Former BlackBerry users may fondly remember the free app Poynt, which has now made its way to iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Maybe I’m spoiled as an iPhone user, with a dearth of help-me-find-what-I’m-looking for apps available in the iTunes App Store, but despite Poynt’s BB popularity, I found the Upon launch, you’ll see a carousel of four icons. If the spinning annoys you, use the pinching motion to turn the carousel into a static grid. You’ll see tabs for businesses, people, movies and restaurants, which should cover anything you need to find. Relying on outside services such as City Search, Super Pages and CinemaSource, Poynt aggregates information based on your current location.
You’ll be able to access websites in-app when available, and if you need to call a business, simply bring the device to your ear and the app will make the call automatically. However, this isn’t foolproof. I used the people search to look for my parents’ phone number — while the app found the correct listing, it called a random number in a different state when I used the auto-dial feature. Oops.
Users can view locations on a Google map, and if you tilt your device into landscape mode from a business’ information page, you’ll active Poynt360, the app’s augmented reality feature. I was able to active this on my 3G (developers say a 3GS is required, so no guarantees), but I was surprised you couldn’t reach this function via the map page, too. In theory, you can buy movie tickets through the app if a ticket icon appears, but I got an error message each time I tried. The app also integrates with OpenTable, so you can make reservations when available.
Although Poynt offers some interesting features, such as automatic dialing and Poynt360, I didn’t find what I was looking for any faster than with a Google search. Poynt needs to take a cue from competitor Where and offer up more initial categories to make for faster searching.
