14 DAY TRIAL // Google has released a new “Places” app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad which recommends and learns what its users like, in terms of places to visit. Bluntly put, “Google Places with Hotpot helps you discover nearby places you’ll love,” according to the Mountain View, California-based search giant.
“We recently released Google Places with Hotpot in Google Maps for Android, and starting now, you can have that same great experience as an iPhone app,” Greg Blevins, software engineer at the Google Hotpot team, says.
“We realize the importance of finding places you’ll love while you’re out and about, no matter what mobile device you use,” he continues to say on the Google Mobile blog.
“And Places with Hotpot not only helps you find places near where you are, it gives you the best places to go for you by personalizing your search results,” he notes.
As explained by Greg, users will be able to quickly search for places they love while on the go, as well as quickly rate the places they fall in love with.
By rating places, users power Hotpot -- Google's new personalized recommendation engine.
This lets users get place recommendations based on the places they like, as well as recommendations from their friends, Google said.
“If you want to make things even tastier, just visit google.com/hotpot from your desktop computer,” Blevins elaborates. “Here you can add friends to the mix and quickly rate all the places you already know.”
“Once you’ve added friends, you’ll find your results seasoned not just with reviews from around the web and recommendations based on your own personal taste, but also with your friends’ opinions too,” he confirms.
According to the Google software engineer, this first version of Places is available for all iOS devices in English only.
More features and improvements are to arrive in a planned software update, alongside new language support.
“We’re hard at work to make Places with Hotpot more and more delicious,” Greg concluded.