Best iPhone apps for your trip

June 16, 6:38 PMSeattle Tourism ExaminerBrie Rydberg

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Seattle may be the land of Microsoft, but we also love our Apples. Whether you’re a Mac or a PC, there’s no doubt that the iPhone is just plain handy and useful. Having just recently jumped on the Apple-wagon myself, here are my favorite picks for iPhone applications (or “apps”) to use when planning a trip or just navigating your way through Seattle. (All apps are available through iTunes App Store unless otherwise noted.)

STARTING OUT
Packing List- Sometimes a pen and paper is just so cumbersome isn’t it? Use one of the existing pre-loaded packing list templates (business trip? Safari?) or customize your own. Mark “packed” items as you go to see how far your packing progress is going. ($0.99)

TripIt - Email your travel plans and multiple itineraries to the www.tripit.com site, and it will organize your travel into a master itinerary that’s easy to read and share. Open up the TripIt app and you have all your travel info in one place- flight, car, hotel, directions, etc. (Free, www.tripit.com or iTunes app store)

Flight Tracker- View worldwide airline schedules, including flight time, departure/arrival gates, delays and more. Useful, but I also enjoy the real time “track your flight” monitor onboard international flights, if you’re like me and can’t tell if that’s Ireland or Iceland that you’re flying over. ($1.99)

GETTING AROUND
SeattleBus- Use your iPhone’s internal GPS to help you find the nearest bus stop on the Seattle Metro bus route system. Also provides real-time arrival/departure information. Hopefully a similar app will be available when we become a real grown-up city this fall once our light rail is up and running. ($4.99, but easier and greener than carrying 50 different bus route maps)

Taxi Magic- Connects your iPhone to taxi computer dispatch systems, so you can “call” a taxi without making a phone call, or lifting your arm for that matter (except to tap your screen). You can view where your taxi is, when it will arrive, even your driver’s name. (Free)

AroundMe- Uses the iPhone GPS to let you know what is “around you,” like gas stations, ATMs, coffee, restaurants, hotels, hospitals and more. Good to have especially if you don’t know the area around you. Provides phone numbers, maps, directions and the ability to add information to your contact list and email it to a friend. (Free)

HearPlanet- Turns your iPhone into your personal audio tour guide using a combination of geolocation and wikipedia information, providing verbal notices about interesting things nearby. The app also reads the text so you can use it while driving. The only negative thing is that the audio voice is a tad robotic and extremely creepy, especially if you tap to hear about the trivia of SeaTac, Washington (shiver!) ($0.99) 

 

GOING OUT
Urbanspoon- This handy little app was developed right here in Seattle and was featured on the iPhone commercial. Based on your current location, shake your phone and a slot machine will come up with results based on restaurant name, type of food and price. You can lock in one or all three of the columns and shake until you find what you want. Urbanspoon is useful if you’re with a fairly indecisive group. (Free)

Yelp- There's a reason why Yelp is the third most popular free travel iPhone app in Apple's bushel. This nifty app provides user reviews of bars, restaurants, shops and more based on your current location. According to Stephanie Ichinose from Yelp Inc., users can draft revies, upload quick tips and upload photos using the iPhone app (latest version). You can also do that directly at www.yelp.com. (Free)

Happy Hours- This app was also created in Seattle and presently is only available for Seattle happy hour locations…lucky us! Based on your current location and time of day, it finds happy hours near you. You can change the time, date and neighborhood to look for later happy hours at different locations. Similar to Urbanspoon, shake your iPhone to have it select a random happy hour for you. Click on one you like and it’ll show you happy hour times, how to get there and even a picture of the actual establishment from the outside so you know what it looks like. It draws from information on the parent site www.gotime.com, so if someone has submitted a review of the place on that site, it will show up as a review on your iPhone. The only drawback is more people need to put more reviews of more places on the gotime site. (Free)