A couple of days ago I was thinking how useful it would be to have a Dopplr iPhone application, and sure enough today I found there was one! Considering the fact that this application is free, just like their service, it doesn't harm to try it out.
You don't need an account to try Dopplr out on your iPhone. To start with their are 5 tabs across the bottom for:
- Places
- Cities
- Trips
- People
- More
The places tab is the default and displays a map. It will also ask your permission to show your current location - this will appear as a blue flag with a "+" symbol. Surrounding the map are 4 large icons - I had no idea what these were for at first, although the symbols are recognisable their purpose was not. The four icons when tapped will display hotels, restaurants, sights and favourite places on the map around you and tapping on any of these pins it creates will allow you to say if you've been there, whether you liked it, and the option to get more information on the place. You can also zoom in and out of this map however it is a little flakey as if your fingers brush a marker then it will open the information up for that marker. There is a list view, however for Leicester it doesn't display anything so I'm not sure what it's supposed to list. You can also type in a location if you want to search elsewhere.
Using the cities tab will display a list of the "Top 250 cities" and clicking on any of these cities will switch you back to the "Places" tab with this city focused. The "Trips" tab will display nothing unless you're signed into Dopplr - to do this you have to browse to the site and Grant access to the application. For some reason I had to do this twice before it finally worked. Once you're in it will display a list of your upcoming trips with the dates of when you'll be there, a description, and links to view the trip in a browser or to see places in that city. The "People" tab displays a list of people who you share trips with, and the "More" tab just allows anonymous usage feedback and the option to sign out.
Unfortunately, if you live in the UK it doesn't seem a great deal of use other than to see where friends are and where you're going to be.
