[CELITE]

Hi folks, I developed a blackberry client that plugs into yellow pages and movie feeds.


The edge? It uses GPS or manual location lookups to distance order your searches based on a location. The search results are all location relevant, so if you search for movies in New York, you will get movies from that location.
You can also purchase movie tickets straight from the app, thanks to our agreement with movietickets.com


I'm looking for users that would like to join our beta. I don't normally venture into the aftermarket software board (I'm a developer board junkie) but I saw a lot of users that were keen to try new things here.


You can download it by visiting m.mypoynt.com from your blackberry.


You must be running Java apps version 4.2.1 or above and you must have a 8000 series phone (sorry Bold users, not yet...). This includes the curve, pearl and 8800 series phones.

This app will work on all types of blackberry connections: Wifi, BES, BIS, WAP, and direct tcp. It will detect your devices connection abilities and attempt connections in that order. Yay for wifi users that don't have to pay a nickel

You do NOT need a GPS phone to use Poynt, although it's very handy.

Verizon customers, sorry no GPS support yet but we're working on it. Verizon locks down their GPS for 3rd party apps until they are approved. Your usage will expedite that process.


*UPDATE* v0.9.4 is out, now supporting the Blackberry Bold

[myet01]

Not being rude, but how is this application different than MSLive Mobile, Superpages and Google Maps (ok, I think I know that one)?

Tony

[gibber9583]

It isnt different from them. Its another option. A good one at that. It has a very nice interface and what it does, it does well.

The only problem i have is it displays information in kilometers not miles. I dont want to have to calculate that information in my head. I cannot find any options any where to change this.

Outside of that, this is a handle little app for yellowpage/movie searches.

[CELITE]

Gibber, we are adding a feature that allows you to change your distance units as we speak and will push an update to our users when it is available. Thank you for your feedback.

[gibber9583]

A few more then:
It would be nice to not have to be dependent on blackberry maps to use the mapping feature. Thoughts and explanations on that aspect?

It would also be nice to add a phone number to my address book directly from the application

Lastly, cell phone triangulation would be nice as well for those w/out GPS or cannot get a GPS signal.


I do like the app a lot though, and plan on keeping it installed. it has a nice visual flare, and is pretty quick.

[CELITE]

Thank you for your response Tony. I expected that those hard questions would come.

Through agreements with major directory publishers, Poynt provides direct content from their feeds. What this means is access to the most relevant business data ordered by distance. You will find differences in search results when you search with different applications, and we hope that our data gives our users the best experience.

Poynt also gives users the ability to purchase movie tickets directly through the application. To my knowledge, the applications you listed do not provide
that feature. Our movie data is also richer in content, and you can quickly access information like cast, synopsis and reviews.

Poynt has a user-interface that was developed very carefully to provide the most intuitive experience possible. The idea was to order data in a way that made it relevant to a user's frame of mind when they were performing searches.

Poynt is faster and lighter than the applications you listed. This is because careful time was spent optimizing for size and speed. Poynt also supports a wider variety of connection types, and we've found that where other applications fail to perform searches, Poynt succeeds.

We also are working on incorporating additional local content into Poynt so that users can perform searches beyond basic yellow pages look ups.

In addition, we have agreements in place with data providers in Europe and
plan to deploy there later this year. What this means is that if you travel beyond Canada and the U.S. Poynt will be available to help with your local search needs.

Of course, I can tell you as much as I want to, but the real test will be for you to use it and see how you think it performs next to the other apps you mentioned. To get it, go to m.mypoynt.com from your BlackBerry browser. I'd love to hear what you think once you've had a chance to use it.


We have received lots of feedback so far through Poynt's 'Send Us Feedback' feature. All feedback is carefully reviewed, and if you provide us with a great idea, we might add it to Poynt! Thank you to those who have tried it out.

[jorgeledesmadds]

Love the application

[fkjr2]

thanks for posting will give it a try - I am loving Superpages right now.

