The Best SmartPhone Apps For Business Trips Or When On The Road

If you happen to be on the road a lot or are frequently on business trips, then you know the importance of being able to stay as well connected to your clients, co-workers, friends and family as much as possible. You also know that using your mobile devices such as a smartphone or a tablet PC, with the proper mobile applications, can be of great assistance in helping you do so.
But with all of the overwhelming number of apps that are available on the market right now, allowing you to constantly receive email or text messages, get instant updated weather reports, or any other travel or business updates that are important to you when you’re away from home. So we rounded up some of the most useful of these apps to make your next trip as enjoyable and stress free as possible.

The Top Mobile Apps When Away From Home

Yelp Mobile Smartphone App
Yelp.com established itself as one of the most popular social interaction sites on the Internet that offers local or any city that you may be in, unbiased reviews and ratings for restaurants, hotels or shops which are written by real people. There is also a free Yelp app that offers the same functionality along with some added mobile specific features, allowing you to find that perfect diner or hotel a lot easier when traveling in an unfamiliar locale.
If you own a smartphone or a tablet, either an iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android or a Palm Pre device, you can then download the Yelp app and quickly search for places to eat, or find places of interest using the location finder. You will also be able to instantly view photos of the restaurants, read real user reviews as well as look at the menu. You can also customize the searches using whatever criteria that you choose.
Yelp also on its mobile app has an “augmented reality” feature, which allows you to point your smartphone at any business and then get an information based overlay of the establishment in real time.
Mobile App For MapQuest
If you’re on the road and in an unfamiliar city and just hate asking for directions, then you need a map, detailed maps with accurate directions as well as GPS navigation. What may also come in handy is constantly updated “in real-time” traffic reports, allowing you to take the quickest route to your destination without ever getting lost.
You need the MapQuest 4 Mobile app, which includes all of these features along with voice activated navigation giving you exact – turn left, turn right or go straight directions, as well as mobile maps directly from MapQuests Web site. The “real time” traffic updates also refreshes every five minutes as well.
The MapQuest 4 Mobile app also has an Auto Re-route feature, which automatically adjusts your route, if you happened to miss your turn or an exit. You will also be able to select the Energy Savings option, which consumes less battery power. The MapQuest 4 Mobile app is free for the iPhone, the iPad, and for Android powered devices.
DriveSafe.ly Mobile App Enterprise Edition
DriveSafe.ly is an app available for the BlackBerry and the Android smartphones, an app for Windows Phone 7 and the iPhone should be available soon. What drivesafe.ly does is it will read out your emails and your text messages that you receive on your mobile, “out-loud” for you while you’re driving. You will also be able to set up customized responses so you can keep conversations ongoing without the need of taking your hands off the steering wheel.
The DriveSafe.ly Enterprise Edition is designed specifically and primarily for the business traveler since it features built-in encryption technology for sensitive business emails and text. There is also a free version that’s available.
An App For The Weather ChannelKeeping track of and knowing in advance what type of weather to expect is extremely important when traveling, or when driving on the road, so you’ll be able to prepare in advance for any possible potential delays as well as changing your plans accordingly.
So using the Weather Channel Max app, which is available for the iPhone and the iPad, will provide you with extensive up to date weather coverage which includes maps, traffic cams and live radar in some areas.
You will be able to save multiple locations at once, which is important if you’re traveling from one city to another. You will also be able to easily find current weather conditions in that area as well. There is a nominal charge for the iPhone version while the iPad version is currently free. There’s also a Desktop Max version that’s downloadable to your laptop as well.
Automilez Mobile App
There are times when it can get difficult to remember exactly when or where you started your current trip, and where it ended, so that you’ll be able to keep track of the mileage traveled. This is important for mileage reimbursed purposes when business traveling to various locations. The Automilez app which uses a GPS feature, will automatically track that mileage for you for each trip that you’ve taken, and will create detailed logs as well.
Once Automilez creates a trip log, you’ll have a choice of either sending the report by email or just keeping it on your smartphone. You’ll also be able to view all of your individual trips or see the detailed sum of your year to date mileage traveled.
Automilez is currently a free app available for the iPhone and the iPad. It supports detailed logs in both miles or kilometers, allowing you to use it in North America or abroad.
Concur Mobile App
The Concur app, which is available for the iPhone and the iPad, makes it a lot easier for you to manage all of your expenses, your receipts, and much much more. You’ll be able to take images of your receipts using your mobile device’s camera, create an expense report, and then submit it using the app. The Concur Mobile app will allow you to track all of your flight statuses, search for local hotels, or find a place to eat or places to shop from multiple airports.
You can also book a taxi online directly from your mobile device using the links to Taxi Magic which are provided. The app at this time is free to download, but only for the Apple mobile products. You must however be a member of either Concur Expense, Concur Travel or Concur Breeze, which you can sign up at Concur’s (www.concur.com).
Kayak Mobile App
Every trip you take, whether on business or leisure, usually requires three essential components that you’ll need:
• Your flight details
• Your hotel arrangements and possibly
• A rental car
The Kayak app which is free, and available for the iPhone, the iPad, Blackberry, Android and Windows Phone 7 will keep track of this for you.
This app will help you keep track of your travel itinerary, as well as look for deals on the best car rental deals, hotel prices and flights, while keeping you updated on your trip and flight status. You will also be able to find airline information or book trips directly from your smartphone or tablet device. The PRO version, which is $0.99c and available for the iPhone, has all of the same features without the ads.
Poynt Mobile App
So you the tired exhausted road warrior, will need to take some time off, you need a break now and then, which is the exact reason why Poynt is an excellent app for those who need to kick back a bit and find some deserved entertainment while traveling.
Using the Poynt app, you’ll be able to search for local restaurants, businesses or movie theaters, and purchase those movie tickets directly online, or make dinner reservations from your smartphone. The built-in GPS feature will find your exact location and then display the results for establishments in your immediate area.
Poynt however isn’t just for entertainment, it also features important information such as local gas prices as well as weather updates. Poynt is a free app to download, available for the iPhone, the iPad, Android OS, BlackBerry OS and Windows Phone 7 devices.

