Yellow Pages challenges Canpages for iPhone dominance

I recently reviewed the new Canpages iPhone app, which brings local business listings in an easy to manage format and introduces a pretty innovative voice-driven searc function, along with mapping and a fairly rich suite of content. Yellowpages.ca has just released its own iPhone app, and that’s about where the similarity between the two apps ends.

It’s not that the Yellowpages app is in any way badly put together. In fact, in terms of presentation, the overall design feel is somewhat slicker than the Canpages app. The Yellowpages.ca app doesn’t have speech-driven search and it isn’t as feature-rich as the Canpages app, but by keeping things simple it actually succeeds. You can look up businesses or personal numbers, as well as perform reverse look-ups, a feature not found on the Canpages app. You can also share your searches or save them. Strangely, there’s nothing on the Yellowpages.ca home page to indicate the iPhone app exists, which seems a foolish oversight.

So does the Canpages app have anything to fear from Yellowpages.ca’s new iPhone widget? No, but the reverse holds true. Both apps address specific needs in specific ways, and the real winner is the iPhone user.