Cool Apps: Field Trip
I love information. I love learning new things about my hometown and the places I visit when I travel. Whether it is a historical landmark, cool building, point of interest, or nice/interesting place to eat, I want to know about it. Being into technology helps with all this because we are seeing so many advancements when it comes to social discovery and it makes it a lot easier to find out about cool things around you as you move throughout the world. That is why I am really liking one of Googles new apps, Field Trip.
First let me say that Google has really stepped it up over the past 6-12 months when it comes to software design. Apps that used to be terrible now not only look good, but act as they should and are far less buggy. Plus they are releasing quality new apps for both Android and iOS which is awesome. This will force companies like Apple (which has sucked in terms of software lately) to innovate and compete more, which will only be better for consumers in the long run. Alright so lets jump into the app.
The basic idea of the app is that it monitors your location as you move around, and when you get close to points of interest, it sends you a notification. By default it wants to tell you about everything it can but you can filter it down to only the things in which you're interested. You can view via a list view or by map as you travel, and as far as the notifications go, you can get a lot, a little or none at all. I really feel like Google has thought of everything with this app.
What I thought was the most neat was the topics and sources you can choose from to let Field Trip know what to tell you. You can filter by architecture, historic places, lifestyle, offers, food & drink, cool & unique, and arts & museums. And if you tap into each one of those categories you can pick from a list of sources and tell each one of those to show you more, less, or nothing at all if you uncheck the checkbox. Again I really feel like they thought of everything here. For example, I was driving the other day and got a notification to go to Chipotle. Chipotle? REALLY? Not only is that place an embarrassment of a food establishment but I don't need an app to tell me to visit one so I was easily able to go into the settings and shut off anything that might tell me to go to food places like that.
I've been using the app since it came out just in the area where I live and work and have already found some neat things close to home that I never knew existed. I can only imaging what I'll find when I take this app on a vacation with me.
Field Trip is free for iOS, and of course Android.
