Lunchtime
The notification came onto Miguel's phone by surprise. He guessed that Razid got the same notification too. The two friends hadn't seen each other in a year, but they found themselves in the same city at the same time. Their phones had made the connection and an option was hovering beside the text: "Schedule Lunch".
He hadn't planned on lunch. He had business meetings over the next few days, so there wasn't a lot of free time on his calendar. Still, he knew he wouldn't have to worry about that.
He wanted to see his friend, so he pressed the "Schedule Lunch" button.
Immediately the phone began to scour through his calendar for the next few days, looking for all available slots around lunchtime.
After finding those times, it developed a radius around his last meeting, looking for all avaiable restaurants that he could walk to.
Miguel wasn't a big foodie, but he had a few cuisines he frequented more often. His location data, stored on his phone, was extracted to identify similar restaurants in the neighborhood.
Just then his phone pinged again. It was a text from Razid.
"Hey, didn't know you were in town. Let's get lunch."
He probably also activated his phone's scheduling feature.
A second dialog appeared on Miguel's phone as it synchronized a handful of details. Now both of their availabilities were being considered. The two raidii extended outward, intersecting along a few streets.
Several restaurant icons popped up in those regions, their cuisines shown in monochrome. Miguel noticed a few that whet his appetite.
Yet he knew his friend was lactose intolerant. If he recalled, he was also a vegan. That definitely meant a few options were just not going to work.
That information also had been communicated digitally, as many of the icons popped away as quickly as they appeared.
Now three options remained. Knowing they were a party of two, the phone tried to book a table at each location. Evidently one place was fully booked, as that icon vanished as well.
Two locations were left on the screen in front of him. The options appeared in front of him in more detail, giving him the final choice.
After scrolling through a few screenshots, he voted for the one he thought looked cooler. Razid evidently agreed, as the phone had a majority vote and confirmed the booking. His lunch, planned automatically, appeared right on his phone.
He smiled as he put the phone back into his pocket. He was looking forward to seeing his friend. But until then he had business to do.
Our phones know a lot about us. It knows what we do. It knows where we go. It knows who our friends are. All together, this is a lot of data. But it isn’t really used effectively. I think this would be a good app, which could allow for serendipitous meetups by combining all this data into recommended meetups.
Anyone working on something like this?