The iPhonewzealand app is live on the App Store!

We are very appy!

It’s with great pleasure that we’re able to announce that our very own app is now available for free on the App Store. But what is it for and why do you need it we hear you cry? Hit the ‘read more’ link to learn all about it.

The iPhonewzealand app was very kindly put together for us by the guys at Smudge Apps and it looks tip-top, even if we do say so ourselves. The app’s main purpose is to suggest and catalogue apps that are made with New Zealand in mind, as well as highlight the apps that are Kiwi-made – something the App Store itself doesn’t do. It is divided into five segments as follows:

• Featured. This is the page the app will always open on and will feature a random app that we’ve reviewed or are particularly fond of, together with a brief explanation and a link to download it.
• NZ Essentials. These are the apps that are built for New Zealanders and feature content that is for kiwis, and that we reckon are ‘must-haves’.
• Essentials. These are the unmissable apps that aren’t necessarily for or by New Zealanders but the ones that we reckon no iPhone should be without. Some are functional, some are fun, some are just for show but all are the cream of the crop.
• NZ Spotlight. Here you’ll find a list of every app by a Kiwi developer that we know of. We would urge you to get behind the local developer community and support their hard work – these are the guys that make owning an iPhone in New Zealand so exciting and the reason that our site even exists.
• Website. A portal to the iPhone-friendly version of our site. Once you have opened the site via this tab, you can switch to landscape from anywhere within the app to go back to it. The small downward-pointing arrow on the top-right gives access to other features of the site such as the forums.

The app features optional push notification that you can easily switch on and off from within the app. To activate this feature go to the ‘NZ Essentials’ tab and tap the ‘push’ button on the top-right. Slide to ‘ON’ and wait until the word ‘push’ turns blue. And because we know how annoying it can be to have your iPhone constantly bleeping at you at all hours we will set in stone right now that we will only send push notifications between the hours of 9:30am and 7pm and they will only ever be in relation to the following: important announcements / newsflashes, new additions to our NZ Essentials list, and notification of competitions. If you go travelling overseas and don’t want to be woken by a push notification in the middle of the night, turn this feature off before you go.

Oh and in case you’re wondering…. the information is cached so it’ll only download new or changed items, saving your bandwidth when you’re on the go (note: it may use a small amount of data when initially checking with the server fro changes.)

An update is being worked on as we speak to add even more features including links to full reviews on our site (where applicable), the ability to choose whether to be directed to the full or lite version of an app (where both options exist) and a link for developers to email us details of any new apps they release or apps which are not listed.

So what are you waiting for? Grab the app, it’s the best resource out there for knowing what’s kiwi on the App Store, and let us know what you think. You can share your thoughts in the comments below, or if you’d rather give us feedback in private please contact us via this form.