Winery Quest is the best winery map yet and we were getting close to releasing a few of our apps to beta testers when Apple announced that the new, much improved, and free iPhone 3.0 operating system is to be released June 17.

The software development kit for the new OS has some very nice enhancements for using Google Maps so we decided to re-write the code and make an app that has a brighter future.  Hopefully we’ll have it in testing in a couple of weeks.

The big issue is getting it approved for the App Store.  There are lots of horror stories about Apple denying good apps but approving ones like Farts.  Winery Quest should be fine but we won’t have a release date until it is in the store and ready to download – for a price.

Features in version 1.0?  Google Maps with our markers and some profile data for 20 California wine regions and about 650 wineries.  You will see your location on the map so you can navigate unfamiliar regions.

The California winery pak, all regions, will probably cost $4.95.  If this is successful we’ll offer Oregon and Washington paks next year.  We have 4 versions planned so the app will get more exciting with time.

The app market for Blackberries and other phones is too small to make the investment now.  Each has its own operating system and code specs so development requires learning yet more stuff.  We aren’t going to rush into that.  We will make a mobile version of WineQuesters.com for these phones when their app market is big enough to be worth the cost of creating apps.

- jim

Tags: iPhone app

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 9:39 am and is filed under California, Road trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.