The first thing you’ll notice about the Southwest Airlines iPhone app (free) is how much you can accomplish with one screen. The main screen of the iPhone app lets you sign up for special fare alerts, make a flight or rental car reservation, check into your flight, check the status of a flight, or just check out your Rapid Rewards membership.
That’s a lot of very convenient information in one place. The DING! fare alert seems like an especially iPhone app-friendly exercise, as enabling it will send a message to your iPhone whenever a special, limited-time fare is available. That seems perfect for a mobile device, where you could make the decision to purchase the flight instantly.
Elsewhere, the iPhone app meets a little more difficulty. Many user reviews have reported complaints of timing out when trying to view future flights, and for some reason, logging in to your Rapid Rewards account doesn’t also pull up your flight check-in information, so you’ll have to have the specific confirmation number handy if you want to actually check in on your flight.
Finally, the iPhone app lacks support for the iPod Touch. For some reason, this iPhone app is only available to iPhone customers, despite the fact that it doesn’t appear to use any of the iPhone features of the device.
Ultimately, Southwest Airlines new all-in-one reservation and ticket agent iPhone app does plenty of things right, but the handy travel iPhone app is currently held back by missing device support and a few technical glitches. If the above problems are cleared up, this could be the blueprint for future airline iPhone apps.
