iPhone versus travel guidebooks

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life — said a fellow who clearly hadn’t spent the entire day road-testing the latest travel apps for the capital on his iPhone.

For the uninitiated, “apps” are applications for Apple’s iPhone (although other phone companies, including BlackBerry and Nokia, are now getting in on the act).

Apps range from the useful (recipe cards, mortgage calculators) via the educational (works by Shakespeare, photography guides) to the downright pointless. Do you really need an app that turns your phone into a virtual pint of beer?

One of the fastest growth areas is in travel. From phrasebooks to guidebooks, museum-finders to cab-finders, the options are limitless — and most cost only 59p. But are they any good? And could they ever replace the traditional guidebook?

My task was to road-test the iPhone-as-travel-guide around London. So I downloaded a selection of apps and got ready for a day’s sightseeing.

Even before I set off, I had used two of them. I checked the state of the Underground on London Tube Deluxe (59p), an excellent device that combines a Tube map with live status updates on all lines. The Jubilee line was running with no delays, which made a change. I’d be getting on at Willesden Green and heading for Bond Street, so I checked with Tube Exits (59p) to learn where I should board to be next to the exit when I arrived. Middle of carriage four, apparently. Useful. Especially if you’re lazy.

More apps were called into play as soon as I got out at Bond Street, as a middle-aged Spanish couple accosted me, map in hand. “Wax me, sir?” they asked. “Que?” I replied. “Wax me, sir,” they said, jabbing the map. “Ah, si,”

I said. “Westminster.”

I didn’t fancy their chances on the Tube, so I opened up London Bus (59p) to see if a double-decker might take them there. There’s a map with all the routes marked, but it can be tricky to follow, so I used the route guide, typing in Bond Street, then Westminster. We were in luck: the 159 goes from round the corner, and will take 18 minutes, apparently.

After a lot of hand signals and pointing (me), and many graciases (them), off they went, and I turned to one of the London guides I had downloaded earlier. Proguides — London (59p) boasts: “Instantly immerse yourself in London culture.” Instead, I was instantly annoyed by Proguides. It didn’t work. It had a picture of Tower Bridge and categories such as Districts, Get Around, See and Do, but I tapped away at the screen and… nothing. Rubbish.

I had no time to muck around, so I moved on to iLondon (59p).

This is based on lists of the top 10 places of interest in various categories — such as Italian restaurants, bars, fashion boutiques and five-star hotels. You tap on a Tube map to bring up a list of attractions nearby. At least, that’s the idea, but I couldn’t get that bit to work, either.

The top 10s — chosen by the likes of Timeout.com and Urban Path — do work well, with details such as opening hours, phone numbers, closest Tube and a few paragraphs of description, as well as a picture. There’s also the option to connect to Google Maps so you can see where you are in relation to your chosen bar or restaurant. Much better.

While we’re on the subject, a quick word about the iPhone GPS facility within Google Maps (free), which is an app that comes with the phone. Essentially, it’s the same as the Google Maps facility online, which means it’s excellent. Type in “Yo! Sushi, London”, for example, and you get an instant map with 15 pins indicating Yo! Sushi restaurants.

What the iPhone version does is add GPS, which means a satellite picks you up, turning you into a blue dot on your screen while showing you where you are, where the restaurant is, how to get there and how long it’ll take.

Which means that any app with a map either has to beat that or join it, by having Google Maps compatibility. A lot do, but those that don’t let themselves down, because modern mobile users are so used to one-touch positioning, they’re not going to waste time on basic map-reading skills. The London Mini A-Z (£5.99) completely fails in that regard, as it merely replicates its pages on the phone, rather than embracing the available technology and trying to utilise it. Lazy. And expensive. Don’t bother.

By this time, it was lunch, and over to Urbanspoon (free; works in the UK and America). This is a clever, if somewhat gimmicky, little app that mimics the three dials on a slot machine to find restaurants near you (thanks to GPS again). Either take pot luck with location, cuisine and price, or specify (Soho, sushi, cheap, for instance), press the button and see what comes up. Most places come with reviews, some come with menus, all come with contact details and maps, so you can follow your phone if you can’t follow your nose.

Fully restored, I headed to the National Gallery. I’d downloaded an audio guide, Love Art: National Gallery (£1.79; there are loads of audio guides on iTunes for museums and galleries worldwide), and I took it upstairs to see Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. It was informative, but slightly disjointed. There are excellent pictures, however, so you don’t actually have to be there to learn about the paintings. Not bad.

As I was a tourist, I decided to send a postcard. Both Postage (59p) and Postman (59p) do the same job, allowing you to take a photograph, “write” on the back of it and send it electronically via e-mail. Postman also lets you send it via Twitter or Facebook, if you’re still at school. There’s not much in it, but I liked the look of the Postage card best.

Lastly, I took a look at the Lonely Planet app, which at £9.99 was by far the most expensive I’d found.

It was full of information, but badly integrated. None of the embedded weblinks worked and there was little of the intuitive, user-friendly nature that the best apps have.

In fact, none of the London guides on the iPhone beats having a guidebook with you. Yes, phones are smaller and lighter, and using them means that you don’t instantly look like a tourist (although you might still be a target for pickpockets if you’re waving an iPhone about). But the apps can be fiddly and time-consuming, and they drain your phone’s battery something rotten. Which means you’re then stuck in a new city with no guide and no phone. And not even Apple can save you then.

Some of the more specific apps, however, are worth having, especially those that use GPS technology to personalise the information you receive. So, next time I travel, I’ll pack a guidebook, but I’ll browse the iTunes store to see if there’s a nifty little app that tells me where the nearest cab rank is, which platform I need to find on the subway and how to ask “Can I recharge my phone in your restaurant, please?” in Cantonese…

Apps: The smart guide

what are apps?

Apps is short for “applications”: bits of software that you can download online or direct from your phone, enabling you to get more out of your mobile. There are more than 65,000 apps available for the iPhone, and more than 1.5 billion have been downloaded worldwide.

How do I get them?

Open iTunes and go to the iTunes store; or, if you don’t have iTunes already, download it at apple.com/itunes/download . Then click on App Store. You can browse apps by category (ie, travel) or use the search facility: you can type in New York, for example, to see all the Big Apple-based applications. Alternatively, you can browse under free apps or paid-for apps. Click on the logo of one that takes your fancy to reveal a synopsis of what it does. You’ll see the price. If you like it, download it, and off you go.

Does it only work with an iPhone?

The iTunes and App Store only work with the iPhone, but other companies are getting in on the act by setting up their own applications, and stores, for their smart phones (which come with e-mail and internet capabilities). So if you have a BlackBerry, or a new Nokia or Samsung phone, among others, you may be able to download a limited number of apps from the internet.

Which websites?

For Nokia, go to store.ovi.com. Its top travel app is WorldMate (free), which includes world clocks, a currency converter, weather forecasts and weather imagery. Pay a fee and you get even more information. The BlackBerry app store (uk.blackberry.com/services/appworld) is still in its infancy, but users can also download WorldMate (free) and TeleNav (£4.99 a month), a satnav device that gives audio directions. (Via Times)