Apps-O-Lutely Must Try These!

Old Telephones and assorted equipment (Photo credit: sgroi)

Treo 650 (Photo credit: changpp)

Welcome to the land of Apps!  When we replaced (more like a forced upgrade) our old Treo 650’s (ancient in technology age) in May 2012 with new iPhone 4S’s, I had no clue what we were getting into.  I was initially interested just in the basic smartphone functions that we used and were familiar with on the Treo, so I just tried to figure out how to do on the iPhone what I had been comfortable doing on the Treo.  I really wasn’t interested in the App world that I observed as I watched users sliding their fingers this way and that to find and use their Apps.  But slowly, one by one, we started using the Apps that were included with the iPhone.  Next we added some of the ones that were recommended by friends and family.  Our Little Shop of Horrors, I mean Apps, grew and each one I added wanted to know where I was, currently.  Our collection grew onesie-twosie until they flowed over to a second page, and then a third.  Then I learned how to file similar ones in a common folder.

English: Iphone 4 Deutsch: Iphone 4 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

iPhone apps pages (Photo credit: Marc Duchesne)

I know you are thinking “Wait, I thought this was a blog about travel!” and I’m getting there, just bear with me a moment.  Because on the technical journey I just described, I began to accumulate Apps related to travel; there you have it, the travel connection.  First I added the obvious ones for the companies I use most, like Delta.  Although, I did take time to read the reviews for every App and only loaded ones that had lots of reviews, more than just family could write, and were highly rated.  And just as with restaurant reviews, if there is a low rating with only a few reviewers, I need to look further into it.  A low rating with lots of reviews will usually get me to pass.  Several times I have been to a new restaurant that I thoroughly enjoyed only to find out later that it had a low review average.  I will usually then add my own “good” review to say what I experienced.  Often the negative reviews are very old (posted a while ago, not saying the reviewer is old, not that there would be anything wrong with that, being old) so I look for the most recent reviews to account for possible improvements.

ZAGAT for iPhone App – Restaurant Reviews (Photo credit: ZagatBuzz)

Sometimes reading the reviews can clear things up.  I have read reviews for restaurants or recipes that I would have not tried just by looking at the average review score.  But lets face it, there are idiots among us; people who are incapable of following a simple recipe or will not admit they may have made a mistake in measuring, or people who were in a bad mood at a restaurant and that influences their review; you know who you are.  Reading the lowest reviews often exposes them when they say “I substituted x for y, didn’t have any z, and set the oven for a lower temperature and it turned out terrible!!”  Sometimes they say outright that they didn’t understand the directions (that seemed clear to me) so it is the fault of the chef who wrote the recipe.  Also, remember that people who have a bad experience (or think they had a bad experience) are much more likely to take the time to write a review than most people who had a satisfactory experience.

Dumb iPhone Apps (Photo credit: Photo Giddy)

With respect to technical issues, and Apps specifically, if someone says that feature A or feature B doesn’t work, I am inclined to not load the App.  But if there is another reviewer of that same App who says they found those same features to work just fine, then I tend to think the idiot factor may be at work here.  Occasionally there is a reviewer who clarifies something that allows you to enable or use what appears to be a non-functional feature.  But there are also times where the overwhelming reviews are negative and tell me I should wait until people acknowledge things have been fixed before I bother with that particular App.  Now that the philosophical discussion has been completed, I can give you what you have waited patiently for, what new Apps have I found that I really like well enough that I want to tell you about.  I have a longer list under my tab for Resources but will cover a few of my favorites below.

Gas-Premium … Gas Prices Rising, $4 per gallon by Spring 2012 — WHAT THE FRANK !! (Januray 14, 2012) …item 2.. A meal to energize runners (Posted on Thursday, 10.04.12) … (Photo credit: marsmet524)

English: Gas Buddy Iphone Application (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The first one I want to mention is GasBuddy.  This is a well done App that helps me find the lower-priced gas stations in an area.  GasBuddy has actually saved me money.  With its map feature, I can “look ahead” on the route I will be taking and find areas where the gas prices have generally dipped compared to the surrounding area.  Then I can plan my fuel stop accordingly.  The only caution is you need to be aware that GasBuddy is only as good as the information that volunteer spotters (you can sign up and contribute price information in real-time) put into it.  So if a price on my route ahead is 45 cents per gallon cheaper but is more than four or five hours old, I may be disappointed when I get there and see that it has gone up to what the surrounding area is.  So I look for the most recent prices or where a group of gas stations all have lower prices in one area.  As I mentioned above, you can also sign up and then contribute to publicizing accurate gas prices shown in your area or when you are traveling.  But be careful, it can get addicting.

