The iPhone release of Zagat to Go ‘09 was an expensive bummer—a $10 app that depended on an Internet connection for its less than universally impressive restaurant and hotel listings—but Handmark has kept at it, adding the ability to search some of its listings while offline, an online-only reservation booker for some restaurants via OpenTable, and now an iPad-formatted browser. Now known solely as Zagat to Go, the app remains at its prior $10 price, but now uses the full iPad screen to display a map with simple locale details, or a more detailed screen with hours, dress code, features, accolates, and rating scores
Zagat to Go’s database remains extremely limited outside of major metro areas, and in some cases quite poor even within certain big cities, but at least the iPad app provides a better overall user experience than the original iPhone version did. We still prefer the listings of services such as Urbanspoon and Yelp, but those looking for the summarized and editorially vetted survey data of Zagat will find it pleasantly displayed here.
