Two Way Hard Three | Las Vegas Casino & Design Blog

Monte Carlo has introduced a new iPad app, featuring 3d-ish walk-throughs of parts of the property.

If you ever used the flawed-but-ahead-of-its-time Quicktime VR, you have a sense of how this works. Pick a part of the facility and you have a finger-pannable panorama, giving a good feeling about how the place looks and feels.

Tour the rooms, restaurants, casino, spa, meeting rooms and even Hotel32. All of the major areas are represented here.

The iPad-only app weighs in at a relativey hefty 151MB and includes a few extras like integration with Google Maps and their various social media pages.

Overall, the app is a bit clumsy and feels more like a technology demo than a finished product: the pseudo-slot interface certainly doesn't help. That said, there's something about these realistic panoramas that really make you feel like you are there.

I give Monte Carlo points for doing something different and blazing a new trail, especially when it comes to building apps on smartphones and tablets.

More of this kind of innovation, please.

[Thanks to Dave for pointing this out.]