Learn What’s Next2Me

Another new app popped up on Marketplace called Next2Me which is a local search tool. All you do is pop open the app and it gives you a list of things that can be near you, which range from ATMs, restaurants, fast food, police stations, movie theaters and a bunch of other points of interest. Pick one and it detects your location using GPS and gives you the businesses in your area, listing them by location and providing the name. If you pick an entry it opens a Google Map within the app and from there you can get more contact information, call them or send the information to a contact (it opens your contacts and lets you pick from there). The description states that it has 30 different categories to choose from. I played with it and checked it against Google Maps and you get a different set of results. For example, the search for ‘cafe’ was a lot better on Next2Me than Google Maps, and the same was true for restaurants (which Google only provided high end restaurants while Next2Me provided typical places). On the other hand, the landmarks category in Next2Me shows me several eye care locations – no idea why. The ‘information’ it provides is little more than contact information and I wish it provided detailed information like the type of food the restaurant had or reviews of the restaurant. This app isn’t going to replace Google or Bing for a lot of you but the results are pretty interesting and if you’re dropped in a random location it does give very fast results and it has that iPhony look to it that’s pretty easy to go through. In other words, it’s another alternative to consider. One note about GPS though. You need to make sure you’re in a spot that has GPS available (not 50 feet inside a building) and if the app kicks back a GPS error about not locating GPS just give it a second to get a GPS lock and try it again.