In case you aren’t familiar with Google Places, it lets you quickly search for places nearby and personalizes the results based on places you’ve rated. We get you started with a few popular search categories, but you can also tailor the list by adding your own favorite searches. This makes it fast and easy to find the best places for you with little fuss.
Use a default search category, save your own, or rate the nearest place quickly.
It can be pretty rewarding to discover a new place you love, but we also realize that there are some experiences you just can’t wait to share. So Places makes it super simple to rate a place with your iPhone while you’re there. Just fire up the app and hit “Rate now.” It will use your location to guess your current place and let you post a Hotpot review right from your phone. But it’s not just about getting to say what you think—the more you rate places, the more you’re sharing about your tastes and the more we can give you personally tailored recommendations.
Give your star rating and add optional details or a review so Hotpot knows your taste.
If you want to make things even tastier, just visit google.com/hotpot from your desktop computer. Here you can add friends to the mix and quickly rate all the places you already know. Once you’ve added friends, you’ll find your results seasoned not just with reviews from around the web and recommendations based on your own personal taste, but also with your friends’ opinions too.
Once you start rating and add friends, Places can give you personalized recommendations.
Get the Places app on your iPhone now by searching for Google Places in the App Store or going here.
This first version of Places is available for all iOS devices in English only. However, expect more features and improvements to roll out soon, including localization in many new languages. We’re hard at work to make Places with Hotpot more and more delicious.
Why you don't have the same for Serbia?
ReplyDeleteVery useful apps for iphone.
ReplyDeleteWould be great if Google Maps was updated for the iPhone, with turn-by-turn.
ReplyDeleteSo is it called HotPot or Google Places?
ReplyDeleteI'm confused.
There is no "Google Places" in many countries like mine! Uruguay!
ReplyDeleteMany people and enterprises are waiting for it.
Very nice release!
Cheers
This app is great, but I'd love to see a more polished user interface.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, nicely done, I just covered this release over at BSN:
http://bit.ly/iOShotpot
Keep up the good work, Google!
MMmmmmm Engfer's
ReplyDeleteNice app! A pretty big bug escaped testing though.
ReplyDeleteOn installation / first run, in case you choose not to share location, there is no way to turn back this setting on at a later point. Not even by reinstalling the app.
Or am I missing a not so obvious menu option? :)
I'm having the exact same problem as Robert: accidentally disabled my location, and I can't find a way to enable it...
ReplyDeleteMy Location is shown as disabled too - but I don't remember indicating 'no' to using my location. Many reinstalls have not worked. Very frustrating. Clearly, some config data must remain on either the iphone or the google servers after uninstall.
ReplyDeleteI have a Google Places business listing, yet my business does not show up at all. Not by name or keyword search. I'm all about the Google, but I need to know how to rectify this problem.
ReplyDeleteI am definitely excited to see this available for the iPhone, but it is still quite far from fitting my use-cases or even match the Android experience (somewhat understandably).
ReplyDeleteBasically the way I would like to use Places/HotPot is as a set of location bookmarks and recommendations biased towards my friends preferences. I think Places is close to achieving the latter, but it is still far from the former.
Specific issues:
- can only search for things near my location. I don't mind scrolling and redoing search if I want to just switch neighborhood, but if my friend from a different city gives me a call and asks me for tips (yes, he doesn't use the app) or I am trying to plan my next trip to Boston, I want to review my options there without scrolling all the way out to US level and then back in on the new city.
- I can't access my ratings history. I want a view where I can see just my rated places. Also I want to see my entire history (as a list) just because I may be trying to remember something...
- I want to be able to bookmark a place (akin to staring it in the Android maps app) and add a brief comment - recommended by X for good cocktails, for instance. Of course, I'd like to be able to retrieve these bookmarks, search only through them and have them prioritized when displaying things around me.
Too much to ask for? :) I'm using Yelp to cover most of these features, but I think Google can definitely surpass if there is enough focus on adding such functionality.
What else are you looking for in a mobile? While you can have the most excellent features in just one phone and that is an iphone. I could not ask for more since I have my iphone on my life.
ReplyDeletefix iphone
nice app, but why can't you search for another location. Sometimes you want to plan a visit, it isn't always about where you are now
ReplyDeleteI have managed to solve my location disabled issue. In settings, I had restrictions set to 'on' so that location information could not be altered. In settings, location, you can enable/disable the location settings for all of the apps.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, you *can* search for things in a different area by simply searching for "pubs in Plymouth" or whatever.
great blog and great infromation i really find it very help full and i hope that every one will like this
ReplyDeletethanks to share with us
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Seems really fast and useful! I'd love to see distances also available in kilometers, though.
ReplyDeleteactually a very good product.. good work googz
ReplyDeleteI recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
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