New In The App Store – WundrBar
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Every now and then a small utility comes along that takes the iPhone or iPod Touch to an entirely new level. Sometimes this utility is groundbreaking such as the voice activation of Google’s new search app. At other times, however, the utility is not so much groundbreaking as it is simple, practical and remarkably useful. That’s the case with upcoming application Wundrbar.
WundrBar is a single application that allows you to connect to and access, over 70 different sites and applications from within the application itself.
For example, if I want to search Best Buy for a certain item I can open up Safari, go to the Best Buy website, click on the "search" icon and add in my query. With WundrBar I start the application, go to the Best Buy icon and put in my query. It may not sound like a huge difference but when you try it both ways you quickly realize that using WundrBar to do the search is much much faster and takes far less thought because you’re not offered any information from the website other than the search. The same can be done with Amazon and a number of other online stores.
But it gets better.
Let’s say you need to find out what time your wife’s plane is landing. You can go to an airline’s website, find the section for flight arrivals and then try to search for her flight. Or, you can start WundrBar and get information on arrivals or departures in seconds. You can also search by flight or route. If you’ve ever tried to use one of the airline websites you will quickly appreciate the simplicity of this approach. Better still, you can do the same for Amtrak and other travel services.
There’s More…
If I want to check out the New York Times I can use the new version of the Times iPhone application (which is far far better than ever before) or I can go to the New York Times icon in WundrBar and, in one single tap, get either the top stories or search the newspaper’s content. Again, while it may not seem like a big difference having tried both methods a number of times in the last hour I can tell you that using this application to do a search of the newspaper is faster because it requires fewer taps and doesn’t include any extraneous information that might cause distraction.
I should, however, note that while the Times app caches material this doesn’t. It is, on one level, a web application portal. But, since the iPhone is, for all intents and purposes, and "always connected" device this app is exceptionally useful. In addition, the Times does open to the full version rather than the optimized one but they plan to hook into more iPhone optimized sites in the future.
Want concert tickets? Tap the icon for Tickets Stumbler, put in the performer you’re looking for and within seconds it tells you what’s available. Want to check the most recent content on some key blogs (they included some twenty various sites), it is available in seconds.
There’s more…
Tapping the YouTube icon immediately pulls up a search window which then, in turn, takes me directly to the video of choice. It is a much faster way to get right to the content I most want.
There’s even an icon at the bottom of the application that displays my most recent searches. (It’s a nice convenience that has already come in handy.) In addition, the application allows me to choose any number of items and mark them as favorites. That allows me to have a far smaller selection (the full index CAN be a bit overwhelming), thereby making the search process even faster than it might otherwise be.
In all, this is one of those applications that make me go, "I wish I’d thought of that!"
It does rely on a data connection in order to work, but then again so does the Google application. WundrBar simplifies the process of using our favorite handheld devices in a way that makes them even more useful than ever before. I cannot recommend this application more — I like it that much.
WundrBar is $1.99 in the App Store HERE.
Full Press Release
Today, Wundrbar is very excited to announce the release of the Wundrbar app for iPhone. Wundrbar for iPhone is a quicker, better way to get web content and information, and is now available on iTunes.
Wundrbar is an app for quick search, reference, news, travel, local info, and more. Packed with so much functionality, Wundrbar for iPhone is basically a super-app — providing access to tons of different services, all from one place.
The iPhone is all about convenient access to information, but often it’s unnecessarily hard to get what you want. Specifically, when you just want to do a quick search, or get a discreet piece of information, Safari can be a lot more than you need. You shouldn’t have to wait for entire webpages to load, navigate tiny forms, pinch and zoom and swipe, etc. just to get what you’re looking for — especially when you’re on the go. And you shouldn’t have to download individual iPhone apps for every possible search, cluttering your phone with dozens of apps and making it even harder to quickly get the information you want.
Wundrbar for iPhone solves this problem by giving users quick and easy access to the best of the web, all in a single, streamlined app. You can use Wundrbar to check a flight status, perform travel searches, shop online, do currency conversions, read news, and lots more.
We’ve posted some screenshots and more information on our website and on the iTunes App Store.
Wundrbar for iPhone is a product of Wundrbar Inc., and shares the same purpose as Wundrbar.com — to give users quicker, easier access to the best of the web. Wundrbar Inc. also offers a Firefox toolbar, to take the Wundrbar experience with you wherever you go online, and sister site Tripeedo.com, for quicker, faster travel search. Wundrbar Inc. was founded in January 2008 with funding from seed capital investor Y Combinator, and is located in San Francisco.
