Tommy Collison

What iPhone app -not including the Apple-included ones- could you not live without? Twitter? Air-Mouse? Byline? Dessid?

For me, it’s become Yelp! – the location-based facility finder. You enter what you’re looking for (restaurants, banks, petrol stations, etc. or specific things – “Lemon Café” or “Bank of Ireland”) and it uses your location to find you those. People on Twitter are probably sick of me going on about it, but it really is useful and saved my bacon last Thursday.

I was coming into Connolly station from Rosslare, on my way home to Limerick – I had 2.5 hours to kill in Dublin and wanted to get something to eat. I’d recently misplaced my wallet (mercifully, while there’d been no money in it) and my ATM card, so I was running short on cash and I unhappily reckoned it’d be a while before I got to a bank. I had thought of going to one in Dublin but my train only got in 15 minutes before scheduled closing time – 4pm.

I opened up Yelp!, though, hypothesizing that if there was a Bank of Ireland on the same street as Connolly, I may stand a chance of getting to it. I searched for ‘banks’ in Dublin and it came up with 20 or so matches. I saw one on Baggot St., not far from where I was meeting a friend and also close to Stephen’s Green. I set myself the nigh-on-impossible goal of getting from Connolly to Baggot St. in 15 short minutes.

As I looked at the map, a little blue icon caught my eye and I realized that Pearse was only a few streets up from Baggot St, and was much more reachable goal since my train actually stopped there.

My iPhone screen read 15:38 as I leapt off the train at Pearse Street Station and into the street. Using the Maps app, I made my way down the streets of Dublin. As I turned onto the last street before Baggot St., I became increasingly annoyed because my phone wasn’t updating my location -I must be making better progress than that!- before I realized, heart sinking, that the street was much longer than I’d realized on the train. Redoubling my efforts, I continued on.

A Yelp! review praised the bank’s building, saying it was “badass”, so as I reached Baggot St., I began looking for a good looking building with some sor of Bank of Ireland marking on it. At 15:58, I found it and rushed through its doors.

As I withdrew some money, I made some small-talk with the cashier – I’ll come clean, I was proud of making it to the bank in time.

“So, I must have cut it pretty fine since you’re closing at 4, right?” I ask, suppressing a smile.

“Oh no” says the cashier happily. “We’re open til 5 on Thursdays!”

Well, I was still proud that I made my deadline!

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Yelp! is a free app that I thoroughly recommend getting. Get it here

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