Jan Zdarsa Nelso Prague is another iPhone application that can search for various businesses or places directly on the iPhone. It uses GPS to determine your location, you choose what you're looking for, and then you're presented with a list of nearby places to go. And what's the best thing about this iPhone app? It works completely offline!
Nelso.com draws data from Google Maps, but it is not just one of many applications. However, they often supplement their database with other data that cannot be found in Google. However, they continue to cooperate with Google, so for example in Google Maps we very often find images of establishments where Nelso.com is listed as the author.
After turning on the Nelso Prague iPhone application, the iPhone will immediately start detecting your location, and you will choose what you are looking for from the category menu. Each category has its own subcategory, so for example under the category of bars we can find further sorting into cocktail bars, Irish pubs, sports bars and the like. There is also a search where you can enter the specific term you are looking for.
The Nelso.com database seems to be very extensive (over 10 entries) and has always found me a lot of nearby businesses in a given category. For businesses, you will usually find how far it is from you, a photo of the place, complete address, phone, website, but also a phone number (click on it to call the business immediately) or opening hours. You can share interesting places via email or save them to your favorites.
What is certainly very pleasing is that the entire application also works offline. Yes, the complete database including images is directly in the application, so there is no downloading of data from the Internet, so the application is excellent especially for tourists. There is even an offline map in the application, where you can at least partially get your bearings. For tourists, Nelso Prague seems to be an excellent application and I am really looking forward to Nelso.com offering applications for other cities as well, because as a tourist myself I would welcome such an application.
But let's get to some of the shortcomings. For example, I don't like that the app opens external links (eg company pages) in Safari instead of directly in the app. However, the author has already assured me that he will correct this deficiency in the next version. One more thing bothers me, which probably won't bother tourists, but could bother Czechs. The address cannot be opened directly from the application in the Maps application so that we can use iPhone navigation to the given location. But even in this matter, the author promised me that he would come up with a solution. I'm still missing supermarkets in the categories, although they are easy to find in the search as well.
There is also an interesting function here for iPod Touch owners. In the search, you just need to enter the term you are looking for (e.g. pizza), enter what it is close to (e.g. Palladium) and then the search results will immediately pop up at you with the determination of the distance of the given places, or the application will ask you to specify the location (if, for example, you think Palladium Shopping Centre).
Personally, I really like the application and being a tourist in Prague, I will enjoy Prague even more thanks to Nelso Prague. Now I'm looking forward to Nelso starting to release iPhone applications for other cities as well. I can tell you that in the near future it will be Berlin, Vienna, Rome and New York. And when I take into account that the Nelso Prague application is completely free, I see no reason why not to download it. It will find its use. It fully replaces, for example, a recently reviewed application iATMs.
But I definitely recommend trying Nelso.com directly. Alternatively, I will also recommend theirs interactive map of beer prices in Prague, which advises beginners where to go for cheap beer. The only thing missing from Nelso.com is that it draws user reviews from Google and not only from its own database, which is almost empty (no wonder how many of you knew Nelso before?).
Thanks for the tip, for me as a person who goes to Prague as a tourist (we are not from Prague) it is a great application.
I'm from Prague but I'm not :D I don't need it, I have palladium ten minutes away from everything and economic university five minutes away and those are the places that are enough for me :-)
btw: do you know that the Keynote is postponed to 27.1.2010?
ah, I'm sorry :-), my name is Enes (I know the app list xD)