In mid-2012, Poynt, the Calgary-based landmark search and sharing app, was in trouble. Originally available for BlackBerry, expanding to iOS, Android and Windows Phone later on, the app’s parent company filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2012, citing an inability “to meet the obligations owing to its secured and unsecured creditors.”
Despite the setback, the company continued to work to build its relationship with both consumers and businesses, and in mid-2013 its assets were purchased, along with the patents and partnerships, for around $2.5 million by Sprylogics International, based out of Concord, Ontario.
Now Poynt is back with version 2.0 of its iOS app, replete with a redesigned interface, better location data and an ability to quickly “swipe and share” search results with other Poynt friends.
Poynt was always good at quickly finding restaurants, gas stations (and prices), business locations and weather results, but now those results can be shared with other Poynt users via a one-time signup process. Users must enter their phone numbers to find others in the company’s database. Sprylogics claims to have improved the app’s search experience by adding “semantic data aggregation and natural language processing capabilities.” The iOS app can share results through Twitter, Facebook, email or SMS as well.
While Poynt’s redesign certainly seems to be a step in the right direction, but the app recreates many of the functions of Google’s much-improved mobile search, and Google Now, integrated into most new Android devices, goes beyond what is offered here. iOS users will see movie ratings from Rotten Tomatoes and business and restaurant listings from YellowPages, but it remains to be seen if it will entice users away from single-purpose apps from each respective company.
According to a press release, this is the first in a series of upgrades for Poynt across all major platforms, including Android, BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone.
