Pizza Hut has one-upped rivals Domino's (NYSE: DPZ ) and Papa John's (Nasdaq: PZZA ) to introduce an Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL ) iPhone app that not only looks good but also delivers.
The Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM ) pizza chain hit the virtual store this month, with a slick mobile app that makes ordering pizzas and pasta dishes a breeze. The download is free … but you're on your own footing the bill for that mushroom-topped deep dish.
The app isn't perfect, though:
- There's no option to add soft drinks or sides to the order.
- The "deals" tab leaves out many of the choice online coupons that you can find through PizzaHut.com.
- Scouring the reviews, I saw that several pie fans with dairy restrictions are complaining that you can't order a pizza sans cheese.
Beyond the rookie mistakes that will probably be corrected in future updates, it's still one slick app that gets what the iPhone is all about. You can resize your pizza using the same pinch-and-stretch touchscreen techniques that iPhone users know well when it comes to resizing Web pages and snapshots. There's even a surprisingly slick racing game that uses the phone's accelerometer to drive your car past Pizza Hut box obstacles.
For now, the lack of all the PizzaHut.com coupons will keep me focused on the website. I don't want to pay more than I should for my next order -- that would amount to forking over an iPhone tax. But I still applaud the move, and I wonder why more restaurants and retailers aren't doing the same thing. Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG ) released -- and quickly pulled -- a mobile ordering app in January. There's been a pretty barren slate ever since.
This doesn't mean the pizza chains aren't on board with new ways to order. Papa John's has a Facebook app and a mobile site. Domino's began selling through TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO ) -- yes, TiVo -- last year and has a Pizza Tracker iPhone app. All three of the leading pizza chains also offer robust websites.
So why is everyone afraid of the iPhone? Do I fear handing my youngest son my iPhone to play the Pizza Hut driving game, only to find a delivery man at my door with a Tuscani Pasta an hour later? Not really.
If mobile ordering is good enough for the leading online retailer -- and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN ) has been offering seamless iPhone ordering since December -- it has to be good for more than just Pizza Hut.
Come on in to the Apple App Store chain, developers. The water's fine.
Some other cool reads for you:
RSS Headlines
Fool UK