[fkjr2]

Good start I guess.

Needs this:

1. Better gps search (can't find my location)
2. Remove disclaimer after initial use!
3. Add "inject search result to address book"
4. Add support for residential lookups
5. Add option to use other "mapping apps"
6. Add option to use distance in miles
7. Larger font....my poor eyes
8. Add option for "favorites" section

thanks for listening

[gibber9583]

Originally Posted by fkjr2

Good start I guess.

Needs this:

1. Better gps search (can't find my location)
2. Remove disclaimer after initial use!
3. Add "inject search result to address book"
4. Add support for residential lookups
5. Add option to use other "mapping apps"
6. Add option to use distance in miles
7. Larger font....my poor eyes
8. Add option for "favorites" section

thanks for listening

agreed.

[FF2]

Seems pretty good. I'm not sure if it works using a zipcode as LOCATION but it seemed to work generally but locations seemed further away than the zip I provided.

It appears that it does work with a gps puck on a Verizon 8830.

[CELITE]

Originally Posted by fkjr2

Good start I guess.

Needs this:

1. Better gps search (can't find my location)
2. Remove disclaimer after initial use!
3. Add "inject search result to address book"
4. Add support for residential lookups
5. Add option to use other "mapping apps"
6. Add option to use distance in miles
7. Larger font....my poor eyes
8. Add option for "favorites" section

thanks for listening

All suggestions are great. We've already added 3, 6 and 7 since we received similar feedback from many other users.

Regarding 2., the application already does this. Does it not remove the disclaimer on yours? Do you have any ITPolicy restrictions on your blackberry that you are aware of? This problem could occur if your device was denying persistent store access to 3rd party apps.

[don.new]

I deleted BB Maps when I started using Google Maps, but now I can't find how to get it back for this app.

[CELITE]

don, you can install BB maps through the BB Desktop software. You can download the full application package for your device by googling: Blackberry Software Download <your carrier here>. Install the blackberry device software you downloaded, connect your blackberry to the desktop manager, then run the application loader. The rest is pretty easy.

[don.new]

Thanks, I'll try it.

[jorgeledesmadds]

checkout BlackberryGTD.com for a nice review of this apps with tons of screenshots

[CELITE]

Hi everyone!

Thanks to all the feedback we received, I dropped in a couple more features:

1. Ability to switch between km and mi - Click the menu button and click options and settings.
2. Change the font size of list items - " "
3. Add listings to your address book - Click on the listing and click add to address book
4. Fixed a few bugs here and there, you probably won't notice
5. Sorry no other mapping options yet, but we're working on it!
6. Pressing end now backgrounds the app instead of turning it off so you don't lose your searches when you want to do other blackberry tasks.

Until our mobile versioning system is in place, automatic updates are turned off so you can manually go to m.mypoynt.com and re-download it. Automatic updates will work as soon as we turn that feature on from our end.

Also your browser might have a problem with caching. If when you click on the link it says the version is 0.7.8, hit refresh and it will update to 0.8.0.

For all new users this won't be an issue. I hope you're all enjoying the app!

[John Clark]

Wow..this is nice! I've kept Windows Live Search just for it's movie listing. This is much smaller and does a nice job. Thanks for this!

Installed seamlessly on my 8320 with 4.5.

[CELITE]

John, does it work well with your wifi device then? For the developers out there or anyone interested, you can access a backdoor that you can use to change or set what type of connection Poynt uses by holding down alt and typing 'pete'. The wipe persistent store button takes out all your settings as if you had just installed the app.

There is also a useful feature called the debug console, which you can access from the about section: Menu->About Poynt->Debug Console. Once in the console press t to move up to the top and then you can email the dump to me by clicking on the button. Don't worry, there is no personal information sent i.e. nothing that could identify you or your device.

[jorgeledesmadds]

Great update, thanks, I guess the other maps people are waiting for is Google Maps support but we'll wait for that in the future.

congrats