Epicurious for iOS receives design overhaul, lets you talk to your recipes

Epicurious, the Conde Nast-owned recipe portal, has revamped its iOS app today, bringing a flat new design and a number of interesting new features.

The free app opens to a search box that drops down to reveal the myriad categories available for perusal. Because there are tens of thousands of recipes in the database, both user-submitted and editorially curated, the app tries to decide which is best for you based on browsing history — as a result, it wants you to sign up for an account so it can sync up history with the web.

Recipes themselves are extremely well laid out, with big, high-definition photos and easy directions that can be glanced at with a tap. iPad users have an even easier way of navigating recipes: through voice. The app has added a voice-activated Cook Mode, allowing users to scroll through the app when their hands are busy. It’s like Samsung’s Air Gesture with less likelihood of splashing the screen with oil.

The app has added recipe box and shopping list features, too, that can be synced with the web for archival purposes. The result is a full-featured and competitive recipe app that doesn’t reinvent anything, but provides a great single portal for the whole cooking experience.

Unfortunately, Conde Nast doesn’t feel nearly as confident about Android as a platform; its Epicurious app hasn’t been updated since 2010, and it looks terrible.

[source]App Store[/source]