Going Out, Minnesota State Fair
I have downloaded the Minnesota State Fair app to my phone for the last two years, on the day we attended the fair. The first year we tried the app it is was terrible. It crashed regularly and was so slow to load that it wasn't really worth anything other than telling us what who was on each performance stage. Moving withing the maps crashed the app and eventually I reverted to a paper map and schedule. Last year the app was much improved and we used it several times throughout the day. It has a great map, the previously mentioned schedule of performances each day, a list of events and theme days. I was happy with the way it performed for the one day we attended the fair. That said, we used the app one day and it takes a ton of memory. Both years I have deleted it after the fair was over and can't really see a reason to keep it installed year round. I will re-install again this year when August rolls around and will be looking for the improvements made over the off season. If nothing else it is a handy way to find the nearest cheese curds.
I loaded the Going Out app on my Kindle and after playing with it a bit came to the realization that it would be much better suited to a phone or a more portable device. I liked the events calendar and the restaurant listings both of which can be selected based on your location. Having the recommendations come from the StarTrib makes them feel more vetted, but I was disappointed to find so few reviews, staff or user, of the places they suggested. As I am finding with several of the other apps I have tried in these activities, Going Out seems like an app that has competition already doing it better. Foursquare, Yelp and others are more established and better developed sources for most of the same information. The best reason I can find for using anything but the events calendar is that is is a local resource and probably more up to date than other sources.
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