I've been using Vindigo for at least a decade. It's a big part of what kept me loyal to Palm PDAs and phones. It provided a restaurant guide with reviews, maps, and walking directions; movie reviews and show times for theaters; museum listings; a guide to bars and clubs; locations and contact info for local businesses; and even bathroom locations for cities around the U.S. I used it both on the road and at home. And it didn't require an Internet connection to work -- new info was downloaded whenever I sync'd my Palm.

I got email from Vindigo in March saying the service was shutting down. Their home page is a blank screen. However, the software continues to work. I'm still able to download info for new cities, and the sync with vindigo.com appears to be functioning.  It's a zombie.

A month ago Vindigo started presenting an error message saying "Your Vindigo 2.0 subscription was scheduled to renew on 4/11/2009 but you haven't synced your device recently. As a result, we are unable to verify the status of your account. Please sync within the next 19 days to avoid a disruption in service." I thought it was about to die at the hand of its billing module. But the warning message went away after a few weeks and Vindigo still works.

Since no new data is being provided, movie and museum info are useless and there won't be any updates to the restaurant info. But it's tolerable for now. I feel like the app is on life support and could go any day. And , assuming it continues to work, I'm not sure whether I'll be able to transfer it to a new phone (assuming I stay with Palm).

Lots of people are mourning the loss of Vindigo and looking for a replacement. So far the best bet seems to be running web searches on one's phone -- a poor substitute in my opinion.  Or maybe a return to Avantgo, which I used before finding Vindigo.

I'd love to hear about options for a downloadable guide to restaurants, movies, and shops that works even when you can't get connected to the web.

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