Android Travel Apps of the Month: May 2012
Welcome to our regular roundup of some of the best Android travel apps that we have used in the last month.
May’s selection includes a fast and handy itinerary tracker, an augmented reality browser, and a new way to view the night sky.
TripIt
Especially handy for the frequent flyer, TripIt makes it easy to keep track of your flight plans. After signing up for an account, you start by e-mailing a copy of your itinerary to plans@TripIt.com or setting up an auto-import direct from your e-mail account so it will do the heavy lifting for you. With the auto-import turned on, whenever you book a flight, hotel, or ticket for an event, it will automatically be scanned right from your e-mail for you. Then TripIt uses its magic to make sense of your itinerary and display it in an easy to read format.
From there, you can add notes, make changes, check flight status and share your itinerary with friends and family.
The app and service is free, while an ad-free version of the app will set you back $3.99. Finally, TripIt Pro offers you a travel reward tracker, instant flight change alerts, and more for the business traveler for $49.99 / year.
Free (ad supported) or $3.99
Wikitude World Browser
Taking us one step closer to science fiction, Wikitude World Browser takes all the handy information from the internet and puts it right in front of you. Literally.
By opening the app and pointing the camera in any direction in the “Around Me” view, Wikitude begins to place handy & relevant data as an overlay right on the screen. Point it at a landmark, and its Wikipedia entry will pop up. At a restaurant, and its website and reviews are a click away.
By using location data from Youtube, Twitter, Foursquare, Flickr, Google, Instagram, and a host of other services, Wikitude helps bring the power of the internet and the real world together. Requires a data connection.
Free
Google Sky Map
Like Wikitude above, Google Sky Map is another slick augmented reality app. This one though is especially for the nerds.
With the app installed, point your phone toward the night sky, and the stars, constellations, planets, and other celestial objects and events appear right before you. Pinch to zoom for more detail, or zoom out for a huge view of the sky.
My two favourite features include the beautiful gallery of prominent objects in the night sky, which with a click, show you right where they are. Handy for those with a telescope or binoculars to find those hidden gems in the sky.
My other favourite feature is the night mode. Staring at a glowing screen is about the worst thing you can do when scanning the night sky, and the red and black of the night mode gives you a clear view of the screen, without taking away your night vision.
Though not strictly a travel app, most of us need to travel outside the big cities to get a good view of the night skies. Also good to remember that even if we’ve been around the globe, there is an entire universe out there to explore.
Free
Click here to check out more of our “Apps of the Month”
Have you come across a Android app handy for travel lately? Let us know in the comments and we might just review it next month!
One of the editors of Too Many Adapters, Dustin just can’t get enough travel or technology.
When not directly feeding his above insatiable habits, you can probably find him at some far away ice cream shop taking pictures and tweeting of all the flavors to jealous followers. That, or on top of a mountain somewhere shooting panoramas with his DSLR.
TripIt is fantastic. Along with the ability to import a TripIt calendar into Google Calendars (and thus my Android phone as well), it’s been a great travel companion for me.
I use WorldMate instead of TripIt, although I like them both. Similar features, but the upgrade to the premium version was a lot less expensive for WorldMate.
I really like google sky map. I found it only by chance right after I got my first android. It is one of those apps that is cool even for no android users.