

Airbnb (YC W09) launched an iPhone app - mrduncan
http://www.airbnb.com/mobile/iphone

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Timothee
Not surprising coming from AirBnB, but this app looks _very, very_ polished.

It doesn't look much but the customization of all these standard UI elements
(e.g. UITabBar as mentioned by sudont) makes a difference in the end. I would
say especially in their market where I have seen websites with more than
dubious interfaces.

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bryne
Yeah, this is really pretty pleasing to use. Good on the AirBnB guys.

It looks like the "Daily Deals" are exclusive to the app?

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brianchesky
Yes, for now :)

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sudont
Of note is that someone finally made the UITabBar very pretty.

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ganjianwei
Looks like we have a candidate for next year's Apple Design Awards.

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sudonim
Did you (Airbnb) do any research before deciding to build an iPhone app? Or
was it primarily motivated by "cool" factor? (both are valid in my opinion)

I've had around 20 people stay at my place through airbnb and I think one
person had an iPhone. At least in NY, many people visit from overseas where
iPhones are not as prominent.

OTOH, Managing bookings on my iPhone is gonna be sweet.

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brianchesky
An iPhone app was the most requested product.

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scrrr
Slightly off-topic:

I tried to use Airbnb recently and although I understand there's a business
reason for not being able to contact other people in this website directly,
e.g. via email or phone, I found the means by which the website tries to
prevent it very annoying. It's not that I wanted to cheat them out of their
provision, it was merely for convenience.

Pity, because the service is good and exceptionally well designed. But it is
not the open Internet I am wishing for. Waiting for a better competitor.

