HotelPal also eliminates some of the superfluous details that get prominent play with a lot of other online hotel booking services. You won't find star ratings or deals offering to bundle a hotel room with a flight on HotelPal. "There's basically a ton of clutter," Kazez says of online hotel booking services. "A lot of information people don't need."

Instead, Mobiata is betting that people are more interested in seeing where they might be staying. So when you tap on a hotel listing in HotelPal, one of the first things you'll see is a series of tappable photos of the hotel room. "We give center stage to the photography," Kazez says. "We try to make things as visual as possible." Scroll down a little further on the detail page for a description of the hotel and a list of its amenities.

HotelPal, which works on any iPhone or iPod touch running the iPhone 2.2 software update, is a free download at the App Store. Kazez says a pro version is in the works, though no release date is planned as of yet.