Using your phone to hunt for food

One of the earliest iPhone apps I downloaded (for free) is Urbanspoon.

Sometimes you want to go out to eat but have no idea where you'd like to go. I've lost count of the number of times when I'll be straining to come up with a good idea for a dinner destination, but later in the week I'll drive by a place and say "Aww crap! We could have gone there for supper the other day...".

The Urban Spoon app for the iPhone can be used to find nearby restaurants. It makes use of the iPhone's accelerometer by allowing you to shake the phone to turn the dials like a slot machine. The 3 dials represent an area, a type of cuisine, and a price range. At first, each dial is unlocked, but you can lock down any dials to restrict what it searches for. So if you are interested in a particular price range but don't care about the area or type of food, you just scroll the price range dial to the value you want, lock that dial and shake the phone to get a random offering based on any area and any type of food. And yes, the app knows where you are, so you will get restaurants in your city.

You can even just browse restaurants closest to you, if the random slot machine offerings aren't to your liking.

Check out this iPhone ad showcasing the app in action.