Price: Free
Rating: 
Apps by Place
Android App Review by AndroidAppsReview.com
Reviewed by Sarah Hanlon
Apps by Place, developed by Ievgenii Lebid, promises to help users find popular apps based on their geographic location. The results are somewhat accurate and it seems the smaller the area you’re searching for the better the results. So it’s a decent way to find local apps but you may have to sift through the search results to find the app you want.
Concept and Functionality
Why would an app like Apps by Place be such a great tool? For one, there are plenty of great local apps that are buried under the popularity of others, making it nearly impossible to find them unless you specifically search for them.
A perfect example would be your local news station’s app, or perhaps a guide to area parks. Though Apple recently integrated a “Near Me” feature into their App Store, Google Play has yet to counter with something similar.
Reviewed by Sarah Hanlon
For this reason, I had truly high hopes for Apps by Place. Using it is incredibly simple, and all you have to do to get started is let it determine your location. Apps are then sorted by country, city, and neighborhood.
Immediately I knew something wasn’t right when only eight apps were displayed in the country section, all of them having the keyword “United States” in the name. Upon seeing apps a bit closer to home, I found that almost all of them had a keyword pertaining to my location.
While this can still work for finding local apps, the results are hit and miss since your locality name may not be in the app title. So while for broadly covered areas like the entire US the name of the area may not be in the app title, it does seem that as you get more granular in your search, apps with a real local focus do put the name of the area they cater to in the title.
Once you find local apps that you’re interested in, Apps by Place makes it very simple to download them. One thing to keep in mind is that there’s no way for the app to decipher what the most popular downloads are in any given location, as that’s information only Google could collect.
Though the results aren’t always spot-on, it’s very possible that you’ll find useful apps in the results.
Features
Apps by Place not only allows users to download displayed apps quickly and easily, but it also makes a brave attempt to display results in a very organized way. App results are sorted into their respective categories, such as food, guides, and radio.
One problem I frequently encountered, though, was tapping on a category that would indicate an app or two just to reach a “not found” message.
Lastly, Apps by Place users can switch between free and paid apps just by swiping their finger on a list of results. Again, I can’t stress the fact enough that your mileage will likely vary based on what you’ll see as far as local apps that are related to your area.
Value
Apps by Place is available to download from Google Play for free, though I’m on the fence as far as recommending it for finding local apps. While results can be interesting and occasionally fruitful, it’s possible that users will spend more time downloading apps via trial and error.
Apps by Place requires Android 3.0+. A small expedite fee was paid to speed up the publication of this review.
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