Urbanspoon for iPad
Urbanspoon's iPad app was averaging one star. Rebuilt as a universal binary alongside the iPhone app rather than maintained as a separate product.
Numbers
- 1 star
- Store rating beforeaverage, at the time of the rebuild
- 5
- Team sizedesigners, testers, developers
Problem
The iPad app had been on the market for years and was averaging a one star rating. That is not a polish problem. It is a product that people open once, fail to use, and rate on the way out.
Solution
Rebuilt as a universal binary with the iPhone app rather than carried on as a separate codebase, using the then-current iOS capabilities to show what the tablet experience should have been.
Analysis
I keep the one star on this page because nobody puts that number in a portfolio and it explains the decision that followed. Two separate codebases is how the iPad app earned that rating in the first place: for years it was everybody's second priority. Merging it into one universal binary mattered more than anything I did to the visual design.
Result
A substantially improved tablet experience, sharing a codebase with the phone app so it could not drift again.
Photos
List and map together, which is the whole reason to have the larger screen.