BeerMap is a location aware application enabling people to share information about the quality and price of beer in and around their locality. The implementation combines both web and mobile technologies and consists of three main components:

iPhone Application

BeerMap for iPhone is a native Cocoa application and using the built in GPS location technology, users are able to find information about beer in their location are and share information with others. This includes the ability to identify the current pub/bar, take photos using the integrated camera and to upload all the information to a database.

Location Aware Web Service

Based upon a heavily extended version of the Zend Framework, the BeerMap web service provides a programmatic interface to the information stored within the online database. This includes functions to produce location specific lists of reviews, likely pubs/bars and provides the ability to collaborate amongst multiple users.

More information can be found in the article “Finding your way with an iPhone and PHP“.

Interactive Website

The interactive website is currently in development and will provide an online version of BeerMap reducing the need for a mobile device. This will provide functionality to allow increased collaboration amongst friends using the service and will increase the amount of interaction with social networking appications using technologies including Facebook Connect and Twitter.