Whether it’s dinner, drinks, or a walk in the park, these apps help you make your plans right in iMessage.
OpenTable
With the free OpenTable app, you can bring your pre-dining experience to your iPhone. Use the app to discover new restaurants to try and then book your reservations. Plus, earn points towards rewards every time you dine with the OpenTable app.
Featuring over 38,000 restaurant listings, OpenTable makes it easy to find a great place to eat.
Yelp: Food, Delivery & Reviews
Yelp is the one-stop-shop for anyone who wants to know if a place is good or bad based on reviews from the community. There is a ton of data in Yelp, which includes basic business information, reviews and the average star rating from users, photos, and filters for finding specific places that meet your criteria for right now (including Pokéstops for Pokémon Go). You can even bookmark places that you may want to check out in the future, leave your own reviews and ratings, check out what your friends recommend, and much more. If you are in search of a new restaurant or want a specific type of shop or even medical center, then Yelp should be one of the first places you look.
If you want to become a smarter shopper or foodie, this is your app. You won’t find a better source for information.
Fandango - Get Movie Tickets
Fandango does have some cool features not offered in other apps. You have the option of opening a Fandango account, which allows you to purchase your tickets right from your phone (if available at your theater). You can browse showtimes by movie or theater, rate movies, and even create a wish list of movies that you want to see. Fandango will then notify you when they start playing at a theater near you. Sadly there are small banner ads, even a few pop-ups, and Fandango does load slower than the essential apps.
It's easy to purchase your tickets ahead of time and then skip the lines at the box office. A must-have for all moviegoers.
Doodle: Easy Scheduling
Getting multiple people to meet in the same place at the same time can be tough. When you have a group of individuals – whether students or coworkers – who all have varying schedules, it can get even harder. Doodle allows you to easily send a poll to anyone asking them to indicate whether they are available or busy for set time slots, and the best part is that an account is not required for filling out polls. Doodle also offers some advanced features. For starters, you can allow users to select "if need be" times, that way you can make sure everyone is free and that it's convenient for most. Polls can optionally be set as private, so only administrators can view responses, and they can also be used as sign-up systems for events by only allowing users to choose a select amount of options, or to have a maximum number of attendees per time slot. While Doodle has been known to be web-based, the iOS app in particular allows users to create, modify, and respond to polls on the go. The best part is being able to receive notifications for when participants respond. This makes it a must-have for any Doodle user.
Doodle is the easiest way to find out when everyone's available, and also offers the best iOS solution for this that we've found. Being able to keep up with polls in a desktop web browser, along with in the mobile app with push notifications, makes it easy to use while balancing a busy lifestyle.