Most of you travelling enthusiasts will already be familiar with the name Lonely Planet. For those of you that aren't, they are a force to be reckoned with in the world of travel journalism and, like any successful company in this day and age, they have an app. As far as I'm aware this is available to download for apple and android devices.
The opening interface for the app is gorgeous. It lists the cities with guides available alphabetically and with full colour photos, as the image to the left shows. Any guides that you have already downloaded feature at the top of this page, and downloading is just two clicks away. Nice and simple!
Selecting a guide to view opens a "discover" interface that shows a variety of options that will appeal to all kinds of tourists and can be explored in more detail at a touch. These include a map loaded with location widgets, for the casual adventurer, a list of basic categories below for those looking for something specific (a restaurant, attractions, etc.), and a section labelled "interests" which I view as a list of itineraries tailored to tourists with particular hobbies or holiday goals (e.g. romantic attractions, museums or highlights).
Let's start from the top of the page, with the map. As you can see to the right, the map's location widgets are coloured differently and show symbols relating to 6 fundamental categories, which feature below. This is simple, but intuitive, allowing the user to examine in more detail only those places that relate to what they need. If you need a restaurant, no need to tap through bars, shops and attractions until you find one!
Selecting the map will give you the option to download it to work offline, which is great. Unfortunately, though, the map does seem a little sparse. For the purpose of reviewing this app I picked somewhere that I have explored recently and fairly thoroughly - Seattle. When there we stayed in Lower Queen Anne, a district rich in restaurants and bars. This area doesn't have a great deal to show for it in the app. Indeed, there are whole streets with no places of interest marked where I know that there were cafés, pubs, book-shops and more.
Unfortunately, this observation that there are, in my opinion, noteworthy locations that have been omitted is not exclusive to the map. The symbols featuring underneath the map on the "discover" page link to the same locations, just categorised. Trawling through I did perceive some bars and restaurants that I would recommend to anyone which were just not there - one of these being an excellent German Bier-Halle themed bar that I've seen rivalled nowhere else outside of Germany. Surely, this should feature?
On the plus side, the functionality of the app is competent here. The various category lists can be re-ordered according to preference: recommended, nearby, price range, or sub-category. Ideal if you're looking locally, working to a budget or have a hankering for a particular cuisine!
The "interests" recommendations (seen above and the the left) also left me a bit disappointed. These are not the same for each guide and are supposedly tailored to the specialities of each location. And yet when I think of Seattle I think gastronomy, coffee, breweries/distilleries, sport - none of which are represented in these recommendations. Even the existing lists seem incomplete, with the EMP museum featuring in the "highlights" list, but nowhere to be found within "museums".
Overall, there are some holes in the content for this app. I'm hoping that the content is being regularly updated and that certain venues just haven't been sufficiently tested to feature yet. I do have to remind myself, though, that Lonely Planet is not the same as Trip Advisor, in that's it is not made up of user reviews, rather recommendations for tourists by professional journalists. Some of the places I enjoyed just might not be noteworthy enough to feature.
I wouldn't replace my physical travel guide with this app just yet, but it is free to download, and could prove a useful companion whilst out and about.
