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.

TripAdvisor

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.

Choice Hotels 

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.

My Smartphone – My Life

I hate to say it, but one of the biggest disappointments of my eight month round the world trip last year and into 2011, was the performance of my iPhone 3GS smart-phones. That’s right, both of them.

My first iPhone had problems with the WiFi. Namely, it couldn’t pick up a WiFi signal, even if I was sitting right on top of it. However, all other aspects of its function seemed to be ok. When I arrived in New York City in July 2010 I went to one of the massive Apple Stores in the city and got staff at the Genius desk to look at my phone. They confirmed the WiFi function was non-functioning and a was able to purchase a new iPhone 3GS at a much reduced rate.

Happily, WiFi worked fine during the rest of the American leg of my trip. Unfortunately, it stopped working once I reached Europe in October, and hasn’t worked since! Other aspects of the phone’s function seem to be lest than ideal, as time goes on, and quite frankly I am over it.

Ongoing problems with my iPhone are the reason I haven’t embraced the iPad. Although I think the iPad is an amazing device, I am holding off to see what other manufacturers release over the next 12-18 months, with particular interest in new devices utilising Google’s Android software.

I’m writing about this today because of a recent smartphone survey conducted by Prosper Mobile Insight (PMI), which reveals key insights on mobile usage, security concerns and privacy issues, as well as the way smartphone owners use their devices to buy products and services using their phones.

To quote from the survey media release: “As mobile technology continues to evolve, a majority of smartphone users are fully integrating their devices into every aspect of their daily lives… 52.9% say they utilize all of the functions of their smartphones—it’s their life. 30.4% say they use the basic functions of their smartphones plus some applications and 16.7% only use their smartphones for calling, texting and emailing.”

“With all the unique features of smartphones, texting (21.6%), Internet (16.7%) and email (15.7%) are the top functions smartphone users say they cannot live without. Calling features (7.8%), GPS (6.9%) and Facebook (5.9%) are also necessities to some.”

I’m with those survey respondents. I was totally wedded to my iPhone after my initial purchase – despite the WiFi problem – and the phone seemed to be a permanent extension of my arm. I was never more than a few minutes, or metres, away from it, and even now, I am never without the phone.

Security Ongoing Concern

Despite the joys (or otherwise) of owning a smartphone, security issues are never far from the minds of phone users.

The PMI Smartphone survey also reveals that the top privacy issue among smartphone users is location tracking (35.3%), followed closely by unauthorized access to personal information (31.4%), someone accessing financial data (21.6%), and online behavior being tracked (11.8%). Despite these concerns, 55.9% of smartphone users say they prefer using their smartphone to access the Internet over using a computer – as opposed to 35.3% who prefer to use a computer.

A few more interesting bits of information from the survey: The vast majority of smartphone users (81.4%) say they use their smartphone to browse for products or services online, while 77.5% use their smartphone to locate stores or look for store hours. (Source: Prosper Mobile Insight Smartphone Survey, May, 2011)

Clearly, these are the early days of smartphone development and use, and I for one, am quite sure that these ubiquitous devices will only get smaller, faster, cheaper and more powerful over the next five years. I am also sure that in spite of my own less than perfect experiences with the iPhone, there is no turning back to the ‘old days’ to embrace anything less than state of the art, when it comes to modern phone technology.

-o0o-

The Wired Traveller

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.”
- Jack Kerouac

~ Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the wired world.

A couple of days ago I wrote about the Plugged in Traveller. Today let’s look at the Wired Traveller.

Actually, the plugged in traveller and the wired traveller are generally one and the same person. But first, let’s reminisce…(insert dreamy transition sequence as we flash back to the olden days…).

Dear reader, if you are as old as I am, you will still remember the days of ‘snail mail’ – that ancient and all but lost art of letter writing. When men (and women) of letters sent home detailed reports of their adventures as they crossed the globe encountering strange and exotic people, in lands they had previously only read about in geography class. You do remember geography class, don’t you?

If you didn’t have time to write extended reports you could always get away with a PAR AVION* letter.

Remember them? Bought from a local post office, these were light weight, pale blue, one page, prepaid sheets of paper with gummed edges, that had to be folded in a particular sequence before you could drop them into any post box you stumbled across (see image illustrating this entry).

The really lazy traveller always made do with Post Cards. At least post cards gave you the added bonus of including a picture of a famous landmark, or island sunset to make the folks back home envious of your exciting adventures.

You can still get post cards of course, but I haven’t seen an air mail letter in years, and as for long letters home, they too are pretty much a thing of the past. Because today, we are living in a wired world, and the wired traveller wants to work fast, cheap, and online.

Yes, the wired traveller is constantly plugged in, switched on, instant messaging, and uploading to their FaceBook, MySpace, Blogger, Twitter, WordPress, Flickr, YouTube or personal web sites. In fact, the truly wired traveller probably keeps in contact through all the above portals.

Now as you travel the world you can take photographs of the pyramids with your mobile phone and upload them instantly to any number of free websites. Or you could send them to everyone on your phone contact list, and really make your friends back home jealous as they sit, shackled to their work desks, dreaming of their own foreign escapades.

The wired traveller moves around the world with a GPS enabled phone and never has to worry about getting lost in a strange city. He can check his email on the move, and answer them while enjoying a cappuccino in London, a slice of pizza in New York, or a kebab within sight of the pyramids.

The wired traveller can pop into her nearest Internet Café and Google her favourite fashion chain, before heading out to try on the latest summer craze, whether she is in Paris, Milan or Rio. Come to think of it – she can do that from her phone.

If your mobile phone is up to the task, a new opt-in service being trialled by Google called, Google Latitude allows your friends and family to know exactly where you are in the world, at any time, at the touch of a button. While there are some privacy concerns, the security conscious among us will feel a lot happier knowing our movements can be tracked in real time as we travel the world in search of new experiences. Click on the video to watch a short demonstration of Google Latitude’s features.



It won’t be long before you are able to hit a special key on your phone, to send out an alarm to the nearest police station if you are caught up in an emergency, allowing law enforcement to know exactly where you are and track your movements while they close in on you and those threatening you – if it can’t be done already!

Welcome to the wired world, indeed.

*PAR AVION is French for ‘By Air’.