Vegas Mate 3.5 is on the App Store

Vegas Mate 3.5, the latest version of my award-winning iOS travel app, is now on the App Store. This update is free for all existing users.

New Features

We've added iCloud support. What that means is if you have both an iPhone and iPad, when you create a trip plan on one, it will be synced to the other automatically.

In addition to that, we've improved the search quite a bit for special terms like 'view', 'brunch', etc... It even works with the names of some of the famous chefs. Now that we have the mechanics for improved search, we'll be adding to this regularly so that no matter what you're searching for, you'll find it.

The 'Places' and 'Nearby' tabs have been combined - you can now sort places by name, distance, rating or cost easily.

For iPad users, there's a new feature that lets you view hotel prices, by date, on the map. So for instance, you can put in your dates and see a color-coded heat map of where the expensive hotels are. It's a fun way to get an idea of where you might want to stay as you're planning a trip.

Vegas Mate 3.5 has a new 'featured content' tab where you'll find special articles and from time to time, messages from other people that we want to highlight.

Also, the app is now more aggressive about updating certain bits of content in the background so you'll get some of that stuff, like restaurant hours, just as soon as we input it. We discovered that some people were not applying the content updates and didn't have the most recent data so we're doing some technical wizardry to help make that more automatic.

And on top of all of the above, we've got some bug fixes and other random improvements.

iTunes Reviews

If you have a minute, please go hit the App Store and leave a review. These are cleared out with each update and they make a big difference for us picking up new users.

The app has a constant stream of updates and new features. If you want to say thanks, this is the best way to do it.

This link will take you right into the iTunes page.

Featured Content

From time to time, we'll allow partners to bring messages to our users via the Featured tab. If you're interested in learning more about this, check out this page.

Thanks

I also need to take this opportunity to thank the testers.

This release took forever to get straight, mostly because iCloud sync was a lot of work. Thank you guys and gals... and special thanks to Pete and Paolo who both went above and beyond.

The December and January sales rush for Christmas and CES brought in ton of new users, plus a lot of usage from existing folks that were visiting the city. Your help is much appreciated by all of us.

NOTE: The original 3.5 release had a bug that could cause crashes for some users. Please grab the 3.5.3 update in the App Store.

Categories: Vegas Mate

Comments

January 24, 2012 9:39 AM Posted by Andybflo

Hunter-

Silly question; for those of us with Android, any hope in the future of a release?

Subtle hint... There are more of us out there now than iFolks... :)

January 25, 2012 9:18 AM Posted by Hunter

It's not a silly question, though you may not like my answer.

It's a question of both economics and also just how I want to spend my time. I watch mobile app development very closely and indicators still show that paid apps do not do well on Android Market. It would be difficult to recoup the relatively significant investment in a reasonable amount of time. That may eventually change but it still appears to be true today.

The second part is just my preference. To do Android I'd need to buy a bunch of different phones (screen sizes, densities, etc...), use them enough to create a compelling and usable design and then learn the APIs. I'm not a fan of Java, the language used to build Android apps. I just don't really want to spend my time building an Android app based on the current state of the world.

Both of the above could change at some point but that's my point of view today.

PS - While daily Android activations are above iOS, there are still more iOS devices out there (~310 million) than Android (~275 million). That obviously won't last as Android is growing faster, even with blowout Apple quarters like was announced yesterday.

January 27, 2012 10:58 AM Posted by Andybflo

Makes sense...

Sorry to ask the question; I understand the complications of programming for Android, believe me. I work in marketing for a rather large telecom company that begins with the letter "V" (And not Virgin Mobile), so when I made my statement, I tend to look at things as phone-centric, forgetting Apple includes all iOS devices (Including my long retired for a Zune HD iPod Touch v1.)

Sad I won't be able to get it in my Galaxy Tab 10, Nexus, Bionic, and Droid Charge world, but I completely get it.

(PS: It's also the reason the 4S has the same screen size; to keep app developers happy...)