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The Reykjavík Grapevine

@rvkgrapevine

Get Grapevine's fancy new app!

After damn near revolutionizing Reykjavík drinking culture via the beloved Appy Hour app, The Reykjavík Grapevine team has created a new thingamajig that will hopefully prove just as useful for the denizens of Reykjavík and their guests. The new app is called Craving, and has the purpose of granting hungry people freedom from having to spend hours pondering where to go for lunch or dinner.

Of course, taking time to carefully deliberate where one’s next meal should come from is a wholly enjoyable endeavour, but as those of us who frequently dine out in 101 Reykjavík (and are generally spoilt for choice) can attest, making those decisions can be tough at times. Craving offers a simple, elegant solution to that problem.

Here’s how it works:

• The user downloads the app to his or her iPhone or iPad (an Android version is forthcoming)
• The user then opens the app, using a handy icon on the springboard
• The user then shakes his or her phone vigorously
• The app responds to all that shaking by suggesting a restaurant in the user’s vicinity along with providing information on where it’s located, what’s on offer, how to get in touch and – last but not least – excerpts from Reykjavík Grapevine’s review of the place (as readers know, TRG has been diligently covering the Reykjavík restaurant scene for the past decade).
• Now, if the user isn’t in the mood for the suggested restaurant, he or she can just shake the app again to get a new idea.
• For the more discerning gourmand, the app also provides the option to narrow down the fields, so the user can choose a particular style of cuisine he or she’s in the mood for, price range, location and rating, for instance.

Reykjavík Grapevine’s publisher, Hilmar Steinn Grétarsson, says he’s happy with how Craving turned out, adding that the app has already proved very useful. “Our offices are located in downtown Reykjavík, and as most people who live or work in the area can attest, choosing where to go for lunch can sometimes be hard – for a relatively small city, we certainly have a lot of options! I’ve thus greatly enjoyed being able to depend on Craving over the past few weeks since we soft-launched it.”

Hilmar adds that the magazine’s endeavours in the field of apps are sprung from its publishers’ sincere interest in the exciting field of new media. “We were fortunate enough to work with some great programmers on Appy Hour. Creating it was a very positive experience, and the great reception we received from the public was doubly encouraging – Appy Hour now has over 22,000 users. Therefore, the decision to start work on a new app was an easy one,” Hilmar says in closing.

You can download Craving through Apple’s App Store by searching for “Craving” and/or “Grapevine” – or by clicking here.