Category: iPhone App of the Week

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Last day to get the Navigon GPS iPhone app for $69.99

Attention Shoppers! I just wanted to remind you that today (August 31, 2009) is the last day to save $30 on the Navigon Turn-by-Turn GPS app for the iPhone. Today it’s $69.99. After today the price goes up to $99.99 (according to Navigon). The Navigon GPS App is available here from the App Store.

UPDATE: The Navigon app did go up, but only to $89.99. I guess they still want to be cheaper than TomTom.

You can see my Navigon App Review here. Also here is my Tom Tom App Review in case you missed it. Also the Vent Mount that I use to mount my iPhone 3GS is reviewed here.

 

A Nice Comparison of 4 GPS Apps for the iPhone

I thought Mike over at Insanely Great Mac did a nice job in telling you about his likes and dislikes comparing the 4 most popular GPS apps (AT&T, Navigon, Tom Tom and G-Map) for the iPhone. See his video comparison below:

 

 

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iPhone App of the Week – Delivery Status

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As you might imagine I do a lot of shopping online and therefore receive a lot of packages. In most cases they are shipped via FedEx, UPS or USPS. Also in most cases I’ll get an email with the tracking number. Prior to iPhone OS 3.0 I was not really interested in Package Tracking apps because I didn’t want to have to enter long tracking numbers manually. Now that the iPhone has Copy and Paste I went in search of a good package tracking app. When I get an email with a tracking number I can simply copy it right out of the email and paste it in the Delivery Status app.

 

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Delivery Status exceeded my expectations!

I was already using the FedEx mobile app. However, I wanted something that would track UPS shipments too. When I found Delivery Status, I was blown away. This is definitely one of if not the best package trackers out there for the iPhone. You can track packages from over 40 shipping companies/vendors!

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iPhone App of the Week – TomTom

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One of the most anticipated 3rd party apps for the iPhone is here! A few weeks back I reviewed the first full featured turn-by-turn stand alone navigation app for the iPhone – the Navigon App. See that review here. Navigon kinda stole TomTom's thunder a little by being first to market. However, before I passed judgement (and recommend it) I wanted to see the TomTom app. 

First off, like I said in my last review, I had no idea how much these apps were going to cost but the $69.99 introductory price seemed high to me. Well now that price seems like a bargain! The TomTom app came out at the full $99.99 price for the US/Canada version. I'm going to put aside the price right now and concentrate on the features of the app. We'll get back to the price at the end.

 

It works!

The TomTom app performs as I would have expected it to. The apps starts up a little slower than the Navigon app, but otherwise is very snappy. I must say that I like the layout and number of options in the TomTom app menus over that of the Navigon app. Also Navigon has an annoying habit of using really small fonts, the TomTom screens are very easy to read. 

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Points of Interest (POIs) also load very very quickly. I was stunned by the number of voices available in this app. You can have just about any voice you want including several just in the US language alone both male and female. No custom voices though.

 

See it in action

Rather than trying to explain how the app works, I recorded this video of a live demo of the TomTom app. Check it out. Caution: some parts are shaky. 

 

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iPhone App of the Week – iWrecked

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This is one of those apps that you should have, but hope you never have to use. Having been in a few auto accidents in the past myself, I know how much of a daze you can be in even if you’re physically OK. If the police come, you’re all set as they’ll make a report. However, if it’s a minor fender bender, then you may be on your own to collect all the details for your insurance claim.

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That’s where iWrecked comes in

This app aims to be the data collection point for all the relative information regarding your accident. It prompts you to enter the information that you may not be thinking about at the moment. Since your iPhone is also a camera, you can even insert the pictures you take. Also don’t forget to take pictures of the road conditions and surrounding area. There is an Emergency Call area to call 911, towing in the area you’re in via Google Maps and for a Taxi.

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Once you complete the accident report you can preview it and then send it via email in PDF format.

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iPhone App of the Week – MeetMe

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One of the apps I had been looking for was an App that would find the mid-point between two people for meetings. One of my blog readers pointed me to Midway, which was my iPhone App of the Week a couple of months ago. I really like Midway, however the one thing it was missing was the ability to enter a manual address. Well now I’ve found a new App called MeetMe that works just the way I want it to.

