July 10, 2008 Where To? 1.0 is launched as one of the first 500 apps on the App Store. The first three months of its existence, the app is sold under the tap tap tap brand.
October 13, 2008
December 16, 2008 The App Store crosses the mark of 10,000 apps.
June 8, 2009
August 8, 2009 In iPhone OS 3, Apple added MapKit allowing developers to add maps to their apps. Where To? 2.0 immediately jumped on board.
December 4, 2009 As one of the first apps, Where To? collaborates with third party apps starting with Navigon for turn-by-turn directions. Over the course of the years, support for more than 80 different apps has been added, supporting car, bike, pedestrian and public transport navigation. Today, Navigon is no longer available on the App Store. At this time, the App Store counts more than 100k apps.
August 6, 2010 We’re surprised to discover a replication of the Where To? home screen in an Apple patent application and are worried about the implications. The story created a huge media frenzy with dozens of publications reporting. Turns out Apple merely illustrated a potential use case of their invention.
January 26, 2011 Where To? 3D, a fun and pretty advanced augmented reality feature is introduced. The feature is made available as an in-app purchase with a phenomenal conversion rate.
August 8, 2011
November 12, 2011 Ratings and reviews are added to place listings in Where To? 4.0.
June 21, 2012
December 19, 2012
February 21, 2013
February 28, 2014 Where To? is the first app (and up til today the only app) to send destination information to car navigation systems. Starting with Audi in Where To? 6.0, Mercedes Benz is added in 6.7, BMW in 7.0 and Porsche just recently. At the end of 2013, more than 1 million apps are available on the App Store.
September 4, 2014 Every brick in the app was turned in a radical UI redesign: The leather theme was replaced by a modern, flat, and fluid UI design, suitable for iOS 7 and beyond. One thing has remained though over all the years since 1.0: the iconic category wheel – we will cherish it!
September 18, 2014 Where To? for Pebble is released. The companion app helps with last mile navigation leveraging the Pebble’s hardware compass. Meanwhile, Pebble was acquired by FitBit and the smart watches are no longer on the market.
April 2, 2015
September 13, 2016 iOS 10 opens up the Messages app for third parties and launches the iMessage App Store. Where To? adds an iMessage app that reduces friction to insert location cards into conversations.
November 8, 2017 Table (and hotel) reservation and location alarms are added.
July 28, 2021 After being a paid app for 13 years, Where To? 11 is now free to download with a PRO subscription. The Augmented Reality view is reimagined using ARKit. Dark mode support and “Open Location in Where To?” for the share sheet are added.
May 20, 2022 Shared bikes and scooters conquer the cities. Where To? 12 shows realtime locations of vehicles from 200+ operators making it greener and more convenient to get from A to B in the city.
July 11, 2023 Those first 15 years were an amazing journey. And we’ve a ton of great stuff in the pipeline for you. Here’s to the next 15 years!
Where To? is 15 years old! ? What started as just a launcher for the Maps app quickly evolved into a full-fledged location finder app that lets you find, compare, and organize places, as well as navigate to and interact with them. The last 15 years have been an amazing ride, so I’d like to invite you to a time travel visiting Where To?’s major milestones:
Launch
Pulled from the App Store
TapTapTap, the former owner of the app, pulls Where To? from the App Store due to internal conflicts and puts the app on the market for a potential acquirer.
Acquisition
FutureTap acquires the Where To? app with all its assets for $70,000. The app is available again in the App Store including a German localization.
WWDC 2009
Where To? is featured in various sessions at WWDC 2009 & iPhone TechTalk World Tour for its nice, tactile user interface design.
Built-in map
Supporting third party apps
“PatentGate”
Augmented Reality
App Store featuring
Apple features Where To? as “App Of The Week” and later that year in “iTunes Rewind”.
Ratings & Reviews
Favorite Places & iCloud Sync
Favorite places, dinner menus, iCloud sync and more is added in Where To? 5.0. A black translucent share sheet is added just months before Apple adds a similarly styled system-wide share-sheet in iOS 6.
Directions
In addition to the ever-growing list of third party navigation apps, Where To? 6.0 comes with built-in directions for car, bike, and pedestrian navigation.
Where To? Gets a Little Sister
“Street View” (later renamed to “Streets“) for iPhone and iPad is launched on the App Store.
