App City: Ordering Food by Phone, Without Saying a Word

PLATFORM iPhone, Android

PRICE Free

APP Seamless

PLATFORM iPhone, Android,

BlackBerry

PRICE Free

It seems like a small difference, but getting food delivered by using an online service instead of calling the restaurant makes it hard to imagine going back to the days of dialing. And in recent years, several companies offering such services have grown in popularity, signing up new restaurants and creating ever more efficient ways to serve their couch-bound clientele.

Two of the leading services, GrubHub and Seamless, which started as Web sites, say that an increasing amount of their business is taking place via smartphones. Both updated their apps in recent weeks.

GrubHub revamped its Android app so that it resembles the iPhone version. Seamless added several nice features, like a map that shows the location of the restaurant as you look at its menu.

Placing an order through either service is simple. Once you find a restaurant, it is easy to browse through the menu, checking off the items you want and telling the restaurants where to send them. The charges usually go to the credit card on your account.

It is all terrifyingly easy.

GrubHub claims to have more New York restaurants in its system — over 4,600 in the city — than Seamless,. But only about one-third of the restaurants that GrubHub lists allow online ordering. For the rest, the app shows a scanned version of the menu and allows users to call directly from the app.

Both services are focused primarily in Manhattan, and each has several hundred restaurants in Brooklyn and Queens. GrubHub also has about 50 restaurants in the Bronx offering online ordering.

There are minor differences in the way each app helps you find food to order. GrubHub, for instance, lets you read user reviews of restaurants, while Seamless does not. But perhaps the biggest difference is that the Seamless app allows you to reorder favorite meals. Unfortunately, you cannot designate a meal as a favorite straight from the app; you have to go to the Web site.

But once that has been done, it’s great to be able to reorder that eggplant dish from the Indian place on 58th in three clicks, without remembering that the restaurant’s name is Chola or that the dish is called Aloo Baigan. Another difference is that only GrubHub offers the option of paying in cash. On Seamless, not only is paying by credit card the only option, but the default is also to add a tip at the time of your order.

Of course, you can opt not to include a tip, or to change the amount. And if you tip 20 percent and want to reconsider later you can call Seamless and it will accommodate your change of heart. JOSHUA BRUSTEIN

Have a favorite New York City app? Send tips via e-mail to appcity@nytimes.com or via Twitter to @joshuabrustein.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=18453337a935032214e172eacbb18744