by Eric Payne
If you could house a bunch of apps the likes of the Weather Channel, Moviefone, Citysearch, The Find, Gas Stations and The Yellow Pages under the roof of one application, Poynt is it. It is a free, clean and simple GPS enabled app available for iPhone, Blackberry, Android and the new Windows Phone users.
What differentiates this local search service application from others such as AroundMe is that it doesn’t have a free (a.k.a. “Lite” but ad-heavy) version. Poynt only comes in one free version that is currently free of advertising. The other difference is that it keeps things simple, featuring only five categories: Businesses, People, Movies, Restaurants & Gas along with real-time weather updates on the home screen are only a thumb-swipe away. You’re likely to search each category at least once and not overlook or never use the endless categories of things that can be listed locally.
After the interface, Poynt’s strongest feature is the integration that exists within each category. For example, while searching for a movie theater for that flick you want to catch, you can watch the trailer within the application, you can read a review of it via Rotten Tomatoes, you are able to map your route to your theater of choice and you can even purchase tickets in advance. The same is true for the other categories though not as extensively, for better or worse. The ability to search for people search is downright scary. It easily pinpointed my residence with just my cell phone number.
As a family man I would like to see an individual category for family attractions, museum exhibitions, etc. — both local and visiting. You are able search for these through the business category but I’d prefer it to be a feature unto itself. Another quirk I experienced seemed to be caused by the Superpages integration. On one occasion I traveled to a restaurant listed as being less than one mile from my home only to discover that it was no longer there. This may make for bad business when trying to impress the wife or surprise the kids. Luckily, I was alone.
Poynt is definitely an app worth having. Out of five stars I give it four and a half. It certainly pulls its weight alongside competitive applications. It eases the pain of trying to map out where to go and what to do on the fly. With it’s ability to calendar movies and events it doubles as a a productivity tool.
So when chaos is erupting in your family-mover of choice, rather than screaming the whole way there, just pull to the side of the road. Whip out your smartphone and Poynt to what you need. The information you seek will be at your fingertips.
Eric is the author of Investing In An Emotional Letdown and the now infamous, My Wife Is NOT My Friend (on Facebook). He talks about being a man, dad and husband on his blog, Makes Me Wanna Holler ““ Man, Dad, Husband and his Facebook Page. He is the author of I See Through Eyes, a book of poetry and short stories. In his “spare time” Eric reviews autos, tech products and writes relationship articles for Atlanta-based J’Adore Magazine.