iDine/Rewards Network - iDine on the iPhone / iDine apps (consolidated)

A search brought up a couple of posts in one thread (here (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/idine-rewards-network/729884-requests-improvements-idine-websites-2.html?highlight=iphone)) but no specific discussion of details.

So, what would it take for iDine to make their site suitable for the iPhone?

Or for somebody to design a third-party search interface for it or, even better, an application to access their database offline that could be periodically updated with a new download every day/week etc?

Do their terms and conditions prevent someone developing this, or are there technical barriers to it as well?

On this subject, OpenTable just released a free iPhone application. So hopefully that will spur RewardsNetwork to do one of their own, now that a competitor is in on the fun.

I would be very much interested in this, too.

Found it! It's coming "around February 2009":

Rewards Network says that around February 2009, it will roll out "smart phone" applications, enabling members to find participating restaurants nearby and map directions to get there using a mobile phones. Mr. Dehan says the relaunch of DinnerBroker will include new applications on smart phones and map services. Last week, OpenTable announced a free iPhone application, on the Apple App Store, which users can access to find nearby restaurant availabilities, book a table and get directions.

Read more here (http://press.restaurant.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=126).

So now we wait...

More on the general topic of iPhone apps for dining etc is here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/diningbuzz/899259-food-wine-iphone-apps.html

Now that someone from RN (Stacy?) seems to be reading our board here, this might be a good chance for people to put forward feature requests for the iPhone application.

I'll start:

* Please can you use Google Maps rather than Multimap so that the directions will integrate properly with the existing iPhone map and directions function?

Note to RN, if you're reading this thread: people really want the mobile applications!

A recent quote from another poster on the "no more rate your dine bonus" thread:

So far, the things that have not impressed me with RN customer service:

1. No mobile device support. Hello, as a business traveler, when is their best opportunity to get you to use their service? When 4 of my co-workers are looking to me for a suggestion in a random city.... I pull out my mobile device and find a place.

It's out. Here's the link (strangely not linked from the AA RN website):

http://www.mygpsdine.com/

Some preliminary thoughts:

1) It doesn't seem to work with my AA login right now. So I wonder what's going on... there's no button to choose which program your login refers to. Are they rolling out different applications for each airline/program? That would seem like a stupid idea. And there's a button that says "join now" but which sends you to a screen that says "We're currently developing the iPhone enrollment capability" or something to that effect, and asks you to call them. A bit shoddy, in my opinion -- sort of like putting an "under construction" banner on a website rather than actually fixing the website before rolling out a feature and providing that feature properly.

2) The reviews are a bit badly presented -- they're in a scrollable list at the bottom of each restaurant's page, with no visible scroll bar. And the text of each review comes out a bit strangely too. The interface does look like it was a rushed job. Someone with some UI design expertise does need to look at this. Have a look at the app "Things" for an example of a really well-designed iPhone program.

3) The maps are very much improved -- using native iPhone Google maps rather than the scrappy maps they have on their website.

4) The app is a bit slower than I'd like.

5) There's a "dial: xxx-xxx-xxxx" line underneath the restaurant name with no visible feedback that it's a link. But when you click it, it does dial the number from your phone.

6) The app often asks you whether you want to return to a previously saved search when you start it up again, after having closed it or gone to a map or phone call, for example. That's a little intrusive. It would be helpful if it just went back to where you were unless you told it otherwise. That's what other iPhone apps do -- maps, Safari, email, etc.

7) The app does a lot of buzzing with the iPhone's vibrate function (when clicking its buttons, giving you feedback etc) which is really quite annoying. I see now in the preferences that you can turn off vibrate but the fact that it's on by default is infuriating.

8) You only seem to be able to search by current location (great -- that's the point of the iPhone), restaurant name or zipcode. What about narrowing search results by type of restaurant, style of food, etc? That's available in the web version but not here. The iPhone app does allow you to choose to display either address or price/cuisine in the preferences, but why not show both? You can edit the default search radius in the Prefs, but it would be helpful to be able to modify that choice on a search-by-search basis.

All in all, my first impressions are that it's a start, but not nearly as polished or elegant as the OpenTable app. And I'm annoyed that it won't let me login with my RN airline account. I hate to wonder this, but perhaps this suggests that they're dumping the mileage programs in favor of the cash rebates? I really hope not.

Other people's thoughts and views would be most welcome.

Since nobody else has posted anything, I hope I'm not the *only* person using this app!

Just a note that an updated version appeared a day or so ago in the App Store. But the interface hasn't improved. Apparently, RN fixed a bug (but not one that I'd come across myself...)

I can't log in with my AA id as well.