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5 best smartphone apps for travelers who can't get online

While you can basically download an app for anything you could possibly need to do on your smartphone, there are many times when traveling where you may find yourself unable to get Wi-Fi. When offline, many of these helpful apps become useful. To help you during those times when you find yourself traveling and unable to get online, here are five excellent travel apps for your smartphone that will work no matter what your connection situation is.

Jibbigo

For those times when you want to communicate with locals but can't speak the language, this voice translator allows you to speak in English into the device and have your words spoken back to you in the language of your choice. Downloads are currently available in English to German, French, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Tagalong (Filipino).

Available for iPhone, iPad, and Android. $4.99 per download.

GlobeMaster: Offline Travel Guide & Utilities

This app is a global travel guide for over 1,400 cities and more than 260 countries. Users will have access to practical information from WikiTravel content about the food, culture, festivals, holidays, traditions, and transportation of a place. Other features of the app include over 1,400 photos, travel reccommendations, a tip calculator, currency converters, advice on how to stay healthy, and more.

Available for iPhone and iPad. $0.99.

Tourist Eye

Not only does this app include travel information for over 60,000 destinations, but you get personalized recommendations for your trips based on your preferences. The app also allows you to share details of your travels on Facebook and Twitter for friends and family to see.

Available for iPhone and Android. Free.

JiWire

If you really can't go any longer without Wi-Fi, this free app will show you exactly where the nearest location is to get connected. There are over 145,000 free locations around the globe, and you can even filter by what type of location you prefer (cafe, library, etc...).

Available for iPhone, iPad, and Android. Free.

XE Currency Converter

Calculate prices and convert currency with this free app that contains over 30,000 currencies. If you go offline, the program will simply use the most recent rate update to perform calculations.

Available for iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone 7. Free.

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Navigon, Garmin Unveil New Smartphone GPS Applications

