Archive for ‘July 2009’

The Food Network Mobile Application: A Review

It was great news for us as foodies and techies to hear about The Food Network launching a mobile application for Blackberry devices. TheFoodNetwork in Canada joined forces with Polar Mobile to debut on Wednesday this app, and since I personally own a Blackberry Curve 8330 and just adore this channel, decided to download and take it for a spin.



Surprisingly it runs very smoothly and is responds very fast to every command with little load time. Featured daily is a recipe (Today: Grilled Scallops with Watermelon Salsa), and as quick links you get Healthy Living, Kid meals, special occasions and quick and easy meal. Under the "On TV" option you get to browse TFN Canada's shows (I'm guessing they're the same shows we get in US/PR) and each show's recipes, by tags or keywords. Choose as many as you like (breakfast, brunch, turkey, etc) and it gives you all options available. The search engine works well and gives you an immeadiate screenshot, ingredients and instructions.

If you're on a BB Storm you also get a "Video" tab, which I unfortunately couldn't try out. If you like any of the recipes, you have the option of bookmarkin them under "recipes". I actually found a Chocolate Eggplant recipe which I am just dying to try out.

In my opinion, what's missing is the opportunity to share with others the recipes you found (via Digg, Delicious, Twitter, etc). Many Blackberry owners who download this app may also already have other social networking apps. Maybe TFN and Polar Mobile should have a look at how Viigo lets you tweet, share and email articles.

We hope to see more food-related apps like this one in the future. I for one will be using this constantly.

If you want to download direct your Blackberry Browser to http://m.foodtv.ca/ or simply download Via AppWorld, searching for "Food Network".