Hi,

Just wanted to alert you that Rewards Network has developed a very convenient tool for the Iphone. It really makes finding restaurants much easier, especially if you have a 3G Iphone with GPS.

Search for "Rewards Network" in Itunes or in your application store tool in your Iphone. The download is free.

Or, you could just get if off the RN site... www.rnmobiledining.com/?rnhpb (http://www.rnmobiledining.com/?rnhpb)

/.

There's much more discussion about this topic in a recent thread <redacted recurving link> that I started.

The problem is that the iPhone app doesn't allow you to distinguish between the different RN programs you might credit your dine to: and that matters, because often the restaurant list differs depending on the program or depending on whether you are or are not a "dining elite".

RN: please fix this issue!

There's much more discussion about this topic in a recent thread here (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/idine-rewards-network/904759-idine-iphone.html) that I started.

The problem is that the iPhone app doesn't allow you to distinguish between the different RN programs you might credit your dine to: and that matters, because often the restaurant list differs depending on the program or depending on whether you are or are not a "dining elite".

RN: please fix this issue!



The latest update to this iPhone app has specific programs, but AAdvantage is not one of the options. Also, it seems to not have all of the same restaurants listed on the full web site (it's missing some restaurants), which makes it less useful for me.

If you're like me, you find it annoying to check online before going to a restaurant to see if it's part of any of the RN/iDine or other dining programs you participate in. Special occasions aside, I'm more of a spontaneous diner, so I'll just go downtown and choose whatever restaurant I like, provided it has a decent rating on zagat/yelp (which I can easily check with my phone). Another factor I would consider is checking whether it's part of a rewards program, but I don't know of an easy way to check (going to the website is way too slow, and I would have to check every network's website).

In another case, maybe you just find yourself in a restaurant, about to pay the check. Since some restaurants are in some programs and not others, and some give points for some cards and not others, it'd be nice to quickly check which program/card to use before paying.

Thus, a mobile app or a quick mobile-optimized website that can tell me which restaurants in the area are in which networks (note this includes all networks I care about) would be ideal. Does such an app exist? If not, do you think it's worth it to make one?

Edit: Even if the app wasn't mobile (i.e., just a site), it'd be useful to save you from checking the sites of all the programs you use.

Hi Rodrigo,
Elizabeth here from Rewards Network. We have two free mobile apps that let you search our network of restaurants while you're on the go!

You can find our iPhone app here:
http://www.mygpsdine.com (http://www.mygpsdine.com?ft)

And our BlackBerry app here:
http://mygpsdine.com/index.php/blackberry (http://mygpsdine.com/index.php/blackberry?ft)

Happy dining!

Elizabeth

PS--We invite you to become an iDine fan on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/DiningWithBenefits)! You can learn more about our mobile apps and Facebook app, get the latest program news, and dish with other diners!

There is another thread (http://http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/idine-rewards-network/904759-idine-iphone-idine-apps-consolidated.html) which discusses mobile apps, and one post says rewards network planned to roll one out in February 2009, and a subsequent post says the app is available, but not being promoted on at least some of the airline-specific versions of rewards network. A link is provided (actually, the link at the bottom on this post is better -- it goes to the Blackberry app, and at the bottom of the page is a link to the iPhone app.)

I used to be able to use the web site on my PDA, but there have been changes to the web site and now it no longer is functional via my PDA. A couple of CS reps have said that was an unexpected problem and they're working on a fix ... but it's been a year since they said that.

Here is the mobile app I use: 1–866–638–6906 (9 a.m. – 10 p.m. ET, M-F)

Edited to highlight this link, which also is in the thread mentioned above:
http://www.rnmobiledining.com/?rnhpb

And better yet: http://www.reachdiners.com/mobilesolutions.html

Used to be you could download something to your PDA, but that seems to be gone.

Hi Elizabeth from RN! Welcome to FT and thanks for joining.

I'm wondering, as we're now into 4Q2009, what the status of AADining is with regards to the iPhone app?

Hi Elizabeth,

Thanks for joining us here. I'm sure I speak for many people when I say that the RNDining iPhone app is useful, but needs a lot of improvement, specifically with regard to user interface design and speed. Here are some requests. Perhaps others could add their thoughts:

1) I'll second jabrams72's question. What's going on with AA?

2) The app is very very very slow. The most annoying thing is the time it takes to display the menu/photos, and the fact that the app insists on reloading your previous search when you reopen it, instead of just letting you start again easily.

3) The interface is non-standard and needs a lot of improvement. Reviews should not display in a pop-up dialog box, restaurant phone numbers are clickable but has no visible link, etc etc.

4) It's really important to let people sign up for bonus miles promotions from their mobile phone. Can you add that functionality, please?

