Yelp for Android now uploading photos
A small update carries Yelp for Android farther from its building-blocks basic initial release to something resembling a useful mobile app.
Yelp's first foray on Google's Android phones wasn't much to look at.
The initial feature set of Yelp's business review app for Android, which debuted December 7, was minimalist. It contained enough features--read-only access to Yelp.com, click-to-call, and a hyperlink to get directions from the browser or Google Maps--to avoid a user riot, but one would hardly call it the answer to Yelp's iPhone app.
On Tuesday, Yelp is making good on its promise to quickly pad the app's features. Version 1.2, an update available through the Android Market app on your smartphone, now lets you upload pictures from your Android phone to Yelp's site.
If you're meeting someone at a restaurant, bar, or museum, you can now share Yelp's business listing with others over SMS, e-mail, Facebook, and other third-party apps you may have installed on your phone, like a Twitter service. As a third addition, you're also free to sign in to your Yelp profile from the smartphone.
These changes may seem like small potatoes at first--you still can't add your own rating, write tips, or review a place from the phone--but they reverse two of our complaints. Yelp tells us we should expect to see more interactive features in early 2010, like drafting a review for later publishing, and bookmarking a business.