Send to Car
Flat UI
Pebble App
Apple Watch App
Just in time for the launch of Apple Watch, Where To? is available in a miniaturized version for the new gadget.
Apple Watch takes the smart watch market by storm and independent players such as Pebble soon begin to struggle.
iMessage App
Location Alarms & Table Reservations
Going freemium
Micromobility
The Future
The FutureBlog
In Where To? 12.6.1, we added a number of third party public transport directions apps:
- Moovme (🇩🇪)
- OstalbMobil (🇩🇪)
- VGC (🇩🇪)
- GVH (🇩🇪)
- rnv/VRN Handy-Ticket (🇩🇪)
- VAG mobil (🇩🇪)
- VOSpilot (🇩🇪)
We’ve also integrated MOBIX in our bike directions. With MOBIX, users will be rewarded with MOBIX Miles for every bike or scooter trip they take.
In terms of shared bikes and scooters, we continue to expand our coverage and added the following providers with realtime vehicle locations:
- Ella (🇩🇪)
- figas (🇵🇹)
- Goon (🇫🇮)
- Manbis (🇹🇷)
- Roovee (🇵🇱)
- Tuul (🇪🇪, 🇱🇻)
- Volti (🇻🇪)
- Weelo (🇮🇹)
- Yoio (🇩🇪)
Last but not least, the Where To? 12.6.1 update also contains important bug fixes.
In this update, we rewrote the Apple Watch app from scratch in SwiftUI and made these improvements:
- The search UI (previously available only via force touch which is no longer supported on newer Apple Watch series) is now easily accessible by swiping down on the start screen.
- In place lists, you can swipe left to (un)favorite a place
- We added a complication that reflects the last viewed state from the iPhone. So it opens the watch app with the place or category most recently viewed on iPhone. This simulates Handoff which is only available in the other direction (from Watch to iPhone, or from iOS to iOS or Mac).
We also updated the supported micromobility providers and added a few new ones:
- LastenVelo Freiburg (🇩🇪)
- MoVe (🇨🇦)
- Mile Scooters (🇳🇴)
The Augmented Reality (AR) view for shared bikes and scooters has been improved, making it easier than ever to locate available nearby vehicles.
Finally, we made several stability and performance improvements as well as bug fixes. Download the Where To? 12.6 update from the App Store.
In Where To? 12.5.1, the weather details (long-press on the map weather icon) now show weather warnings.
We also support an additional 23 shared scooter and bicycle providers:
The Where To? 12.5.1 update also contains several small improvements and bug fixes.
In this update, we modernized the storage layer that keeps track of favorites and collections. We’re now using CloudKit instead of the iCloud key/value store. This is future-proof and gives you more room to save places (iCloud key/value store is limited to 1 MB per app).
We also added App Shortcuts, introduced in iOS 16. This enables the Siri shortcut “Search nearby using Where To?” (or localized variants). No prior configuration needed.
For directions, Where To? now supports the Korean navigation apps Naver and 카카오내비 (Kakao Navi).
We also deliver a big expansion to our micromobility offerings:
- 🇦🇹 Austria
- 🇧🇪 Belgium
- 🇧🇬 Bulgaria
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇮🇹 Italy
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇮🇱 Israel
- 🇱🇻 Latvia
- 🇴🇲 Oman
- 🇵🇹 Portugal
- 🇰🇷 South Korea
- 🇸🇰 Slovakia
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇹🇼 Taiwan
- 🇹🇷 Turkey
- 🇺🇦 Ukraine
- 🇺🇸 United States
The visually impaired will benefit from Voice Over improvements, including a custom rotor for the map.
The Where To? 12.5 update also contains numerous small improvements and bug fixes.
New in Where To? 12.4, we added live weather information to the map. In the corner of the map, the current temperature and weather conditions for the location on the map are displayed. By long-pressing, a forecast for the next hours can be displayed:
Live weather requires iOS 16 and can be disabled in the settings if needed.
Also new in 12.4, we added the micromobility providers
As usual, the Where To? 12.4 update also comes with the latest bug fixes and stability improvements.