  It will be some time before Garmin and Navigon merge their smartphone development resources, post-acquisition. For now, we get new GPS apps from both—which turns out to be a good thing.
At IFA in Berlin, Navigon has unveiled MobileNavigator for iPhone 2.0, a significant refresh of what is already a popular iPhone GPS navigation app. Navigon had already been steadily updating MobileNavigator, with eight-point revisions over its two-year lifespan. As Navigon public relations manager Johan-Till Broer explained to us, the company had already added most every feature available on standalone portable navigation devices (PNDs). This time around, it's addressing the app's entire foundation, as well as the overall user experience.
Map Data Mangement
To those ends, MobileNavigator 2.0 contains two significant changes. The first is that the app is now separate from the maps. Before, each time Navigon updated MobileNavigator, you’d have to download the entire 1.7GB app and map combination. Now, software updates are separate, and can be as little as a 40MB download.
In addition, once the app is on the phone, you can then select which U.S. states you want. For example, if you never usually leave New York or Illinois, you can get just those maps, and then add the others at any time if you go on a business trip or vacation. That lets people with less available storage space on their devices maximize the way they allocate it for other apps, music, and videos, while still offering the advantages of offline maps: less dependence on cellular signal, and less of a chance of exceeding your provider’s monthly data cap and incurring overages
Navigon is also revamping its map update system, offering a one-time subscription fee for free quarterly updates. Before, Navigon had only updated its NAVTEQ maps twice over the course of eight version updates, thanks to licensing fees. Nonetheless, this is less impressive, because TomTom and Magellan offer lifetime map upgrades automatically with their smartphone apps, as well as all the usual offline apps (TeleNav GPS Navigator, Networks In Motion, and Google Maps Navigation).
New UI, Android, and Windows Phone 7
The other big change is a revamped user interface. MobileNavigator 2.0 now supports multi-touch gestures, and also contains two separate Action and Settings menus. Before, you’d have to dig through dozens of settings to find the one you want. Now, the company has cordoned off only the settings you might change while navigating, and put them in a pop-up menu that you access with an icon on the upper right-hand corner of the map screen. For example, you can look for POIs while on a route and check traffic from this menu. Meanwhile, the regular settings menu now only contains things that you’ll only set once, or change occasionally, such as which voice to use. You can also drop back to the home screen with a single button; again, other apps have offered this already, but it’s good to see MobileNavigator addressing the few things it needed.
Other news: Navigon for Android 4.0 is now much closer to the iPhone version in feature parity. It now contains emergency help and Zagat reviews, for example. It also has a slightly different UI, which caters more to the driving enthusiast. A new Cockpit mode lets you monitor your driving performance, including average speed over the past 30 minutes, acceleration, and road elevation. I asked Broer about how the company intends to compete against Google Maps Navigation, which comes free with every Android phone; he responded that customers are beginning to see the value of things like offloading map storage to reduce dependence on cell signal, plus the more reliable lane assistance and reality views that MobileNavigator offers (and these are true, as born out in my reviews of both).
Finally, Navigon has announced an upcoming version of MobileNavigator for Windows Phone 7 devices (pictured, above). What’s interesting about this version is that while it also has near-feature parity with the iPhone version, MobileNavigator for Windows Phone 7 looks completely different—just like a native Windows Phone 7 app, actually. I haven’t had a chance to test it yet, but I love the interface look. Navigon is promising a user experience that's in sync with other Windows Phone 7 apps, rather than what could have been a clumsy port from the iPhone version that didn't look or feel right on a Windows Phone.
Garmin StreetPilot onDemand
For Garmin’s part, the company has unveiled StreetPilot onDemand for iPhone. This is yet another version of its existing Garmin StreetPilot Onboard and original StreetPilot apps; the main difference being that you can now get premium navigation only when needed. At the start, it’s a 99-cent download, which nets you 30 days of turn-by-turn navigation in the U.S. and Canada, plus real-time traffic. After that, in-app purchases of $2.99 (for 30 additional days) or $29.99 (for a year) are available, again with real-time traffic, and the company will run a 14-day price promotion of $19.99 for a year. At any point, you can upgrade to the full version without subscription fees.
Without a subscription, the app still works after the first 30 days, but only in 2D mode and without spoken voice prompts. In other words, it basically becomes Google Maps, but with the Garmin interface. Either way, StreetPilot onDemand is closer to the original version in operation, as maps are stored in the cloud, and the app itself is only a 10.4MB download.
It does get one new feature: multimodal pedestrian navigation. Turn this on, and you’ll be able to navigate anywhere, including to the next bus or train stop, complete with public schedules. Navigation then resumes once you get off the bus or train. This feature is only in the new onDemand app, but Garmin is busy working it into the other two versions already. The rest of the feature list is fairly standard, and includes 3D buildings and landmarks, a split-view PhotoReal junction display, Google Local Search, and local weather updates, among other thing.
As Broer pointed out to us, Garmin acquired Navigon for three main reasons: the European market for standalone devices, for smartphone apps here in the U.S., and for Navigon's forays into the automotive business (one of VW’s new European-market cars has a Navigon-based system). But in terms of smartphone apps, the merger creates an obvious redundancy betwen MobileNavigator and StreetPilot. At some point, the two companies will likely merge their existing mobile apps; Broer said that it's currently looking at doing much more of this in 2012, since having all these separate smartphone apps is an obvious redundancy from a product line standpoint. For now, though, Navigon is making it clear that it remains separate—which will likely only reward existing Navigon app fans.
All new Navigon apps will launch sometime in September or October; stay tuned for reviews as we get closer to the release dates. Garmin StreetPilot onDemand is available now in Apple's App Store.

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