Since there's a bit of hype about a new product in the US today, how about some ideas for what an ABSINTHE tablet would have/could do?

A bottle of absinthe with the ability to download and add water to your personal preference, check for other absinthe lovers nearby to meet up with, mix a cocktail for you etc. Maybe for around $ 99.99?

I think it should be able to hold a fountain and some glasses.

I've actually toyed around with the idea of writing some sort of absinthe-oriented iPhone app. Time is at a premium these days, though.

... Certainly one of the more interesting posts I've seen here lately...

I'm so old school, I'm still trying to get my dog to fetch me a beer from the fridge.

(I killed that double post for you, Gruene Fee)

Someone else got there first.

He said absinthe-oriented app.

I didn't want to cast any aspersion on our beloved colleagues.

I'd see an appliance with the following

- The absinthe board : with many brands listed, remotely linked to several review sources, searchable on many criteria, links to online shops with compared price (if available)
- The paraphenalia board :
- Recent paraphenalia : list of all known glasses, spoons, brouilles, foutains, etc, with links to several shops with compared prices
- Antiques : the whole MCD transcribed for spoons (on that part we wouldn't have the copyrights though), a database of all known pieces, with social contribution, and when available, price trending on ebay, and links and alerts on auctions for watched items

Erf, I would probably be able to create that, besides...

If we could get an app that displays all of the review section and allow users to post reviews, that would be Frikkin FANTASTIC. I'd love one for my blackberry too.

If we don't have any members who are familiar with the iPhone app SDK, and who would be willing to do one for us, then perhaps we should just hire folks to create a WS app? I know I'd use the hell out of a WS app.

Dunno for iPhone, would be my pleasure to do it for Android though.

Or we could always do a web app. Basically that would only be a module for the WWS CMS

How about we hold a contest to find the best app? I'd be willing to put up something... old... as a prize for the winner. I think we definitely at least need one for iPhone and one for Blackberry.

You're so on sir !

I code for iPhone SDK. I'm new to it, coming to Objective-C from ECMA languages... but it hasn't been hard to pick up so far.

My thought for an app was pretty much precisely that - a spinner of sorts that lets you grab a brand from a list, then you read reviews on that brand. Maybe a map view to find out where to buy what in your location.

My hurdle on this is that, were I to code it, I would want it to be agnostic to absinthe-site politics, and have it cater exclusively to neither WS nor FV, fall under the jurisdiction of neither site, and be something that could be happily adopted by my both friends here and my friends there. Ideas for creating this neutrality include co-branding and using reviews/info from both sources, or making the app a separate entity and using data from neither source (but collecting endorsements of both).

In order to accomplish this, it would need a web interface as well - somewhere to cull the reviews from and store user profile data. And I'm not a web back-end developer by any stretch of the imagination.


Edit: I fully realize that such agnosticism may be pollyanna-ish of me, but I have several friends in other places that I would hate to leave out in the cold.

Yep. You'd need a database of reviews for the app to pull from, SQL for instance, and that would mean you would have to get approval from both sites to reproduce the reviews, as well as distribute the reviews. You'd also have to have a mechanism in place to update your review databases with any changes to the reviews on either site. Basically live updating between theirs and yours. That would be if you wanted an internet enabled app though. In theory, you could load an app already loaded with all the reviews, but that would require an update to the app very frequently to add the reviews which were posted since the last app update.

Not to mention the two rating systems are different. I'm thinking it may be harder than necessary to have a utopian app, versus having a WS app. Nothing saying it couldn't be ported for use by FV, either.

I saw an iPhone app for Joomla administration. I wonder if there's already an app out there which interfaces with Joomla sites as a client rather than admin? That way you could use the existing database information and just poll it on demand.

I was looking forward to seeing a Louched Lounge absinthe app.

You can query the database on user request. Say, perform a small query just to pull brand names into a list... then query again once a brand is selected.




Apple would never approve anything that vulgar!

KISS as they would say. Keep It Simple and Stupid

First of all, the data source :
you have to have contributors, whose contribution is easy to fetch, so database backend it is, on a collaborative solution.

Therefore, relying on the Joomla ratings tables fed by the WW review applet is, IMHO the only way to go.
The other way would be to copy the reviews in your own base, but you're facing evolution (no "dynamic" content) and rights issues, as you so clearly explain.

To be technology agnostic, besides, to cover not only iPhone, but also Android, and maybe the last versions of blackberries, would be to go "web app", once again, IMHO.

I propose, (and that's what I'll do) using a mobile templating framework (such as iWebKit), and implement the features, PHP based, hosted on the WW server, and exploiting the WW review application's database.

As far as being "site agnostic" is concerned, in the end, any joomla-based absinthe-oriented web site could have its own version of the app.

Possibly then, WebService exposure, and, with rights provided, gathering of data...

