It’s been a year since we redesigned and re-released the YAMU app!
Our relationship with our app users has been long and often strained, which is mostly my fault. Basically, our app was slow, not updated since forever, and often broken. We’ve managed (thanks to Mal, mostly) to put all that behind us and have a really great year on app.
The Features
- Advanced Filtering: One of the features we’re extremely proud of is Advanced Filtering, which allows you a myriad of ways to find and filter places to eat and hang. Right now you can go to any list of places and press the filter button, but we're planning to make it more prominent.
- Push Notifications: We’ve also sought to make it easy for all our users to keep up to date with the latest YAMU reviews and comments, with push notifications. The coolest thing is that you can bookmark stuff and get notified when people comment, or get notified when your AHAMU questions are answered.
- In-App Videos: You can watch videos in the app itself, and access the recipe details for the cookery videos too!
- User Reviews: The latest feature, and the one we’ve been working on for a long time and think all our users will love the most, is user reviews and ratings for places. Now you can have your say, and tell us which places you love and which you’d rather avoid. You just have to click the floating pencil button when looking at a place or review.
- YAMU Delivery: Coming soon, hopefully within the month, will be YAMU Delivery through the app. Dozens of delivery options will literally be only a few taps away.
The Numbers
Version 2.0 of the YAMU app was released on Jan 04, 2016. We released 16 versions of the app since. It’s been a busy year, and our users have been tremendously supportive.
The initial 2.0 release of the app carried modifications that were overwhelmingly technical in nature. We hadn’t released an app update since October 2014, and the old app was slow, unresponsive and buggy. We did a complete rewrite which moved us to a great new platform (React Native), which was both faster to develop on, and gave users a smoother experience.
We kept adding more features: Access to our menu system, events, better search (and filtering), watch videos in the app, and access to taxi numbers. Users gained the ability to log in to the app, add comments and reviews, bookmark their favourite stuff, and get push notifications.
The Future
Things are looking up for the app, and with more developers on board we’re hoping to achieve even greater things on the platform. With a slew of new features and service integrations on the roadmap, we’re hoping the app will epitomize our tag line: your friend in the city.
