BeerAdvocate App [Revisited]

I wold love to not have to use Rate Beer when I am on the road, so if you could add a map option on the places tab, that would be awesome.

 

Hit me up. I am a Senior iOS Engineer and would love to work with you guys...!

 

Vivino-style "snap a photo of the label and get indepth info on beer and brewery" would be awesome.

 

Actually, the ability to add beers to a list is a nice feature that would be useful. Having multiple lists from an app for Gots, Wants, My Cellar, Beers to Buy in LA..... all would be handy with an app, and likely not a big task for an app.

 

When I'm at the store and see a beer that looks interesting, but I don't know anything about, I'd like to be able to take a photo of the bottle/can and have the app take me directly to the BA ratings page for that beer!

 

Integration with a cellar app like BeerXchange. Integrating/partnering with Untappd. Maybe you show the BA rating in Untappd and they could click that to get to the detailed reviews in BA. Trading simplified (for this site also). I have to search many threads to remember how to find out how to ask someone to trade. There isn't any easy button on their name and it is so buried. Even when you are in conversions, no trade button. Trading in the app would be key. When I try to add beers in my list to trade, it is very difficult. You have to add to gots then scroll way down to bottom to find the trade button. Same once you want to un-trade.
Many firms specialize in UX design. Perhaps you could consult with some and make sure to do betas with members before locking in to one design.

Thanks!

 

Sliding scale ratings (1-5) without having to leave a written review would be nice (much like Untappd).

P.S. My reviews are usually less than 140 characters anyways.

 

What I liked about the prior app is while I am traveling on business, I could find locations near me to find good beer. I liked the rating process for both beer and beer establishments.

 

I'd like to see an option to track the beers I've had and ones I'd like to try.

 

Something like the Google Reverse Image search would be absolutely sublime in a resource used by folks in bottle shops to decide what to buy (at least, that's the reason I first came to Beer Advocate)! Snap a photo of the label, and boom, you've got the reviews and ratings of that beer.

I'm no programmer, so I can't imagine it would be easy, but boy would it make the app supremely useful.

 

I would welcome the app back, mostly due to speed. A barcode reader would be great, particularly if I could scan a beer and have the app tell me if I've reviewed it already. Also could show IBU, ABV, my rating of it, and average rating.

 

I'd be curious if this would inflate ratings. Untappd ratings seem abnormally high across the board.

Currently, ratings are broken down across several categories, and that data is shared with others. So a beer may look, smell, and feel like a kickass APA, but it tastes like chemicals or just completely off the mark. Seeing that break down helps substantiate good or bad overall ratings. Unless you wanted a slider bar for each category, in which case I think that'd be pretty nice!

 

I should have been clearer in my post. A sliding scale (1-5) for each category is what I was trying to say. Thanks for pointing that out.

Cheers!

 

The reason I use BA and never switched to untapped (even when you removed the app) was because of the reliability of the ratings and descriptions. Whenever I'm looking for a new beer (most times) I use BA to do it. So this is very far fetched but what would be amazing is image to text that would look at a list of beers on a menu or a picture of bottles and provide you a rating and ranking. Never said be reasonable with our requests

On a more practical note, for the most part I was happy with the old app except the speed performance was lacking. My main thing is please preserve the quality of the ratings.

 

It was the latter. I would like to be able to open a map, like in Yelp, that would populate with a list of breweries, brewpubs, beer stores, etc. that are nearby and then be able to get driving directions to the location.

 

I'd like to add that the ability to use an app (or even the current web pages) can often be hampered due to poor signal in stores, where they are most often needed. It would be great to allow an option to cache compressed beer data locally so that when your signal sucks in the store, the app is still usable for looking up beers. You'd have to opt in because it would be a lot of data space, and you'd want to download/update when on Wifi. The cached data could be limited to brewery, beer name, ABV, IBU, average rating, any your rating (though this means the data is tailored). I would not advise caching forums or review text, but places could be good. I realize that caching could be very complicated, but also immensely useful.

 

Quite simply, pulling up a beer needs to be quick and efficient like it was in the first incarnation of the app. It takes about 5X the amount of time using the responsive mobile site to look up a few beers as it did on the mobile app. That's all. I don't use forums on my phone unless I'm really desperate, but looking up beers at beer stores, bars, tastings, and festivals in an efficient manner is a must. Thanks for taking feedback.

 

Echo the comments for a bar code scanner. Anything that allows me to quickly find a beer with ratings and comments while I'm in a beer store.

 

Not sure if it was mentioned, but I get annoyed trying track what new distribution or shipments are coming to the stores near me. I often have several bookmarks I reload each week to check. Seems like this problem can be solved by working with the distributors who source the data and know what is going where. Getting notifications in the app about what stores are getting would be great.

 

That's great to hear! When/where will the RFP be posted? I actually prototyped a native iOS BA app a couple years back just for fun. Would love the opportunity to work with you on the real thing!

Out of curiosity, is the current API documented anywhere?