HomeAway Woos Hotel Haters, Debuts iPhone App

HomeAway, the Austin based provider of short-term rental property listings, services for vacation rentals by owner, and search and review tools for travelers debuted its first mobile app today. An iPhone app, it was developed by Mobiata, the Ann Arbor based creators of FlightTrack and TripDeck (popular travel apps for iPhone, also available on iPad, RIM, Android and Palm devices). HomeAway chief executive and co-founder Brian Sharples remarked that until recently, he was skeptical that mobile could appeal as a medium to travelers using HomeAway’s image-rich travel sites…