Happy chaos of Cebu’s favorite festival needs a smart app

Students of Taytay Elementary School in Danao, Cebu peform in last Saturday’s Sinulog parade for public schools. Keep track of which group performs in this Sunday’s grand parade by checking the Sinulog guide app for mobile devices. (CDN PHOTO/CHOY ROMANO)

One of the best things about the Sinulog is that there is so much to see and do.

And one of the worst things about the Sinulog is pretty much the same thing. That there is so much to see and do that even a local has trouble keeping track of the schedules and venues for everything.

Now imagine someone attending who either hasn’t been back in Cebu for a very long time (welcome home, balikbayans!) or has never been here before, and you can multiply the potential for confusion by a thousand.

Imagine finding your way to nice hotels or restaurants with a blindfold and you’ll get the picture. Confusing enough for you?

Enter InnoPub’s free Sinulog smartphone app to the rescue. (And hey – if you can’t wait to read the rest of this before you download your own copy, you can find it – for Android phones on Google’s Play Store and for Windows Phones on their mobile online store. There’s also a web app, at https://sinulog.myguide.ph. But no iOS version (yet) for iPhones. More about that later. And, please come back when you have loaded it.)

Created by Cebu’s “Digital Tourism” pioneer InnoPub – with major sponsorship from the Sinulog Foundation and Smart Communications, Inc. – the app provides welcome clarity for all kinds of users in the midst of the (mostly joyful) chaos of the Sinulog festival.

How it works is quite clever. When you open the app, the 2014 Festival Logo appears on the screen for a few seconds and then quickly disappears to show a beautiful and well-designed entry screen. The user is presented with a list of eight easy-to-navigate links, all easily accessible at a quick touch.

At the top, “About Sinulog” gives a brief background about the festival, complete with some history about its early beginnings and a chronology that shows its evolution to present day.

The “Where to Stay” section provides helpful information on a variety of hotels and smaller places for overnight stays around the province; it comes complete with clickable links so you can call them directly, and another click to have your smartphone’s Maps application show where the places are located (directions, and all).

Other sections include a very much up-to-date schedule of events for what’s happening every day of the Festival, a “what to do” tab with ideas for eating, checking out the beaches, exploring Cebu’s rich historical heritage, and where to stock up on pasalubong for those less fortunate who didn’t make it here with you this time.

There is also a section with excellent information on consulates, hospitals and emergency medical numbers, local transportation options, and even accredited Tour Operators should you care to venture further out into the city and beyond into the province.

The app is overall very well designed and easy to explore, by virtually anyone.

True of every first release, there are some minor nitpicks — things that will be resolved and evolve, over time.

One is that some of the sponsors who helped make the guide possible tend to get “up front” and more feature time than other options in the topic area. Smart, for example, is the sole mobile carrier covered when the subject of texting and calling comes up. When hotels are listed, the guide sends you to the sponsors first rather than providing a more balanced guidebook-style view. Same for the airline of choice.

A second one is that the navigation is not yet as user friendly as it could be, especially when it comes to searching for hotels by location, for example. Maybe a high level map could be included that shows the major Sinulog venues, one that also features touchable sections one could jump through in order to find hotels, malls and restaurants by section of the city.

The biggest nitpick for many out there will probably be the lack of an iPhone App. That unfortunately is not something InnoPub can easily fix. The reason is Apple’s review cycle for Apps takes too long to be able to include required last-minute changes in Sinulog schedules.

This would be true for any given revision of the App. Innopub’s solution is to provide a “web app” version for just this contingency, at ttp://sinulog.myguide.ph. It is a good compromise.

But these are minor points in an overall excellent first outing for the first ever smartphone App for Sinulog. It is well organized, thorough, beautifully designed, written well, and meticulously up-to-date.

Thanks, InnoPub (along with major sponsors Smart and the Sinulog Foundation) for making navigating through Sinulog simple and right at our fingertips.

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