Please see my February 2nd post on this thread for much more detailed comments. I won't duplicate them here, to keep things together.

<redacted now recurving link>

And, most importantly, for an example of a really excellent iPhone app, take a look at Amazon's app. RNDining's iPhone app interface needs to be much more text based, with fewer graphics that take a long time to load, and much faster.

I hope my comments don't come across as too critical. I like the program, but if I (as one of your most enthusiastic diners) is finding the app as frustrating as I do, I hate to imagine what your casual users think of it.

Many thanks,
salut0

To add to the mobile app to-do list:

One for windows mobile would enable people with many other PDAs.
And I suppose one for the Palm OS is on the back burner, too.

In the process of downloading the Rewards Network Blackberry app as we speak... I will report back in a week or so after some extensive testing.

Initially though, I want to say THANK YOU to whoever in the RN organization actually listened to customer feedback.

First Glance (Blackberry):

Pros
Clean, easy interface
Appears to be quick
Instantly gives you the address, to limit number of clicks.

Cons
No AA support at this time (major)
"Add to Favorites" errors (minor)
Still no "My location" support (major)

More on My Location - When I am at a customer's office or hotel and I decide to go to eat, I consult iDine to find the closests couple options to where I am at the time. When you are in a city like Chicago, a location may pop up as less than a mile away, but when you look it up on a map, you could be closer to 10 miles away. If integrated with google maps or something like that, you could easily find out that something in a different zipcode might be one block away, but shows as 10 miles on the application.

I was in Portland, OR recently and found that restaurants listed on the RN website didn't always show up via the iPhone app. I was surprised to check my iPhone and not find some of my old standbys. But when I checked online, there they were. Odd.

OK.... On the road testing.

I am using HHonors login for Blackberry app. They still need AA access.

Con - Does not keep me logged in. I constantly have to re-enter my login credentials every time I click on the icon.
Con - Does not have an easy close button, which means the application is using my precious battery even when I am not using the application.
Con - Would love to have integration into existing GPS functionality such as Google Maps, where I could see the closest restaurant to my current location, rather than by city.

Pro - Search is extremely quick.
Pro - Relevant point information is accessible.
Pro - Pictures, restaurant information, and all the goodies on the normal site seem to have translated well.

Thank you to everyone who has been testing the apps! We really appreciate your feedback. I'm passing your comments on to the folks who worked on the apps...I'll be back on the forum with an update on whether there's a future release date set and also on the status of AA integration into the apps.

I do hope that the apps are helping you discover some great dining on the go--we hope we can make that even easier for you in the future.

Best regards,
Elizabeth

Quick update on our mobile apps: We're planning an updated release by the end of this year, so you can expect to see some improvements and enhancements--more on that soon.

We're also in communication with American Airlines regarding their participation in Rewards Network mobile apps--they're currently reviewing their policy and may come on board with mobile by the end of the year as well.

Keep your comments and feedback coming! I'll be checking this thread regularly and making sure your input is being routed to and seen by the appropriate parties within Rewards Network.

In the mean time, I hope the apps are helping you discover great dining on the go! If you don't have the apps yet, download them today at http://mygpsdine.com/ for iPhone and http://mygpsdine.com/index.php/blackberry for BlackBerry.

Thanks again for your feedback!

Best regards,
Elizabeth

Find iDine on Facebook (http://facebook.com/DiningWithBenefits) / Follow iDine on Twitter (http://twitter.com/iDine)

We're also in communication with American Airlines regarding their participation in Rewards Network mobile apps--they're currently reviewing their policy and may come on board with mobile by the end of the year as well.

Best regards,
Elizabeth


Is this just with regard to their being included in the Mobile App, or is this about participation in general?
Thanks!

I would love to see more sorting and filtering options.

Also, if you're in more than one program, it would be nice to be able to see all of the locations that are valid for ANY of those programs, with indicators showing WHICH programs they're valid for. I know that some restaurants are only available with some programs.

Just downloaded this app. Looks like it will be quite helpful. Much easier to use to check to see which restaurants are part of the RN program.

Our management has been in touch with AA about thier participation in the mobile apps we offer. Hopefully I'll have more news soon!

I really need the AA app for IPhone as I no longer travel with a computer. I would use the app to make restaurant decisions. Thanks Elizabeth for your help.

I asked this in an AA thread, but thought I'd ask here, inless Elizabeth could add anything? Does the reason AA is not a part of this yet have anything to do with the AAdvantageeshopping updates (which list dining as a category)?

So far the HHonors app has been the closest to AA. I have not missed a dine yet by using it, but I would really appreciate AA's official sites up.