ChowSpots – Our First Android App (and Our New Food Website)!

So when we’re not helping people root their phones, flashing ROMs like a crack fiend (ROM junkies?), or drooling over new devices coming out, there is something else we love to do… EAT!

So for our first app, we decided to do an Android app involving finding good food (something I figured other people could appreciate). The app is actually an extension of our little food site we just put up called ChowSpots.com and the app allows you to bring the maps from ChowSpots.com with you on your Android phone. There are three maps of food in the app and on the site:

• “The Best Thing I Ever Ate Map” – If you watch Food Network, I’m sure you are familiar with “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” show where the Food Network chefs tell you about the best foods they’ve ever eaten (and they have eaten a lot of food) and where you can get it! Well, this map takes all of the foods they have ever nominated on that show and puts them on the map so you can easily find them yourself!
• “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives Map” – Again fans of the Food Network will know this show as well. This is the show where Chef Guy Fieri goes around the US looking for the greatest, greasiest, places to chow down at. This map puts all those places on an easy to use map so you can find them and try them for yourself. (Work in progress by the way, there are a ton of episodes to add to this map. Going as fast as we can)
• And finally the “Reader Submitted ChowSpots Map” – This map is really what I like about the site/app. Readers can submit their favorite foods from their favorite restaurants around the country for us to put on the map. Then you can view that map on your phone to find the best places to eat submitted by other foodies like you. There has been plenty of times my friends and I have been like, “Where should we go out to eat tonight?” and instead of scratching our heads, we can check the map and see what places people have submitted to guarantee we go somewhere with some awesome food.

So the Android app can be found in the Market and is completely free, just search for ChowSpots (give us a 5 star rating please!). It is very much a beta (or more of a proof of concept to see if anyone would actually use it) so please comment either in the Market or on this post and let me know what you guys think? How can we improve it? Would you even use it? What about the site, what do you think?
If we get a good response we’ll make the app for iPhone, and we’ll improve the Android app to do some cooler things!

Also, we are doing a contest on the site for $100 and $50 gift cards, so please head over and submit your favorite foods @ your favorite restaraunts or be a food critic and write your own food review for us to put up on the site! All the details for the contest etc. are here.
The more people that put stuff up on the map/site, the more useful it will be for everyone! We aren’t ever going to charge money for the app, so it will always be free for everyone to enjoy!

We also have to thank Persource for helping us build the app! They were great, inexpensive, and had a quick turnaround time! Check them out to get a quote for them to make your app idea into a reality!