Critiki hits the road: Critiki Mobile
It’s not really quite finished — there are some more tweaks I want to make — but I think it’s close enough that I don’t feel right keeping it from the tiki-lovin’ travelin’ souls of the world.
Critiki Mobile: http://mobile.critiki.com
It’s primarily designed for the iPhone, because a) it’s a dead sexy piece of machinery, and b) it’s what I’ve got. My friend Rich helped me out by letting me poke around on his Treo, and it seems to work just dandy, but I haven’t a clue what issues might crop up on other devices.
It’s been a fun challenge as a designer and a UI programmer to create an interface that works in such a small space with limiting size and interaction constraints. I’m pretty pleased with what I was able to come up with. While he didn’t help me directly, I think I was able to channel some of the serious UI mojo of Hanford Lemoore. Anything I got right was likely inspired by my Hanford exposure, anything I got wrong is squarely on my shoulders.
Nearly everything you can do on the regular Critiki site, you can do on Critiki Mobile — you can search for tiki locations, read the descriptions, look at pictures, find other tiki places nearby, and of course you can take a gander at how locations have been rated. Now, you can even add your own critiki ratings while you’re still in the restaurant! Since it is a phone app, naturally dialing phone numbers takes just a touch, and it’s also hooked into the iPhone’s Google Maps app, which is just ridiculously convenient. Ooh de lally. It makes me want to hit the road.
I’ve also cleared a big ol’ backlog of wonderful photo submissions to Critiki over the past few months — easily a couple hundred new photos!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on Critiki Mobile — as I mentioned, there are some tweaks I want to make (including some fantastic suggestions from my friend Jory), but I’d like to get feedback from a few users before I embark on some of the final fine-tuning. While the development will continue to be focused on the glorious, ovary-quaking iPhone experience, I’d also like to hear how it works (or more significantly, doesn’t work) on other mobile web-enabled devices.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:53 am
Well, what do you know? A new post from Ms. Humuhumu!
So glad to see it and I do hope this is just one of many more to come.
And what a cool mobile app! I don’t have an iPhone (pricey critters!), but I’ll see what I can do about testing out the app on my phone. Way cool!!
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Works awesome! I’d love to see a photo of the location at the top of the main page when you click onto a location (assuming it has one), but otherwise, I love it. It even has a webclip icon! You rock! Mahalo!
March 20th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Great meeting you! Here is a little thread that we started about our meeting at Forbidden Island last night.
March 29th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
I think you’re simply doing something that is trendy. I have a tiki bar in my home. If anyone brings a cell phone in and it rings it is smashed. Tikis & I Phones don’t mix baby.
April 4th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Aloha!
Its a fine peice of machinery but I heard that it impossible to login to Critiki with Motorola, Openwave, and some Nokia browsers. But for what it offers, it probably is worth the $.
June 1st, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Seems to work on my Samsung Sync OK.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
works well enough on my iPod Touch to be of use. Nice design. Thank you.