Fish’s Top Five iPhone Apps for Travel

18/1/2010 – Fish’s Top Five iPhone Apps for Travel

If I had a dollar for every time I was asked “What are your top five iPhone Apps” … well I’d have an iPhone 3Gs instead of an iPhone 3G.

Choosing my top five favourite travel apps for the iPhone was a series of difficult choices. Presently I have 11 pages of Apps on my iPhone (176 apps) and more than 225 Apps in my iTunes library, and while some Apps are totally useless, others are fantastic tools. Many of the Apps I use are overlapping and do an excellent job, but eventually I end up choosing only one App over another.

My top five favourite apps for travelers are purely subjective and has taken days to whittle down from my top 25 apps for travellers. Once I hit the top 15 the choices became very hard, leaving out apps I really love such as Flight Update Pro, Gate Guru, Photoshop Mobile and others…but I had to make tough choices. One decision I made was that the Apps chosen needed to address global travellers, not just North American and US travellers. Four of these top five were decided based on my most frequently used apps…and one is a very infrequently used app that I believe everyone, without exception, should have on their iPhone for ‘just such an emergency.’

So…in alphabetical order (sort of)…here are my Top Five iPhone Apps for Travellers

– FlyerStats : This iPhone App is a great tool for travellers to see their journey on a map and determine the number of miles flown.  Mileage calculators are not only great for satisfying curiosity, but also determining frequent flyer miles.

I have enjoyed FlyerStats as a frequently referred to iPhone App tool except for one drawback which impacts my use of the App…the App is missing my home airport, HVN!

– LiveATC.net : As an airline geek I have enjoyed LiveATC.net online, as a traveller I love having LiveATC.net’s App on the road.  During delays I find LiveATC.net to be a great source of information. Rather than relying on airport staff to be forthcoming about certain issues, I find tuning into an airport’s tower and ramp frequencies via LiveATC.net’s App allows me to get real time information as it is being relayed from the traffic controllers to the airlines directly.

LiveATC.net is great using 3G networks, as well as wifi for real-time audio and is an invaluable tool for both road warriors and airline geeks

– MetrO : Anyone who travels knows the frustrations of not knowing a new city or the public transit system in that city. While you can download iPhone Apps for many different city transit systems, you can also use just one App (that also works on a Blackberry!) that offers address-to-address transit directions…and that App is MetrO.

MetrO allows users to find specific address-to-address transit instructions even when not online (as long as you download the free city info before you go offline). I’ve used MetrO on my iPhone and Blackberry in various cities around the world and it truly is a must have App for every traveller.

– My Gate Now : I can’t count the number of flight tracker gate tracker, status tracker Apps I have…OK maybe I can, there are 17 of them in my iTunes library… and while there are a few of them I come back to regularly for various task specific reasons, the one I turn to most often for quick information is My Gate Now.

My Gate Now is built around the FlightStats platform, a website I have book marked on every web browser, and is very reliable. When I like most about My Gate Now is the accuracy of its information on a global scale. Information for baggage claims, on time flights, delayed flights; gates are all readily available in one simple to use App.

If I had to have a single App to track my travel while on the road it would likely be My Gate Now.

– iMedJet : OK…you caught me, this App is not in alphabetical order…and it is not a frequently used iPhone App…but it is an App EVERYONE should have iMedJet on their iPhone. MedJet is a global aero-medical evac provider and the app they have created is an easy to use, easy to reference guide to in the field medical situations.

No one plans to be a first responder to a medical crisis in the grocery store, on the street, on a plane or in their own home, but should an incident occur, iMedJet’s FREE iPhone App is your guide to potentially helping save another person’s life.  Download the iMedJet App…put it on the main page of your iPhone and be prepared should you find yourself in a position to help others.

I know I have left out a lot of Apps…and this Top Five iPhone App list may change over time, but this is my Top Five list for the moment.

Happy Flying!