Finally, There’s An App For Noodle Soup Lovers

Finally, There’s An App For Noodle Soup Lovers — And It’s Great

If you’re a noodle soup enthusiast — and if you’re not, you really should be — here’s an app that’ll get you salivating.

“Wait, there’s an app for noodle soup???” I hear you say…

Yes, that’s right. Believe it or not noodle soup is a delightful culinary genre in its own right, not just a dish. Whether it’s pho from Vietnam, miso from Japan or guay tiew from Thailand, noodle soup is full of variety, depth and flavor.

Worry not about the various different options though, because iOS app Noodler is here to cover you. Beyond a beautiful design that features anime-inspired illustrations, this ‘oracle’ app is packed with meal ideas — more than three million soup ‘designs’ in fact — each of which comes with a list of ingredients and cooking directions.

You’ll be greeted with a randomly generated soup idea right when you open the app. If that strikes your interest, simply tap on the bowl to be taken through to the instructions page. Otherwise, hit refresh and new combination will appear for your perusal. I repeated the process a few times before I found something that looked right up my alley.

The app is the work of New York-based writer/illustrator Michele Humes, who studied at the French Culinary Institute, and Joshua Sierles, a developer and designer who is located in Sevilla, Spain.

“Noodler is my love letter to noodle soup and dedicated to showcasing the beauty of the form,” Humes told TechCrunch via email. “We made it a true app with a discovery element, rather than passing off an ebook as an app — in order to showcase the versatility of the noodle soup format.”

Apple, for one, seems to agree. The company has featured Noodler multiple times in its China-based app store — which is how it came to our attention — but so far it is yet to showcase the app in other parts of the world.

Those without an iPhone are not covered by Noodler right now, but Sierles said work has already begun on an Android version, which we can expect to see soon.

“Since we built the app with React Native, a relatively new cross-platform framework from Facebook, this is turning out to be relatively easy to do,” he explained. (Hopefully not famous last words here.)

Right now, Noodler is available free of charge, but the plan is to monetize by limiting the number of available recipes and offering a one-time purchase to unlock the full library. That, my noodle soup loving friends, is enough of a reason to go look at the app today — you’ll find it in the App Store here.

Comments

How ad-free subscriptions could solve Facebook

At the core of Facebook’s “well-being” problem is that its business is directly coupled with total time spent on its apps. The more hours you pass on the social network, the more ads you see and click, the more money it earns. That puts its plan to make using Facebook healthier at odds with its finances, restricting how far it’s willing to go to protect us from the harms of over use. The advertising-supported model comes with some big benefits, though. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that “We will always keep Facebook a free service for everyone.” Ads lets Facebook remain free for those who don’t want to pay, and more importantly, for those around the world who couldn’t afford to. Ads pay for Facebook to keep the lights on, research and develop new technologies, and profit handsomely in a way that attracts top talent and further investment. More affluent users with more buying power in markets like the US, UK, and Canada command higher ad prices, effectively...

Engineering against all odds, or how NYC’s subway will get wireless in the tunnels

Never ask a wireless engineer working on the NYC subway system “What can go wrong?” Flooding, ice, brake dust, and power outages relentlessly attack the network components. Rats — many, many rats — can eat power and fiber optic cables and bring down the whole system. Humans are no different, as their curiosity or malice strikes a blow against wireless hardware (literally and metaphorically). Serverless software deployment to the cloud, this is not. New York City officially got wireless service in every underground subway station a little more than a year ago, and I was curious what work went into the buildout of this system as well as how it will expand in the future. That curiosity is part of a series of articles I’ve written on an observed pattern known as cost disease, the massively inflating costs of basic human services like health care, housing, infrastructure, and education. The United States spends trillions of dollars on each of these fields, massively outspending sim...

South Korea aims for startup gold

Back in 2011, when South Korea won its longshot bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics, the country wasn’t widely recognized as a destination for ski and snow lovers. It wasn’t considered much of a tech startup hub either. Fast forward seven years and a lot has changed. For the next 10 days, the eyes of the world will be on the snowy slopes of PyeongChang. Meanwhile, a couple of hours away in Seoul, a burgeoning startup scene is seeing investments multiply, generating exits and even creating a unicorn or two. While South Korea doesn’t get a perfect score as a startup innovation hub, it has established itself as a serious contender. More than half a billion dollars annually has gone to seed through late-stage funding rounds for the past few years. During that time, at least two companies, e-commerce company Coupang and mobile-focused content and commerce company Yello Mobile, have established multi-billion-dollar valuations. To provide a broader picture of how South Korea stacks ...

Trump cites Facebook exec’s comments downplaying Russian ad influence on election

You’d be forgiven for missing Donald Trump’s multiple retweets of Facebook executive Rob Goldman over the weekend. Perhaps you were spending time with family, watching Black Panther or just attempting to forget politics for a moment by ignoring the manic flurry of social media updates from the leader of the free world. But in amongst a deluge of tweets that blamed Democrats for failing to preserve DACA, called out the FBI over the recent school shooting in Florida on the FBI and affectionately referred to a member of congress as “Liddle’ Adam Schiff, the leakin’ monster of no control,” the President cited Facebook’s VP of Ads as evidence against claims that his campaign colluded with Russia. “The Fake News Media never fails,” Trump tweeted over the weekend. “Hard to ignore this fact from the Vice President of Facebook Ads, Rob Goldman!” Trump was citing Goldman’s own Twitter dump over the past week, responding to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recent indictment of 13 Russian...

3D printing company New Matter is shutting down this month

Perhaps 2014 wasn’t the ideal time to get into the 3D printing game. After years of hype, the even the biggest names have been struggling to stay afloat. Pasadena startup New Matter is joining the growing list of companies who’ve unsuccessfully made a go at it, announcing that it will be closing up shop by the end of the month. It’s not for lacking of trying — and the company’s MOD-t printer was met with decent reviews when it launched in 2016. In his writeup, John praised the pricing ($300 or $400, depending on where you picked one up) and ease of use, though added cautiously, “you get what you pay for.” Initially funded on Indiegogo, the company went back to the crowdfunding well last year, this time taking to Kickstarter to pay for a Model 2. The project managed to exceed its goal in five days, but New Matter still pulled the plug. The company says it ultimately wanted to go back to the drawing board. “We have always strived to listen closely to our customers’ feedback, and...

Exciting Technology

Search This Blog