TLV Places: Curated Tel Aviv Place Discovery iOS App with Hebrew RTL Support and Location-Based Filtering

The Challenge: A Distinctive Layout in an Established Vertical, Built with Hebrew RTL and Traveller-Grade Performance in Two Months

In 2018, the place discovery app vertical in Tel Aviv already had a dominant player: Waze, the Israeli-born navigation and local discovery app acquired by Google in 2013, with an entrenched local user base and crowdsourced place data across the city. The TLV Places client's vision was to build a curated, editorially selected alternative: a product where every listed place was hand-picked for quality, not surfaced by Waze's algorithm. AppMatic Tech's task was to build a product that could stand alongside Waze in the market where Waze was born, with a distinctly different product philosophy: curation over crowdsourcing, editorial quality over algorithmic volume. Beyond the product vision, AppMatic Tech had to solve three technical challenges simultaneously within a two-month window. The first was visual differentiation: the Tel Aviv audience expected an interface with its own identity, not a clone of Foursquare or Yelp. AppMatic Tech designed and built a custom iOS UI distinct from every established player in the vertical. The second challenge was Hebrew Right-to-Left (RTL) layout support; RTL on iOS requires mirrored navigation logic, bidirectional text handling, correctly reversed icon positioning, and MapKit overlay orientation, all built into the Swift codebase from the ground up. The third was performance for travellers on roaming data or weak Wi-Fi, addressed with aggressive caching and slow-network handling built as first-class features of the app.

What AppMatic Tech Built for TLV Places

AppMatic Tech built every layer of TLV Places from scratch in two months: the iOS app in Swift, the Laravel backend, the admin panel for content management, and all location, filtering, caching, and RTL features.

Curated Place Discovery with Category and Distance Filters

AppMatic Tech built the TLV Places discovery experience: curated place listings for Tel Aviv's restaurants, bars, cafes, cultural venues, and main visitor attractions, browseable by category and filterable by distance from the user's current location. Category filters cover places to eat, drink, visit, and explore across Tel Aviv's neighbourhoods, with a dedicated editorial section for main visiting places recommended for first-time visitors.

Map Integration with Location-Based Discovery

AppMatic Tech integrated MapKit-based place discovery into the TLV Places iOS app, enabling users to browse places spatially, see proximity to their current location, and navigate directly to chosen venues. The map view was built with performance-conscious tile caching to remain responsive on the variable network conditions common for travellers in Tel Aviv.

Hebrew RTL (Right-to-Left) Layout Support

AppMatic Tech implemented full Hebrew Right-to-Left layout support throughout the TLV Places iOS app. RTL implementation required mirroring the navigation flow and screen transition direction, reversing text alignment and icon positioning across all screens, handling bidirectional text in place names and descriptions displayed in both Hebrew and English, and ensuring all MapKit overlay labels and UI controls were correctly oriented for Hebrew-language users.

Image Caching and Slow Network Handling

AppMatic Tech implemented aggressive image and content caching throughout the TLV Places iOS app, ensuring place photos, curated lists, and category content loaded from cache on repeat visits and remained accessible at reduced network speeds. Slow network handling logic was built to maintain a functional browsing experience on the roaming and low-signal connections typical of international travellers using the app in Tel Aviv.

Laravel Backend and Admin Panel

AppMatic Tech built the TLV Places Laravel backend APIs for place data, category management, geolocation queries, and content delivery, alongside an admin panel for the client's editorial team to add, update, and curate places, categories, and featured picks without developer involvement.

Custom iOS UI/UX

AppMatic Tech designed and built a custom iOS UI for TLV Places with a visual layout and interaction model distinct from the card-grid patterns of established place discovery apps. The interface was designed to reflect Tel Aviv's urban character; the layout hierarchy, typographic treatment, and category navigation were all built to stand out in the place discovery vertical rather than replicate existing app conventions.

"We needed an app that felt like Tel Aviv, not a generic city guide. AppMatic Tech delivered a unique design, full Hebrew support, and the backend in two months. The response from people using it here has been exactly what we hoped for."

Ran Ben Ari, Founder

TLV Places: Platform Outcomes

TLV Places Tech Stack

Laravel

Backend APIs, auth, and content delivery

PHP

Server-side runtime for Laravel backend

Firebase

Push notifications and authentication

AWS S3

Media storage and content delivery

Tailwind CSS

Admin panel interface styling

Postman

API validation and backend workflow testing

MySQL

Relational database for place, category, and user data

Figma

UI/UX design, prototyping, and handoff

Google Analytics

Product usage and engagement measurement

Latency Testing

API response time and cache performance benchmarking

Real-Device Testing

On-device QA across iOS hardware for RTL and cache flows

Jenkins

Build automation and deployment pipeline

Technical Practices on TLV Places

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  Hebrew RTL Implementation Standard

  AppMatic Tech implemented Hebrew Right-to-Left layout support as a foundational architectural decision in the TLV Places iOS Swift codebase, not a post-build translation layer. Navigation direction mirroring, bidirectional text handling for Hebrew and English content, icon and control repositioning, and MapKit overlay orientation were all implemented from the initial build to ensure the Hebrew-language experience was fully native across every screen.

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  Image Caching for Traveller Performance

  AppMatic Tech implemented aggressive image caching throughout the TLV Places iOS app using iOS-native caching mechanisms, ensuring place photos loaded instantly on repeat views and that previously loaded content remained accessible when network conditions degraded. Cache management was sized for the typical session length of a traveller exploring a city across multiple sessions over a short trip duration.

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  Slow Network Handling

  AppMatic Tech built slow network detection and graceful degradation logic into the TLV Places app, ensuring the core place browsing, filtering, and navigation flows remained functional at low connection speeds. Travellers using roaming data or weak Wi-Fi in Tel Aviv could browse curated places, read content, and access map views without the app stalling on network timeouts.

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  Location Permission and Distance Accuracy

  AppMatic Tech implemented iOS location permission handling and Core Location integration for the distance filter and map features, with accurate distance calculations from the user's real-time GPS position to each listed place. Location access was requested contextually, with a clear use-case explanation presented to the user before the permission prompt.

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  Admin Panel Content Integrity

  The Laravel admin panel built by AppMatic Tech for TLV Places editorial content management included input validation, image upload handling with size and format constraints, and category management logic, ensuring the client's content team could add and update places without introducing data quality issues into the iOS app's displayed content.