Wine App Features?

[rsswarr]

I'm developing an Android wine app and am interested in input about important features for this kind of app. I've reviewed a number of the wine apps in the Android Market, but would like to hear from Android users who have used a wine app. If you have the time or interest I'd like to hear your response to a few questions:
What wine app(s) do you use?
What features do you like?
What features do you dislike?
What features are missing?

Thanks in advance for your time and effort.

 

[Kessie]

I use Swirl Free and I like it. I like that it has descriptions, star ratings, reviews, etc. And it's VERY comprehensive. Only rarely can I not find something on there. The only thing I don't like is that it doesn't search pairings very well. You can look up a wine, and see what goes well with that individual wine, but you can't look up a food item and get a list of wines. At least not easily. I think I've typed a food into the general search before and it came up with some stuff based on key words, but it's not consistent or organized. It also doesn't have a barcode scanner - that would be handy so that I don't have to type things in, and then scroll through too many results. Although... I don't know how these things work... but if a barcode scanner bumped the memory footprint of the app up too much, I probably wouldn't get it. There is some sort of camera function on Swirl free, but I'm not sure what it's for. I don't think it's a barcode scanner because you are only given the option to use it once you've already selected a wine. You're supposed to attach a picture of yourself drinking it or something? I don't know. I thought maybe to help them with their database of pictures of wine labels (which is also a great feature to make sure you've got the same one they're talking about), but there doesn't seem to be a feature to send it to them.

 

[rsswarr]

Kessie, I reviewed Swirl Pro and I agree that it is good at finding wines. It is a little weak on the pairings, especially when you want to select a wine for a food. Pair It!, $4.99 on the Android Market, does a much better job of pairings. Its default is to search for a wine for a food. After you select the food the app displays a number of pairing on a food details page. However, it doesn't give specific brand pairings like Swirl. It groups the recommendations by wine type (light red, sparkling, etc) and lists varietals or appellations within the wine type (for example: Petit Sirah, Pomerol, Bordeaux). Also, you can switch to matching a food to a wine via a menu selection.

 

[bwt51]

I initially DLd Hello Vino, which is an OK app for wine pairing with food. I also use the Natalie MacLean website Nats Decants for pairing. She has an iPhone and BB app but not one for Droid yet. Nats Decants has one of the most extensive pairing lists I've seen. I keep a shortcut to her website in my Droid bookmarks.

I just DLd Swirl Pro a few minutes ago based on some comments from another droid forum and Wine Spectator forum. I'll be checking it out soon. There were also some very positive comments about the Dryncwine app. Once I've played around with Swirl I'll give you more feedback.

What the ideal app would do...

1) Lookup wines by voice, keyboard entry or barcode label
2) Provide wine notes and ratings from Snooth, WS, etc. and allow adding your own
3) Provide a tagging/storage feature so you can log separately the wines that you have tried and want to catalog. i.e. Wine Name, Winery, region/appellation, vintage, type (cab, chard, barbera, etc.)
4) And the real kicker would be to include a wine region vintage review.
e.g. Willamette Valley - 2008 *****/2007 ***/2006 ***
Bordeaux - 2009 ****/2008 ****
Marlborough - 2010 ****/2007 *** where the *s are star ratings.

Best of luck with the development of the wine app and thanks for doing it. I look forward to seeing it in the market soon.

 

[bwt51]

As a follow up to my last post and regarding item #4, I have in my possession a copy of the Wine Spectator Vintage Chart. If you would like to incorporate this into your application development let me know and we can arrange for me to scan and send it to you.

Cheers!

 

[Great Dane]

Hey, How is the development coming along.
I'm looking for a wine app where I can Import rather than manually enter the stock in my wine cellar with dates of best drinking time, name, region, country, vintage, price, my rating and potential someones else's rating, perhaps type (red, rose, white, sweet, champagne) and number in cellar
Likewise a wishlist of wines I would like so roughly the same categories.
Basically, I do some research from home then enter wines on my wishlist and take to the shop.
I know it would be nicer to just go to shop and look up directly but often I am looking at more sources hence better to do from home- in my case.

 

[bwt51]

I'd like to know how the development is coming too. I currently use the Swirl Pro and Hello Vino widgets and NatsDecants website shortcut on my Droid 2 but there's some news on the horizon.

Natalie McLean has released a Beta version of her very comprehensive wine app that covers almost everything I mentioned in my earlier post. I don't know what her release schedule is for the Android Market version but it should be a very nice app.