Also, Ron, technically, it would be feasible to have something independent, using a crawler and a lexer, but hell, that would be horribly difficult to implement

Apologies to BlackBerry users out there, but man do I really hate web apps on mobile.

I think this is the best solution for coding a one-size-fits-all app, which people other than iPhone users could appreciate. And some of you will probably remember that the original third party iPhone apps were required to be webapps because of the concern that software apps on the phone could harm the integrity of the OS. So it's not a foreign idea to have web apps on the iPhone, and I wouldn't be opposed to them. I think coding an iPhone specific app using the SDK would obviously offer many more capabilitites, but it sounds like those capabilities aren't really things we would need for simple database querying and displaying.

I like both your ideas, but I'm more inclined to think that Aggelos' would reach more users, which can only be a plus in my book. And I'm and iPhone user!

Now, if the app were to evolve into more than an absinthe brand review database, and perhaps added some integration with the forum, messenger, etc, then I think the iPhone app SDK is the way to go.

Thought about it for some time, to use on the many IPB forums I read, but tremendous work... Would need a IPB remote API, and I would gladly kiss anyone who would provide this.

Blackberry..Blackberry..I have heard that name somewhere...

This is a great idea, but I agree it has to also be available for more than just iPhone.

I'm a BB user myself.

/me scrambles to learn how to code phone apps...



Sure...chock full 'o pr0n and twat jokes. The good people of Apple would just eat that one up.

Little Proof Of Concept, anyone ?

http://aggelos.org/WormwoodApp/

(still tweaking, will work on an iPhone or Android, feel free to tell me how it goes with a BlackBerry... Most recent models could do it)

http://bit.ly/9GzHxN for the short link

Works on my BB.

Edit to add:

How about a "How to drink it" section; Classic drip, classic cocktails (Savoy list?) and a selection of modern cocktails to be chosen by members? With a big "No burning" logo.

Could be done (see update), as static content. Savoy, dunno, what about copyrights ?

Droid!!
Yes!




Moto Droid likes it !!

This thread has had me uery confused. I originally thought it was something about an absinthe "pill". I think I understand now but in a way I don't.

Droid user here.

I love the idea and I'm all about feeding it with WS reviews. A live feed would obviously be best, but if we had someone who would commit to compiling updates on a weekly basis (for example) that could work too.

The classic cocktails are public domain, as are most of the modern ones. The few pro mixologists that are attached to some of the others would probably not balk at having them included as long as credit is given.

Regarding site politics, I don't see them involved in the reviews, aside from a little puffery by fans. We feel our evaluation system is more accurate and to the point than FV's, but that's it. The politics is a game played by an insignificant number of the members of the boards. The admins of the respective sites are on entirely amicable terms.

A comment on the reviews:

The six highest rated absinthes are effectively unavailable to the man in the street (five pre-bans and L'Artisanale). Further down the list, there are several others sadly no longer available (e.g. Helfrich).

Since an Apple/Blackberry App could be looked at by many thousands of people who never make it to the site, might it make more sense to include only reviews of absinthes that are available?

I'm envisioning more reviews sorted alphabetically, mainly because it will be easier to find when people are at the bar or liquor store and trying to figure out which brand to order/buy. That's where I see people using it the most.

I do see the merit of being able to sort them by ranking, but having to go in and edit the brand list based on availability could be a major PITA.

It may also be advisable to put defunct brands in a separate category.

I agree with Brian -- alphabetical is the way to go. And I like the idea of a marker for 'defunct' that would drop a brand into a separate category altogether.

Agreed, although perhaps the word "retired" (as is used on both Beer Advocate and Ratebeer) would have a nicer, more dignified ring to it than "defunct".

I was taking a cue from cocktaildb.org:



Speaking of which: aside from the above named, does anyone know offhand what we have listed that's permanently "retired"?

Does it speak Bachi?

Other than vintage/ preban absinthes, the retired ones we have listed are:

1797 (Original)
Absinthe CCC
Helfrich Absinthes
L'Artisanale
Marteau Verte Classique
Oxygenee
Partisane
Wormwood Blanche

I think that's all of them.

Partisane seems to be available from Alandia for €150!

I don't believe Taboo Gold and Myrrh are still made: they are not on the Taboo or Absinthe Classics Canada websites.

Should the app also exclude substitutes and pastis?

And how about related products? I guess we may want consumers to be warned.

It's probably not the Droid you're looking for.

MVC is still available currently, although out of production.

IMHO, pastis shouldn't be included, but "related products" should be. Especially since we're hoping folks will use the app in stores.

Phallus.

Dong.

"What's brown and sounds like a bell?"

actually I believe the correct spelling is Bocce.

You are correct.

There's probably an app for that!

I did some google research before I posted and that one did seem proper but I gambled and wanted to make the joke more accessible to the masses. I whored myself out for cheap giggles and attention...magician style.






I also didn't want to lower my chances of getting laid.

Dung!