[App Fridays] Citypal - a location based deals aggregator; How is it different from the others in the market?

This column is sponsored by Nokia Asha

Who doesn't like a good deal? Providing deals in order to sell their goods faster or attract more customers is one of the oldest tricks in the book that merchants continue to use even today. With better communication and especially mobility, they can now notify you of these deals even if you're far away. Many apps, some even successful, have leveraged this technology to connect merchants to potential users.

In today's App Fridays, we feature Citypal, which is one of the many apps that perform the above mentioned function. How is it different from others in space and why you should or shouldn't use it? Well, read on...

What is it about? 

If you were a 90s kid, you would instantly recognize Top Cat from the old cartoon network channel giving you instructions to use the app (not sure how the permissions work). But essentially, the app aggregates deals from all around you and uses a location based service to sort it according to the areas closest to you.

Within the deals function itself, the app performs in two ways. It either simply notify's you of a deal by giving you relevant information about the deal when you click on it or it prompts you to redeem a coupon if the deal requires you to do so. It does so by rendering a web view within the app of the site where you have redeem the coupon from. You can check in at certain locations, like foursquare, and the app will also give you a list of your Facebook friends who have checked in at the same place as well.

The app is built using Titanium (Appcelarator for those who remember) and is available for the iOS and Android platform.

My tiff with Cross Platform apps 

While Citypal is compiled as an Android or an iPhone app, it is still built on a language which is not native to these platforms. And the result is telling. After having seen and experience some beautifully built native apps on this column, Citypal isn't up to the mark in it's user experience. Having said that, most deal aggregator applications that I've seen aren't native. Most of them have a bad experience in terms of usage. Maybe it is a necessity for these apps. However, some of the established players like Delight Circle and Loremo follow design principles specific to the platform; something which Citypal doesn't do.

I am yet to see a cross platform application that has delighted a user and has sticked on. Many an app developer will tell you that native is the way to go. The industry biggies like Facebook have burnt their fingers in the process as well. Citypal's lack of adherence to design principles and it's non-nativeness makes a below par user experience. And this is true for almost all cross platform applications.

Pros and cons 

The deals aggregation is quite comprehensive. I found deals that I had no idea about in restaurants that I regularly go to. However, because it performs a limited number of functions, its also pretty easy to figure out and use. It would be pretty cool if the app could push notifications of featured deals based on location, which the app doesn't do as of now.

The biggest con of the app is it's user experience. It's choppy. Basic UX 101s such as integration with the Facebook API is not done on the Android app, which would provide a one click login process. The rendition of a desktop webpage on a mobile app isn't a good thing and all the redeem coupon links do this. I haven't been able to redeem a single coupon till date from Citypal.

Having said that, what the app is now and what it was when it first came to us are worlds apart. The app is a lot more stable now and I'm sure design and UX is on the development team's mind as they go through further iterations of the product.

Our take 

Citypal is a stable app and it does what it says. With a little more adherence to platform specific design principles, Citypal will be as good as any other app in the deals space. But is that good enough?

I think the deals aggregation space is screaming out for a native app with a user experience that will delight its user. There is no one as of now doing that. Will Citypal be that app? Lets wait and watch.

Download Citypal and tell us what you think.