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iPhone App of the Week – MobileMe iDisk

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When Apple introduced the iPhone OS 3.0 update they also updated MobileMe to include the new Find My iPhone feature. One of the other things that wasn’t widely publicized was that they also introduced a new iPhone App to allow you to access your MobileMe iDisk from your iPhone or iPod touch running the 3.0 update. Well Apple delivered the app this week as a free download from the App Store.

 

How does it work?

The App itself is very basic in operation and easy to use. Once you launch it you enter your MobileMe username and password. After that you’re presented with 4 tabs: IDisk, Recents Shared Files and Public Folders.

The iDisk tab will show you all of your folders on your iDisk and let view any document that is viewable on your iPhone/iPod touch such as PDFs,  MS Office docs (.DOC, .XLS. PPT), images such as .JPG files and iWork documents such as Pages, Keynote and Numbers. 

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Yes, it does work in Landscape mode too.

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iPhone App of the Week – Navigon MobileNavigator North America

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When the iPhone OS 3.0 update was introduced, Apple opened the door to 3rd party turn-by-turn apps. They brought TomTom up on stage to show off the app that they were working on. I was impressed by what I saw and thought that this might be a chance to carry one less device when I travel. I'm very fond of my Garmin Nuvi 765T and the chances of a Garmin App for the iPhone are slim. It seems that Garmin would rather compete with a phone of their own (Garmin, look at the Palm Pre. You guys just don't stand a chance against iPhone and Blackberry). So an iPhone app would have to be really killer to make me give up my Nuvi. I'm also a fan of Navigon GPS units too. Actually it's not so much about their hardware that I'm impressed by as much as it is their software. I fell in love with the Navigon 3D Reality View, which pops up a photo realistic image of the road signs you're going to go under so that you're in the right lane. Not long after the TomTom announcement was made, Navigon announced that they would have an iPhone app too!

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It's a race!

In many cases first to market can definitely get you a leg up on your competition. If you have a really good app, then it makes it that much harder for your competitor. It's pretty clear that Navigon wanted to be first. Why you ask? Two reasons: for one they are offering their app for an introductory price of $69.99 until August 15th. Then the price goes up to $99.00. This of course creates a sense of urgency. The second reason is that they state right on their App Store page that a free update is coming with additional features. I would argue that a few of those features should have been in the first release. What was the hurry? Oh yeah, right. That whole get it out first thing. I remember now.

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iPhone App of the Week – Air Sharing Pro

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My favorite app for putting files on my iPhone just went Pro! The one thing I never understood is that Apple allowed you to turn on Disk Usage almost since day one with the iPod, but still to this day doesn’t do it with the iPhone. There are plenty of things that would be nice to carry on your extra storage space such as PDFs, presentations in PPT, word and excel files, etc. Yet, for some reason Apple hasn’t seen fit to allow this natively. No worries, there are apps in the App Store that fill this gap. I wrote about the Air Sharing app back in September 2008. I got in when it was first introduced and it was FREE! It was and still is a great solution for putting documents on your iPhone and viewing them while you’re on the go. Basically Air Sharing turns your iPhone into an HTTP file server that you can copy files to and from over your Wi-Fi network.

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iPhone App of the Week – Units

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One of the first things I went in search of when 3rd party apps made their way onto the iPhone was a good unit converter.  I found Units and haven’t looked back since. This app has evolved over time and the user interface continued to improve. 

 

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Units can convert

  • Area
  • Currency
  • Energy
  • Temperature
  • Time
  • Length
  • Weight
  • Speed
  • Pressure
  • Power
  • Volume
  • Data Storage
  • Fuel Consumption
  • Typography
  • Density
  • Astronomy
  • Torque
  • Luminance

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iPhone App of the Week – RunPee

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Sometimes I run across an app or someone shows me an app that like a train crash, I just can’t look away from. If someone would have said, "hey go download the RunPee" app!" I would have thought they were crazy or even a little sick. Well my friend Wanda sent me an email about this app and I had to go check it out because I trust her opinion. First off get your mind out of the gutter 🙂 It’s not that kind of app!

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