Using an iPhone & iPad in Thailand Tips, App Reviews and News for the iPhone and iPad by Richard Barrow

Top 50 Amazing Experiences in Thailand

Discover the best of Thailand on your iPhone. Whether you’re planning a visit or just interested in finding out more about Thailand, this free application will give you an overview of the Kingdom’s highlights. Explore Thailand’s top 50 experiences, from ancient temples and pristine beaches to outdoor adventures and world-class luxury, all on a simple and easy interface.

Top 50 Amazing Experiences in Thailand is now the third iPhone app released by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) with the intention of promoting Thailand. The first two, Eat and Drink in BKK and Thai Cookbook by TAT, were dismal failures. The first app only listed 50 restaurants for the whole of Bangkok and had no interactive maps. The second app only had 16 recipes and kept crashing when I tried to play the videos. So, is their third attempt worth the money that they invested?

I really wanted this to be good. But, it wasn't really offering anything new. I had seen it all before. Either in a brochure or on a website. In fact, it is much like flipping through a brochure. Except you cannot changing the pages by swiping it but have to do it the old fashioned way by clicking on an arrow. You basically get 50 highlights for Thailand with some brief information about it. The highlights are not sorted by region and seem to be random. There are no maps and in fact, some of the featured highlights don't even say which province they are in! So, almost useless in many ways. In fact, I am going to unistall this app right now as it is just wasting space on my iPhone.

I hope that any future iPhone apps that are brought out by the TAT prove to be more interactive. I also hope that they get their developer to take a look at the problems with the Thai Cookbook app which just keeps crashing all the time.