Knowledge is power - Iphone

by Garry Clark

I confess to being a bit of a gadget freak. Since my first mobile phone - a Nokia 7110 - the sliding phone from the Matrix movie, Ive been hooked on the way phones and our daily lives are gradually converging. The Iphone is the uberphone for convergence devices - knocking a phone, web-browser, music device, video device and gaming device into one handy pocket sized object. With the number of downloadable apps now approaching the half million mark, and the number of downloads from itunes in excess of one billion, there is little doubt the Iphone is the defining gadget of our current era.

My apps of choice are the short form games, little timewasters that while away the minutes while sat waiting at the dentist or doctors or on short car journeys. But recently more of my precious storage space is being taken up with wine apps. So I thought it might be prudent to share some of them with you and maybe gather up a little bit of official support for them. And hopefully I might get some feedback and some ones that i might have missed too! 

The first app I want to review is the Platter's App. This is an condensed version of the reknowned Platter's South African Wine Guide. The references and notes are drawn from the 2009/2010 guide and so are very current. You can search by producer, by style (grape variety), by region or by google maps. The wineries listed are given comprehensive notes and reviews, and the good thing about it is it links directly to their websites, so you can move from the app to their site in Safari. You have the option to favourite wines, which i find quite handy for noting the wines we list, then I can get to the relevant information quite quickly. All in all its a very well put together app and runs quite smoothly. Its not cheap at £6.99, but with the hardback setting you back the wrong end of £15 thats not a bad price to pay. I give it 4/5

The next app is Halliday. This is along the same lines as Platter, but using James Halliday's Australian Wine Guide as its base. This is based on the 2009 edition, so it is coming up to be nearly a year out of date now, but it will be interesting to see if it is updated when the new edition comes out.  Like the platter guide you have the option of searching by alphabetical list of producers or by region. However the tasting notes arent as extensive and the layout isnt as user friendly as the Platter App. Again you have the option to favourite wineries, but not individual wines. This App no longer seems to be listed on Itunes, so Im not sure what happened to it, and I cant really remember how much it cost, but I dont think it was as expensive as the Platter App.  I give this app 3.5/5

The last app Im going to review today is Hachette Vins. An Iphone version of the Hachette Wine Encyclopedia, this is a french language only app, which makes it of limited use if you dont speak french. Broken down into four sections;  Vins - a glossary of the french wine regions with comprehensive notes on each region, appellation and commune. Cartes - maps of the main regions and sub regions with some limited zoomability down to key communes. Millesimes - breakdown of the vintages going back to 1946, with ratings for each region. And Glossaire - a glossary of many key wine terms. As I mentioned earlier, this is a french language app and while i can understand much of it, some of the more technical terms escape me, making this of limited use. BUT it is a free app, so for that I give it 3.5/5.

There are many more apps out there focusing on wine, many in different languages and with differing aspects. A quick search on Itunes brings up about 300+ apps with the keyword wine, so Im going to trawl through a few more and will be back with a review of some more of the gems in the coming weeks. If anyone has any suggestions for apps to look out for then please use the comments below to let me know, share the love!!