Poynt leads the way

Hey everybody. Welcome to Tap that App. I�m Jessica Dolcourt and this is the show where we cover the hottest apps in the mobile space.Let me ask you a question. Where do you go when you want to find information about restaurants, nearby gas stations, and movie theaters? Google Place Pages, Yelp, and Bing are all popular, but have you heard of Poynt? This freebie has been kicking around for awhile, but it's good enough and overlooked enough that we thought it deserved a little love.Right away, you can see that Poynt's a looker, with an intuitive carousel you can navigate through to search for people, businesses, restaurants, gas, and movies. Oh yeah, and you may have noticed the weather widget on the start screen, too.When you dig into the app, you'll see all of these search categories laid out for you in tabs, with a sub-list of options below. If you're into the silver screen, for example, you can search theaters and movies nearby, watch a preview, or pick your flick by looking through other criteria. Click the "Buy" button to virtually pocket a few tickets ahead of the show.Similar search techniques go for dining establishments and gas stations as well. There are even yellow pages and white pages modules for finding people and other businesses. We're impressed by the reverse lookup functionality; though keep in mind that that service will only work for registered people and phone numbers. Poynt uses SuperPages, CitySearch, Open Table, and other content aggregators to accomplish this and other tasks. For each category you'll see multiple selections for what to do next�call a person or place, search for other places nearby, and get directions in your favorite app. Lucky Android users can take advantage of turn-by-turn voice navigation if they select Google Maps to provide guidance.Overall, Poynt makes a great alternative to your other apps for reviews. It does a bangup job taking existing information from multiple online services and wrapping it up in a clean, colorful, and easy-to-use package.The great news for you is that Poynt is available free for Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry smartphones. So there's our suggestion for this week. We hope you like it. If you have any suggestions, email us at tapthatapp@cnet.com. I�m Jessica Dolcourt--keep on tapping!