iPhone and Me

As many of you know, I love my iPhone. 

I have touched it more than I have ever touched my ding-dong.

Anyways, I love this thing because of some of the apps that help me organize aspects of my life. Other apps help me to get information that I need, quickly.

Today, I want to talk about FoodScore [iTunes - $4] by Bizmosis

Take most of your favorite national-chain restaurants that you frequent and most of them are covered here. The database has about 147 restaurants, some of which are exclusive to the east coast and mid-west. [tangent: we need a Dunkin Donuts out here]. The people who put this up pretty much have taken the guesswork out of determining the score (ahem) of your food. Some of the restaurants I have saved on my favorites are Chipotle Mexican Grill, Chevy's, El Pollo Loco, In-N-Out Burger, Starbucks, and Wendy's. A complete listing can be found here (just clicked on it and they say that CPK is on the way!)

It seems that Chipotle doesn't want to be a part of my life lately.

The practical use of this application is not to bust it out during meal-time at the restaurant, but for pre-game planning to determine what you will probably want to eat when you get there. I don't know how many icy stares I've gotten when playing with my phone during meal time. If I know that I am going out to Olive Garden, it's good pre-game to know that a breadstick has a value of 3, so that I can indulge, yet limit myself. 

Cool thing about it that I like is that the database has the ability to update via the download feature on the application. Apparently the last update was in late December 2008.

The downside to this application is that not everything is listed. As a Starbucks lover, this can be a little hectic because the application is not going to list a "Venti Iced Soy Latte with Extra Caramel Sauce" which has a *score* of 8. They're constantly changing their drinks. They released some sort of tea infusion drink this week. That's not on the application, although Starbucks does update their nutritional information as fast as they release their drinks so you can determine the POINTS(C) of most their drinks by going to their website. Other restaurants like In-N-Out don't have a 100% complete listing (Animal Style Fries!?). 

Also, it seems as if your miles may vary depending on restaurant and geography. BJ's Brewpub and El Toritos are two west coast restaurants that have not hit their radar. It also seems as if restaurants with extensive menus have many things omitted... which is to be expected if you have ever been to a restaurant that has a menu with more than five pages worth of listings.

Originally, when I bought this application, it was called FoodPoints, but then WW went all kinds berserk and pulled it. Somehow they managed to copyright the word "points" (which is why I always follow it with a (c) upon any mention on my blog so that they don't get off their walkers, call up their lawyers and have this blog shut down). Anyways, I had bought the previous version (which was pulled) and it wasn't updating. Bizmosis quickly resolved it by getting me a copy of the application in its newest incarnation. I appreciated them resolving it.

This application gets the Iggy seal of approval for it's ease of use for reference. I use it all the time when I feel like getting fast food and saves me time for not having to check websites for nutritional information.