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Rex St. John
Sep 2013Urbanspoonapp

Urbanspoon for iPad

Urbanspoon's iPad app was averaging one star. Rebuilt as a universal binary alongside the iPhone app rather than maintained as a separate product.

Numbers

1 star
Store rating beforeaverage, at the time of the rebuild
5
Team sizedesigners, testers, developers

Problem

The iPad app had been on the market for years and was averaging a one star rating. That is not a polish problem. It is a product that people open once, fail to use, and rate on the way out.

Solution

Rebuilt as a universal binary with the iPhone app rather than carried on as a separate codebase, using the then-current iOS capabilities to show what the tablet experience should have been.

Analysis

A one star average is the most useful number on this page, because it is the thing nobody puts in a portfolio. It is also why the universal binary mattered more than the visual design: two separate codebases is how the iPad version got to one star in the first place, by being everyone's second priority for years.

Result

A substantially improved tablet experience, sharing a codebase with the phone app so it could not drift again.

Photos

  • The iPad layout with a restaurant list on the left and a map filling the right side of the screen
    List and map together, which is the whole reason to have the larger screen.
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