iPhone App Reviews

Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

FlightTrack Pro

Chrisa | Mar 2, 2009 Travel, Utilities, Weather

User rating:

(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)

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So – I know the burning question in your mind, fair reader, is where the hell has Chrisa been?? Well, as it turns out, I was traveling. I travel quite a bit for work (shameless plug – www.sceneexchange.com), but I also got in a leisure trip – I went to the Academy Awards. Before you ask how I got my no-name behind into the Oscars and get this post COMPLETELY off track, let me just say, if you really want to know, leave me a comment, and I’ll fill you in on all the details. Oh – and yes, Brad and Angelina ARE that gorgeous in person, thanks for asking.

Being that I travel so much, I thought I’d try out FlightTrack Pro. I’ve tried a few of the cheap (read: free) flight tracking apps, so I really wanted to see what $9.99 would buy me. I am notoriously cheap, so I really expected a crapload of features for this kind of price tag. FlightTrack Pro delivers….99%.

How does it deliver? It’s really easy to track your travel. This version of the app is integrated with TripIt, an extremely handy and free feature where you email your itinerary to TripIt, and your flights automatically show up and are tracked in FlightTrack Pro. By far, the coolest feature there is. When I book a flight, all the airline websites let me email a copy to a bunch of addresses – I just type in the TripIt address, and it shows up in the app. There’s also integrated weather for your destination(s), email itineraries directly from the application, and it supports both domestic and international flights. Very, very, cool. It even has a fun feature where, if you’re super bored or not traveling this week, you can shake your iPhone and get a random flight.

But, even this cool of an app has a drawback. There’s a nice feature that lets you see a map of exactly where a flight is in the air, but unless you’re on one of the very few airlines that has Wi-Fi in route, you can’t see any maps. Seems a bit pointless, unless you’re an administrative assistant or secretary. And, since my admin assistant is a thumbless canine (I’ll wait while you process that………), not that useful for her. But, honestly, that’s the only drawback – if you want to call it that – that this application has.

If you travel a lot, go and get this application now. Seriously – stop reading this post and download it. Now. If I’m telling you it’s worth ten bucks, trust me, it really is. If you aren’t a road warrior, there is a lighter version, FlightTrack, for $4.99. Not as feature rich, of course, but worth it if you travel a few times a year.

: My flight, easy to read.

: The only thing it couldn't tell me was that my bag went to SFO.

: If my flight had wi-fi, this is what I would have seen.

Tags: $9.99, Travel

Q&F: Chicago CTA Bus Tracker

Michael (Admin) | Jan 14, 2009 Quick & Free, Travel, Web Apps

User rating:

(4 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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I generally don’t review web apps, but this one is too good not to share with others who are currently freezing their asses off in Chicago!

Chicago CTA Bus Tracker is a web app that delivers real-time bus location info that comes straight from the Chicago Transit Authority’s very own bus tracking system. Choose your bus line, choose your direction, choose your stop, and before you know it you’re looking at a map of the nearest bus’s location and ETA. Just point your iPhone’s Safari browser to cta.growinglogic.com and you’re all set.

I don’t really ride the bus very much so I haven’t tried to confirm the tracker’s accuracy… plus I’m worried that I might literally drop dead if I step outside in this weather… but Chicago CTA Bus Tracker is free and the info is coming straight from the source so you’re really not gonna do any better than this. Tomorrow’s HIGH temperature in Chicago is expected to hit -3°F… yeah, -3 frakkin’ degrees (that’s -19°C to the rest of the world)… so not only will Michael Simmons’ iPhone web app save you some aggravation, there’s a chance it may save you from dying of hypothermia as well.

Thanks to our friends at Nerdy by Nature.org for finding this web app gem.

If you use a similar (and hopefully free) app that provides real-time public transit tracking in a different city, please feel free to post it in the comments! I know there are some in the iTunes App Store but web apps are harder to locate.

Sweet, only 2 more minutes of trying not to freeze to death!

Sweet, in just 2 more minutes I'll be able to feel my face again

Tags: free

Urbanspoon

Michael (Admin) | Aug 5, 2008 Travel

User rating:

(7 votes, average: 2.43 out of 5)

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The Find-Me-Some-Grub market in the App Store is pretty crowded as we all know, so it’s cool to see new concepts like Urbanspoon. You don’t have to be a genius developer to take a keyword and location and spit out a list of restaurants – iPhone’s map function kind of does that by default already. Urbanspoon apparently realized this and devised a clever way of suggesting new places for you to chow down.

After finding your location, the first thing the app shows you is a set of slot-machine reels and all you have to do is shake your iPhone and watch the reels spin past neighborhoods, food types, and pricing until they land on something random. Nice! And you can lock certain reels if you definitely want to eat cheap or near home or whatever. It even makes a coin-dropping sound when your surprise eating destination is revealed and it keeps track of choices you’ve spun past just in case you change your mind.

If you like the restaurant Urbanspoon has chosen, you can tap through and get local reviews that tell you what percentage of people voted “I like it”. Tap the phone number to call them, tap the address and the iPhone’s GPS map launches.

So far, so good – it all makes sense. There is, however, one major problem in Urbanspoon… especially for those who don’t like surprises. When you choose to browse or search (as opposed to shake), not only do you get a static map, but you’re also teased with a “get directions” link which takes you to the full-size (read: not optimized for mobile) Google maps page. Dammit! Everything in the Shake part of the app was great, and now this. It’s almost like they made part of the app before iPhone’s GPS map existed, the other part after, and then they just released it anyway despite the obvious problem with search/browse.

If they can fix this major goof on the maps then I think the app would deserve four stars, and if they could find out a way to beef up their database of venues and user reviews I’d give it five stars in a heartbeat. Gotta fix that map thing, though. I hate saying this, but that just looks sloppy.