Triptease
£free
Apple iPad
Triptease is an attempt to produce a social media’travelogue hybrid. Based upon the 500px template (a photography app that allows users to submit their photos for ranking by other users), reviewers submit a short blurb and photo about the hotels, venues and restaurants they have used overseas. You submit a score out of ten, and the community rates your post. An excellent idea with a lovely layout and design to the app, the problems are more to do with the community.
You can tell the difference between the professional entries (probably Triptease staff), self promotion (by tourist operators) and general incompetence. By general incompetence, I mean idiots that have submitted smartphone quality images of the highway from the window of their car, with the heading ‘best trip eva!’ and nonsensical text speak. The fact that there are some genuinely interesting suggestions (and beautiful photography) elsewhere, just makes the contrast more stark. Maybe once it gets going it will improve (much like how terrible Pinterest and Instagram were in its early days) – but I worry that the barrier to entry (namely, quality) is too high for a casually updated app.
Some entries are better than others
The app itself is also buggy as hell ‘ tested on an iPad 3, flicking through pages of reviews caused shuddering, freezing and crashing. Annoyingly, uploading your reviews became a chore ‘ every button you press has to be pushed 2-3 times (i.e. entering the date, trying to press the share to Facebook button). So there are problems in the back end too. Despite this, with a bit of polish, this app could be a winner for travellers looking for niche attractions and quirky venues.
