Want Food? Go Mobile

I was watching a Channel9 video on WP7 apps and how they exist on the phone (I know, really interesting:)) but I saw an image of the Mobile Spoon app in their demo. Now I assume it’s a placeholder for testing but noticed it had a cost that the other platforms lack. So I fired up the old intertubes on my HD2. Nothing too friendly there so I went mobile. Instead of SkyFire or Opera or even IE I went the Opera Mini 5 route. It’s intended to view mobile sites and it compresses data so it’s actually fast, even over Edge (damn you HD2). But, a long story short, the mobile websites for food ordering sites are actually great. In fact, there’s no need for ‘apps’ because all these apps would do is provide an interface for the website which isn’t needed if the mobile site is good. In NYC SeamlessWeb is king (and yes, it’s in other cities too). You can order your entire meal, including tip, and never speak to a person and boom- food is at your door. I tried ordering on Skyfire the other day thinking it would be great- it’s painful. Lots of navigation and panning. On Opera Mini though it’s actually an ideal experience. It’s fast, looks nice and you don’t miss any features. The popup windows become new pages and everything is simple. So with that under my belt I moved on to MenuPages.com and once again was pleased. You can view the entire restaurant menus and pricing on your phone and again the formatting and ease was dead on. Of course, the Urban Spoon website actually looked great and worked well, but the ‘menu’ portion tended to link to a new site, and sometimes it wasn’t mobile friendly, but hey options are nice. And of course the actual Mobile Spoon app is the casino thing that picks a place for you and the mobile site is a regular ‘food’ site that lets you pick a place so they are different.

So just a small reminder that sometimes the simpler things, like Opera Mini, are better. And sometimes apps aren’t what you’re looking for. But what about you guys? Got any mobile sites that you want to share with the group?