Google has just launched its Google Places App for the iPhone. I was walking around downtown Vancouver testing the App and as I did I compared it to Yelp’s App for the iPhone. Both are free to download from Apple’s App Store.

I am a big fan of the Yelp App and I have been using it for over a year. It gives user reviews and mostly they are bang on the money. It also gives me a list of restaurants, bars and business nearby, using the iPhone’s GPS capability. It gives a useful icon beside each listing with a handy $$ symbol telling me how pricey a place is.

The Google Places App looks like it’s half finished in comparison. It was displaying results from several blocks away, or several hundred ‘feet’ away. We’re metric here in Canada Mr. Google, so please fix that–I checked was there any settings options, but could not find any. Despite standing outside a ‘Waves’ coffee house, it did not display that business. Instead it gave me a listing for Caffe Artigiano 0.21 miles away (listings were sorted by user reviews–Caffe Artigiano had 101 reviews). Still, I would rather get a cup of coffee without walking 10 minutes to get it, and where it says on the review “the service…is about as bad as it can get”.

The Google Places App home screen offers nine categories for browsing: restaurants, coffee, bars, ATMs, Gas Stations, Hotels, Attractions, Pizza and Post Office. I clicked the Attractions button and it listed ‘Roxy Night Club’, ‘Commodore Ballroom’ and ‘Cellar Nightclub’ in the top three. These are not exactly highlights for a trip to Vancouver , and maybe Google wants to revisit its definition of ‘Attractions’.

Testing over. First impressions are it’s BAD like Michael Jackson was. Terrible actually. It looks like it was rolled out to soon. Anyone who uses the Yelp App will probably agree.