The proliferation of location-aware devices has led to some incredible apps.
Glympse #
Glympse allows you to share your real-time location to a select person or group of people, for a specified amount of time. Why would you do this? Well, maybe you’re running late to a pub crawl – you could share your location with your mates, so they know how far off you are, or – on the flipside – one of your mates can share their location with you, so you know which pub to meet them at.
The benefit of Glympse, over, say Google’s Latitude, is that you can share your location to people without them needing to install the app.
Info// For: Android + iOS + WP7 + BBOS
Price: Free
Waze #
Waze is a crowd-sourced navigation app. Why go crowd-sourced? The biggest benefit is the traffic – if something goes wrong up ahead, and a Waze user gets stuck in the traffic, you’ll be notified, and an alternate route offered.
In fact, it’s more than just traffic data that is being crowd-sourced by Waze – the road network is, too. You can participate in the Waze community just by leaving the app open when you drive, or you can take a more active role by reporting things like accidents, police traps, and map inaccuracies.
Info// For: iOS + Android
Price: Free
AroundMe #
Looking for something specific? Perhaps you need a pharmacy? Maybe an emergency coffee? Open AroundMe, pick a category, and find the nearest shop of that type. You can either view all the results in a list ordered by distance, or view them on a map.
Once you click on a result, you can call the shop from within the app, or see useful information drawn from Foursquare tips.
Android users have this functionality built in with ‘Places’, but iOS users will enjoy it.
Info// For: iOS + Android + WP7
Price: Free
Trip Journal #
Yay! Holidays! Is there no finer time in life? No. The answer is no. Sadly, however, everyday can’t be a holiday, so it’s recommended to document/hoard your memories for later reminiscing. Mugs would once pen their thoughts within paper antiquities known as ‘journals.’
There’s no need for you to go to such trouble, however, as TripJournal will log all your locations, and can tie in your photos, places visited, and even notes and thoughts (yes, just like in those paper ones), allowing you to combine all of those bits n pieces for display on Google Earth, or sharing through Facebook, or email.
Info// For: iOS + Android + Bada (lol) + Symbian (lolol)
Price: $2.99
Gogobot #
Gogobot is a community-driven travel information site, providing information and reviews on hotels, attractions, and generally pleasant spots to visit across the world. A few bonus features of the app include trip-planning, and virtual postcards of the places you visit.
The information, of course, is still the best feature, as it provides largely unbiased reviews of the many seedy hostels that you have a choice of. It also ties in to a social network of sorts, where you can see whom of your virtual buddies has stayed at the place you’re considering, or view their personal travel recommendations.
Info// For: iOS
Price: Free
Locale #
Locale allows you to define settings on your phone, based on your location (among other things). I use it, mainly, to turn the volume down on my ringer when I get into the office, but you could also use it to remove the lewd images from your homescreen, and switch to a calm ‘ring ring’ rather than a trashy, dubstep ‘wub wub wub’ ringtone.
Beyond location, however, you can also have it change myriad settings based on myriad conditions. It’s an easier-to-use (and, thus, slightly less powerful) version of Tasker. In fact, it is compatible with Tasker plugins (and vice versa).
Info// For: Android
Price: $4.99
GPS Share #
Like Glympse, GPS Share allows you to share your location. Unlike Glympse, however, this app takes a super bare-bones approach. It finds your coordinates, and allows you to share them to any app via the in-built share menu.
It then provides a URL to a Google Maps page with your location at that moment in time. Open it in an SMS or email on an Android handset, and you’ll get to view it in the Maps app, too.
I like this app for its sheer simplicity: no futzing about, just your location at that chosen moment.
Info// For: Android
Price: Free
Parallel Kingdom #
A blend of geolocation and augmented reality, Parallel Kingdom is one of a few games that is played using your actual location. This particular incarnation is of the MMORPG flavour, and pertains to reveal the myriad magical monsters that you never knew existed in your neighbourhood.
Your territory is based around your real-word location, so playing it in different locations around town will reveal different items, baddies, and players.
This is typical MMORPG fair with an unusual twist, as such, it may not appeal to everyone, but noobs will be glad to be assigned a mentor (a real person!) when the game begins, to help them on their way.
Info// For: iOS + Android
Price: Free (in-app purchases optional)
Zombies, Run! #
In this game, you will literally have to run around your neighbourhood to complete missions while avoiding the attacking zombie hoards. It’s played mainly through headphones, so, in-between commands, you get to listen to your own music while you outrun the undead. Occasionally, you will come across a hoard, where you’ll be prompted to start running faster for a period of time.
You run to collect items and bonuses, which you will use when you get home to upgrade your in-game township and unlock additional missions. I really commend the developers on the gamification of exercise, if not their choice of price point.
Info// For: iOS + Android
Price: $8.49
Open Signal Maps #
This app has two main purposes. The first, and most practical, is to use it to find the strongest WiFi or mobile signal in a given area. The app will point you in the direction of the nearest tower or WiFi router, with the aim of helping you find better reception. You can also view a map of nearby towers, or run a speed test.
The other purpose of this app is to log your reception dead zones, in order to contribute to the opensignalmaps.com [Ed: now dead] database – a worldwide database of ‘real life’ network coverage.
Info// For: Android
Price: Free