In Where To? 12.3, we added 30 additional micromobility providers:
- citybike Liverpool 🇬🇧
- Hirebike Lincoln 🇬🇧
- Citycard Cycles 🇬🇧
- meineAlma 🇩🇪
- Summit Bike Share 🇺🇸
- RVA Bike Share 🇺🇸
- Blue Bike SC 🇺🇸
- Cardinal Bikeshare 🇺🇸
- ValleyBike Share 🇺🇸
- SmartBikes Infralobo 🇵🇹
- RM Bikes RioMaior 🇵🇹
- Forth Bike 🇬🇧
- Tartu Smart Bike 🇪🇪
- U-Bike – IPLeiria 🇵🇹
- Zolo Bike 🇮🇸
- Figas 🇵🇹
- Coono 🇩🇪
- Mietfiets 🇩🇪
- GO E-Bike 🇬🇧
- bondi 🇳🇱
- ZWINGS 🇬🇧
- ÖAMTC easy way 🇦🇹
- Tempo Vélo 🇫🇷
- Fenix 🇧🇭, 🇶🇦, 🇫🇷, 🇸🇦, 🇹🇷
- Ride On Leicester 🇬🇧
- Hi-Bike 🇬🇧
- E.ON Drive 🇩🇪
- Velocity Aachen 🇩🇪
- Papagayo Bike-Share 🇨🇷
- Arnab 🇦🇪
With these additions, we now support a total of 181 shared bike and scooter providers worldwide.
In the Where To? 12.3 update we also fixed issues involving subscriptions and the new Where To? PRO perpetual license.
In Where To? 12.2, we added several more micromobility providers:
- BIT Mobility 🇮🇹
- Hello Cycling 🇯🇵
- Docomo Bike Share 🇯🇵
- Levy 🇺🇸
- Freebike 🇵🇱, 🇫🇮, 🇸🇰
- Ginger 🇬🇧
- HumanForest 🇬🇧
- Bleeper 🇮🇪
- MOBY 🇮🇪
- Whizascoot 🇲🇹
- GO Sharing 🇳🇱, 🇹🇷
- İsbike 🇹🇷
- Bicibox 🇪🇸
- SURF 🇳🇴
- appa 🇩🇪
- Avocargo 🇩🇪
- Wattzer 🇪🇸
- Qari 🇬🇪
- Hobo 🇧🇬
We also expanded city coverage of the existing providers. And in terms of public transport directions, we now support moBiel (🇩🇪) and libéA (🇫🇷).
Pay once, use forever: In addition to a subscription, Where To? PRO is now also available as a perpetual license.
The Where To? 12.2 update also comes with performance and stability improvements.
By popular request, we added a new “Shared Bikes & Scooters” category under “Travel & Transportation” in this update. When selecting it, you will be shown all nearby bikes & scooters from multiple providers.
We also added 10 more providers in Germany, the US, the UK, New Zealand, France, and Argentina (Call a Bike, MVG Rad, Sigo, StadtRad Lüneburg, Veoride, Cycle Hire Slough, Mobi Bikes, Blip, Zoov, Mi bici tu bici). If you’re missing a provider in your city, please let us know!
The Where To? 12.1 update also fixes Voice Over issues and comes with other bugfixes and stability improvements.
Where To? 12 is all about micromobility: Select a destination and go there using shared bikes, scooters and e-mopeds. It’s spring time in the northern hemisphere – time to leave the car at home and ride to your destination the green way!
In its bicycle directions view, Where To? 12 now lets you choose “Own Bike” or one of the available providers for your city. More than 120 bike & scooter providers are supported worldwide, serving 700+ cities in 47 countries. Be it Bird, Tier, nextbike or any other, just select a provider and the nearby vehicles and return locations are shown on the map. The nearest bike or scooter is selected automatically. Feel free to pick a different one according to your needs. Your complete route, consisting of walking and riding parts, is calculated, including an estimate of the total duration.
Like the convenience of electric bikes & scooters? The battery range of electric vehicles is displayed* and marked in red if the range is too short for your planned trip. On station-based systems, the number of available bikes or free docks per station is displayed. For bigger shopping tours, Where To? also integrates cargo bicycles and e-mopeds.
Booking the bike or scooter couldn’t be easier: With a single tap, the third party micromobility app is launched or installed.
Shared bikes and scooters are a great way to get hassle- and emission-free from A to B. With so many providers on the market, it just can be a bit overwhelming to select the right service – especially when you’re out of your home town. Where To? now makes it super-convenient to hop on the next scooter or bike – no matter which brand.
Also in the v12 update: we now support the “Bike Citizens” app for bicycle directions and tracking.
Download Where To? 12 and start your free 7-day Where To? PRO trial today!
* if provided by the operator.