Showing posts with label Maps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maps. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

My Top iPad Apps: Part 2


The story so far… In two previous posts, I wrote about travelling across America with my iPad 2, and listed my favourite apps in terms of their usefulness in part one of this series. Now read on…

Maps (the original Google app)
Ah, maps. I wrote recently about just one of the problems facing the new Apple Maps app, and I won’t repeat myself here. However, it is pretty much impossible to travel anywhere, let alone on an extended journey, and not refer to a map of some type. Thankfully, I was able to use Google Maps throughout my trip before the app was dropped from the latest iOS6 upgrade, a fact I am very grateful for.

Since I was travelling without a car, and by necessity had to make I use of public transport in the cities I visited, Google Maps was indispensable for pointing me in the right direction, and for working out which buses or subway routes would get me to my destination in the shortest possible time. And because I didn’t have a permanent WiFi connection, one of the iPad functions I made regular use of, was the ability to capture screen shots (when I was online), of street maps and any city neighbourhoods I wanted to explore. These were stored in folders for offline referral. Once I moved on from the city I was visiting, I would delete the maps to make space for new ones.

The TripAdvisor app provides access to more than 75 million reviews and opinions by travellers in every corner of the planet. TripAdvisor makes it easy to find and compare car hire and airfares, hotels and restaurants, and learn about galleries, museums, and other attractions wherever you might be visiting. I have added my own modest hotel reviews, and reviews for some of the places I visited, but there are many more I can – and should – add. The app is ideal for searching out last minute places to visit while on the road, but of course, one should have conducted this type of research well before arrival in some far-flung location.

Screenshot of the Choice Hotels iPad app.
I stayed in eight hotels during my last trip, but it wasn’t until I was at my third hotel that I remembered that on a previous round the world trip in 2010, I had signed up with the Choice Hotels group of companies to try and take advantage of their rewards program.

iPad in hand, I checked the apps store and found the Choice Hotels application which made searching for, and comparing the more than 6,000 hotels within the group very easy and convenient.

I spent almost five weeks in various Choice Hotels racking up more than 20,000 reward points – which I have yet to redeem – and for which I will eventually add reviews on this blog. I loved having the ability to filter and sort hotel search results by price and location (see screenshot); book hotels from within the app, and even cancel reservations if needed. You can also view hotel details, amenities and photo galleries, and find various points of interests in map view along with hotel search results

Facebook
I think it is fair to say that Facebook has become the de facto website for keeping in touch with friends and family members at home, or elsewhere in the world, whether or not you are travelling. The iPad app is constantly being improved and is easy to use. Uploading trip photographs and adding messages is a breeze, and as much as I have ongoing concerns about privacy issues with Facebook, it is still probably the best way (apart from mass emailings) to keep in touch with a large number of people with the least amount of effort.

Skype
Millions of people around the world have signed on to Skype, the company that has helped revolutionize the online phone business. The Skype iPad app allows users to make free voice and video calls to anyone else on Skype – providing both callers have Skype accounts. Even calling family or friends via Skype’s pre-paid service is much cheaper than using your mobile/cell phone company’s global roaming service. Or global rorting, as I like to call it. Just add a few dollars of Skype Credit to your account and away you go.

World Clock
I stopped wearing a watch when I first bought my by now ancient iPhone 3GS. Since the phone was rarely out of my hands, I made regular use of the device’s Clock app, thereby allowing me to leave my watch unused. For some unexplainable reason, Apple chose not to include the Clock app on the new iPad’s (a mistake that has now been rectified), which of course gave app designers around the world a chance to fill the gap with clock apps of their own design. World Clock has become one of the most popular of these apps, and I found it to be perfect for keeping tabs on time shifts as I travelled across America, and for keeping in touch with family members in Greece and Australia. Now that I am back in Adelaide, the app is just as useful for checking the time in Tucson (Arizona,) New York City, Athens (Greece), and elsewhere.

And last, but by no means least. Since All work and no play, makes Jack (or Jim) a dull boy, my game of choice was, and still remains Backgammon. I have a love/hate relationship with this game: I love it when I win, and I hate it when I lose. Either way, it is endlessly challenging, and the version I have seems to be one of the better Backgammon apps around, although it does have its idiosyncrasies.


I also had a bunch of apps which many travel sites often recommend. These included TripIt, Evernote, Priceline, Urbanspoon and Yelp. However, I made no use at all of these apps during my travels.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Apple Maps Vs. Google Maps


Oh, dear. How could Apple get it so wrong? The problems with Apple’s new Maps app just won’t go away. In fact they seem to just go from bad to worse. Just today, Australian police have warned travellers using the Apple Maps app to be very careful about relying on the app to get them safely across this vast, and often unforgiving country.

This latest warning came after a number of travellers got totally lost on cross-country road trips due to the poor directions provided by the Apple Maps application.

A case in point: anyone travelling to the regional Victorian city of Mildura could end up miles from their destination if they use Apple Maps, as the screenshot below indicates. For both this, and the following Google Maps image, I sought directions from my home in Adelaide to Mildura.

Click to view full size
Mildura is shown here as being located somewhere in the middle of either an unnamed National Park, or in the Pink Lakes Conservation Reserve. It isn’t. As it happens, Route 3 in the image above is at least heading in the right direction (for most of the way), as can be seen in this next Google Maps screenshot.

Click to view full size
As can be seen, Apple Maps puts unsuspecting travellers smack dab in the middle of the now correctly named, Murray Sunset National Park. Google Maps also provide a lot more information including numerous highways, the names of country towns, and physical features in the landscape. Of course, as one zooms in to Google Maps, more and more useful information is revealed.

Hopefully, in the above example, people getting lost using the Apple Maps app should be able to find their way out of the National Park without too much trouble – providing other problems (lack of fuel, vehicle breakdown, etc) doesn’t stop them in their tracks. But as I’ve already said, Australia is a vast country, and the landscape, climate, and other factors have combined to trap unsuspecting visitors and locals on isolated roads, bush tracks, and even highways far from help, often leading to the death of more than one lost traveller.

The message the police issued today was clear –travellers embarking on long road trips this summer, should not rely only on the Apple Maps application. They should use a good highway map or atlas, and pay attention to highway signage.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...