The Wait is over with "Waitlist"

I am sure you all have heard the classic song by the Beach Boys, which goes like this: "Wouldn't it be nice if we were older, then we wouldn't have to wait so long.” Although I’m not so certain about the getting older part, needless to say I totally agree with the ranting about the long waiting times, especially when going out to grab a decent meal or having a cold beer with some friends in a pub.

However, for iPhone owners, there is a solution for waiting in lines, and it goes by the name of WaitList.

The new iPhone app (also available for the iPad and iPod Touch), reports wait times at popular hangout places such as restaurants, bars, and more. If you want to know how long you will be waiting for your next table or how long it will take to gain access to a club, all you have to do is search for your destination on WaitList and it will tell you everything you need to know.

WaitList is very easy to use - it can show you all sorts of nearby places of interest, based on your location. If you don't happen to have 3G service, you can always search for what you are looking for, or simply navigate to the area on the map. When you decide where you want to go, if that spot has already got a reported wait time- then you will see a number indicating it in minutes (hopefully not hours).

WaitList also lets you report your own wait time.

If you feel like you have seen this before, it's probably because of Facebook's new location services for the iPhone, where you can check-in at your preferred location and track where your friends have been.

At the moment, the app is more useful in theory than it is in practice, probably because there aren't enough users yet, or perhaps that it’s not yet global enough. As you can see, it's definitely the sort of app that is made useful by its very own users, so in order for it to succeed- everyone must “chip in.”

But wouldn't it be nice if restaurants and bars got on the band-wagon too, and started reporting their own wait times?