautiful presentation,” said Juliana Stock, General Manager of Gourmet Live, and Creative Marketing Director for Condé Nast Consumer Marketing. “We’re serving up content developed exclusively for Gourmet Live and curating the great content of Gourmet magazine in reimagined ways.”
Gourmet Live brings more than just recipes, offering news and food-related information from celebrities and even President Obama: “Read about how the Obamas’ eating habits reflect on national food trends. Hear a four-time Oscar nominated actress talk about her love of food, family and butter. Follow one man’s quest for authentic British food in NY and LA” reads yesterday’s release.
New covers are updated every day on the application, with new stories and recipes “at least once a week.” The application also includes a social networking ‘reward’ feature, allowing you to save articles and get inside tips if you connect with Facebook or Twitter. The application’s design is modern and pictorial, placing emphasis on images on the home page and text within the articles. The layout is clean and the font smart, but there is no interactivity (like check boxes).
Whether this will become another essential utensil in your kitchen, or just an application that you’ll try out once, it’s free to download and quick to install – meaning there’s nothing to lose. Just be sure that your hands are clean when you tap the iPad, otherwise there’s going to be even more cleaning to do!
For more information and frequently asked questions, see here.
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Posted July 27th, 2010 by Ryan Wood Our Rating: :: GRILLING ASSISTANT
Weber's On The Grill is a great database of recipes available offline, while carrying a hefty price tag for information that is regularly available for free online. Depending on your need for offline portability, the price might be the stopping point for this app.
You probably know that drinking water is good for you, but do you know how much you are taking in each day and how much you should be? Do you know which foods hydrate you and those that dehydrate? Absorb Water is a simple iPhone app that can tell you how much hydration you are getting from anything you eat or drink that has a water content over 65%. Whether you’re eating fruit or drinking beer, you can add your intake to the app and then chart your progress. Cleverly, the app isn’t all about the foods that are giving you water but those that take it away too, with one of the less pleasant but ultimately important parts of the app being the Mellow Yellow chart that lets you calculate your urine color and determine your hydration level. Come on, you know you’ve always wondered!
The ultimate aim of Absorb Water is to help you drink the equivalent of 12 glasses of water every day but doesn’t force you into heading to the faucet every five minutes. By using foods as well as drinks and monitoring them within the app, you have a much better idea of how much you are ingesting and how much more you need. As apps go, this is a healthy and fun tool that will be frequently updated by developer Syndicated Puzzles as more feedback is gained from users.
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Posted April 23rd, 2010 by Perrin Stewart Our Rating: :: SOLID TRAVEL COMPANION
GateGuru earns a permanent spot on my device as one of those apps that won't be used constantly, but when it IS needed serves as an invaluable travel companion. There are many apps with user-driven reviews, but GateGuru's focus on airport-specific amenities is a God-send.
This game is really for folks who have tried every other "make a product, sell it to customers before they leave or get angry" style of game. I would try the free one first to see if it holds your interest ~ you might just prefer a burnt hot dog to the game.
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Posted May 14th, 2009 by Christine Morris Our Rating: :: DELICIOUS
This is an app that is really well organized, easy to navigate and packed with features. There's Video tutorials and new recipes weekly which makes it useful both in the kitchen and when proving how good your iPhone is to your unconvinced friends.
Evernote now comes with reminders to ensure that you never forget an important note. You can pin a note to the top of the list and add a due date to receive in-app and email notifications. It will also mark a note as done when you complete your task. Now we shall never forget to [...]
Thanks to the ever steady growth of social networking, savvy users are keen to use specialist services. While those seeking work may look to LinkedIn, foodie types can revel in the wonders of DishPal. 
At its most basic, Hngry lists all the restaurants that are nearby to the user’s location, along with the ability to add opening hours, all in an attractive manner. Users can then choose from the list and flick through the selection, gradually narrowing down the selection before coming to a decision. For those with iPhone owning friends, they can share lists directly on individual devices using the Hngry app. The app can even find menu details for any restaurant on the list if one is available on the internet.
:: TASTY
The term healthy fast food sounds like a bit of an oxymoron but it is possible to an extent. Some types of fast food isn’t as bad as other types. Knowledge is power, so the occassional treat is no bad thing if planned carefully. This is where an app like Healthy Fast Food could help a ton.
I can’t even count the number of times when I have been sitting around with my fiance on a balmy weekend day and asked the question, “Where should we go for supper tonight?” While we don’t eat out on what might be thought of as a frequent basis, when we do decide to venture out we tend to not take any risks in our dining destinations. Let’s face it, there is nothing worse than rolling the dice on an eating establishment and getting let down.
Fooducate plans to help educate the public by making learning and understanding nutritional information about the food products you buy easier and more interactive. Instead of having to read the nutritional data and ingredients for every single item you wish to purchase, you can simply can the UPC into Fooducate and get an overall health score for that particular item.
I wish I knew something about wine. I enjoy wine. I know what I like about wine. But I have to rely on advice and iPhone apps in order to have a clue about them. By the looks of things, WineStein Pro is right up my street offering some pretty comprehensive information on all things wine. 
You probably know that drinking water is good for you, but do you know how much you are taking in each day and how much you should be? Do you know which foods hydrate you and those that dehydrate? Absorb Water is a simple iPhone app that can tell you how much hydration you are getting from anything you eat or drink that has a water content over 65%. Whether you’re eating fruit or drinking beer, you can add your intake to the app and then chart your progress. Cleverly, the app isn’t all about the foods that are giving you water but those that take it away too, with one of the less pleasant but ultimately important parts of the app being the Mellow Yellow chart that lets you calculate your urine color and determine your hydration level. Come on, you know you’ve always wondered! 
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