Image via CrunchBase

Another one I am really liking a lot is called TripIt.  It helps organize your travel reservations and itineraries and keeps them all in one place organized into trips.  It offers a really convenient feature that lets you forward your confirmation emails for air, hotel, rental car, etc, to TripIt and it will then automatically put all the information on your smartphone calendar; I used to take the time to manually enter all of this stuff, but now I have an App to do that for me.  I learned that it will assume normal check in and check out times for hotels and a three-day rental car will be shown as turning in 72 hours after it was picked up unless you designate the real expected turn in time.  You can always log in to your account on TripIt and change the arrival or departure times for hotels, etc.  Since I have not been able to travel much lately I have only used this App a few times, but I really like what I see it can do for me.

Detroit airport map (Photo credit: brewbooks)

Then there is GateGuru that provides you with practically everything you want to know related to various airports such as airport maps, amenities, shops, restaurants, clubs, etc, that are near your gate.  It can be very helpful when trying to navigate through unfamiliar airports.  It also provides useful tips about each airport.  Again, since I have not been traveling by air much lately, I haven’t tested this App fully yet.  You can just forward your email confirmations to it or it can be linked to TripIt (my choice) and then it will pull the trip information from there and tell you what gate your flight is departing from.  Theoretically, this could be a life saver when trying to make a tight connection as it will tell you your arrival gate and your next departure gate.  It alerts you to gate changes as well.

Ringling Museum of Art (Photo credit: paigeh)

One App that is fun and can be educational, too, is HistoryHere.  It basically uses the GPS in your smartphone to determine your location and then can display many of the historical sites and museums that are in the area around you.  It is a great way to find something interesting to do (if you have that kind of unplanned time available, of course) that you would otherwise probably just drive by and not even know it was there, for example: Chief Junaluska’s Grave, Fort Sam Houston, or the Ringling Museum of Art.  Touch any site and you will see a brief description along with information including the address, phone number, and website.  You can also search by specific cities to do some planning in advance.  Sometimes it is fun to just slide the map around and find out what is near your home or close to friends and relatives.  Not every historical site is shown but it does display a good number and variety of historical sites and places of interest.

Joe Tess Place (Photo credit: jimmywayne)

Finally, for all of you foodies in the traveling crowd, I like to watch a lot of the programs on the Food Network and the Cooking Channel.  I found an App for FoodNetworkOnTheRoad that will display restaurants nearby or searched by city that have been featured on programs like Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, Best Thing I Ever Ate, and $40 a Day.  It provides photos, menus, hours, general information such as phone number and website link, and can give you directions from your current GPS location (just answer yes when your smartphone asks to use your current location, after all, if you can’t trust your phone, you can’t trust anyone).  As with HistoryHere and other similar Apps, you can search around a city that you are planning to visit to see if there are places you saw on Food Network shows that you really want to try.  We have used this on a fair amount and have found some pretty good places to eat.  There is another one I have not used as much called TVFoodMaps that seems equally as good (adds No Reservations, Unique Eats, Restaurant Impossible, and others).  There is some overlap but there are also some unique places on each App.

Hipmunk App Animation (Photo credit: brownpau)

Since I am currently operating in a low-budget mode, I have been sticking with free Apps only so far, and I have not really felt like I’m missing out on anything.  Some Apps will constantly ask if you want to upgrade to their super plus version; use your own judgement as to whether the pluses are worth the cost for you.  Because I tend to write (sometimes too) lengthy of posts, I have limited my review here to a few of my favorites.  Check out the rest of the Apps I have listed under Resources and tell me your experience with some of them; what you like or don’t like.  I will be continually updating and adding new ones that I find useful (or just plain fun – see Hipmunk or Skyscanner).  Also let me know if you have some indispensible favorites that I haven’t listed there yet and I will check them out as well.