It has happened to all of us – you go out with friends for dinner and drinks and after several appetizers, your main course, coffee and dessert, it’s time to pay the bill. You look around for your waiter, after all you got to get moving if you are going to make that movie. Finally, the waiter brings the check and then the smartphones come out with their tip app or calculator to split the bill between everybody. This system works, but is confusing, time-consuming, and now – thanks to a new Android app called Cover – unnecessary.
Cover came out for the iPhone six months ago (of course it did) and is finally available for the Android OS – the only app of its kind in the Google Play Store. If there is a downside to Cover, it appears that would be the number of restaurants that the app will work with – about fifty around New York City. If you frequent these establishments then Cover is definitely an app that you should consider downloading to your smartphone. It is a very simple process to download and sign up to begin using Cover…and on their website, new restaurants can sign up to participate.
After you download the Cover App, you must then add the credit card you wish Cover to use to pay your bill. You then “join your table in the app” and tell your server that you are paying with Cover, and because the restaurant has a relationship with Cover, the server will know exactly what to do. Cover will even leave the tip you choose so you can get up and leave when you are ready to go. Cover works best if everyone at the table is signed up, but you can still use Cover for just your portion of the bill.
What is also a very nice part of the Cover app is that when you go to the lists of restaurants, most of them will allow you to make your reservation before you get there. Whether the restaurant takes reservations or not, you have several options – you can still click on the name of the restaurant and up comes that restaurant’s website complete with menus, prices, and contact information. Next, you can click on the address under the name and it will bring up Google Maps, complete with directions, turn-by-turn, etc. Lastly, some of the restaurants have a little ‘bell’ symbol beside the reservation symbol – there you can set up a time you would like a reservation and it will check and see if anything is available that match your specifications.
If I lived in the NYC area, I would definitely give Cover a try – I really like the way you can look at the menu before you decide where you are going, the way you can check to see if there is a table available when you need it, the easy way to make a reservation, and not having to fool with paying when you are ready to go. Give Cover a try and let us know on our Google+ Page what you think of the app – we would love to hear from you. To grab the App from the Play Store, just click on the picture below: