Upstate Curious vs Floating Maps
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Upstate Curious
Discover local gems and connect with your community in the Hudson Valley and Catskills. Find recommended restaurants, shops, and services, or ask for local advice. Meet new people and share your experiences in this vibrant region.
- Local discovery feed
- Crowdsourced Q&A
- Community profiles
- Direct messaging
- Interest-based connections
- Local groups
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We love the Hudson Valley + Catskills region! We love exploring every nook and cranny of the mountains and forests and farms and towns - and all the incredible restaurants and shops and art galleries and other places to visit. As residents, we also love (and need!) to know where to find a great dentist, electrician, therapist, or upholsterer, dog groomer, or babysitter depending on the day! And since one of the best parts about living in or visiting this special area are the people, we think that new ways to meet up online and (eventually!) IRL is also a pretty great idea. “Upstate Chat” is the main feed where you can share your finds or the view from your backyard (including videos and photos). By using hashtags like #restaurants, #outdoors, #townname, #county, etc., we can make things easy to find - and the section for “Popular Hashtags” will be just that. “Hotline” is where you go to ask a question you need to crowdsource - from a roofer who turns up on time to the best pizza in Ulster County to an easy hike with dogs. You can add searchable interests and a bio to your profile to connect more easily with other members - there’s a DM feature right in the app, but you can share all your social profiles as well. Upstate Curious was created for residents, visitors, weekenders, and fans - and we cover Ulster, Dutchess, Sullivan, Greene, Columbia, Dutchess, Putnam, Orange, and neighboring countries. The more the merrier! The Upstate Curious Team members will be posting their finds and tips for #upstateliving - and there are special groups for buyers and sellers to get their own burning questions answered!” This app was created by the Upstate Curious Team of Keller Williams Realty Hudson Valley North.
Floating Maps
Experience historical aerial photography overlaid on beautiful map art using augmented reality. Scan a QR code on a wall print to see a 3D rendering of your town, showcasing landscape changes from 1938 to 2019.
- Augmented Reality (AR) visualization
- Historical aerial photography
- 3D town renderings
- Elevation accurate landscapes
- View changes over time
- New towns added weekly
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Floating Maps uses Augmented Reality (AR) to float historical aerial photography over beautiful map art for your home. With a wall print from Floating maps, you can scan the QR Code and bring it to life! Floating in front of you will be an elevation accurate 3D rendering of your town. You can see how the landscape has changed starting with photography from 2019 and going all the way back to black-and-white photographs from 1938. We are working hard to add new towns each week.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Floating Maps at weekly against Upstate Curious's every 6 months. Floating Maps also leads on device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 18.0). Upstate Curious's advantage is ratings volume (144 vs 4). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Upstate Curious against 5.0 for Floating Maps. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Upstate Curious has 144 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Upstate Curious ships an update every 6 months, Floating Maps weekly. The most recent releases landed on June 10, 2026 and June 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Upstate Curious | Floating Maps |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (144 ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 144 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 77 MB | 54 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | The Brenn-White Group LLC | Floating Maps LLC |
Customer experience
Upstate Curious
Floating Maps
In-app purchases
Upstate Curious
No in-app purchases
Floating Maps
No in-app purchases




