More on-the-go apps than ever before

Not that you would have noticed it if you are a casual average computer user, but there has been (for the last decade or so) a groundswell of direction among professional software application developers to push all of our software towards mobile.

Obviously you will have enjoyed using a smartphone and/or tablet in some shape or form over the last few years. In doing so, you will have found that there are specific apps designed to sit on these essentially mobile devices. But what is also happening is a wider effort to push all types of enterprise level applications into the mobile space.

In terms of usage and implementation, this will mean that financial and management level workers can start to work with spreadsheets and so-called “business dashboards” to control business parameters wherever they are. There is an important safety consideration here and provisioning for robust privacy and security is (in reputable applications) architected in from the start.

What this often means for the average user (as a member of staff) is connectivity to collaboration tools that go beyond email. Companies like Jive Software are developing social enterprise collaboration software that brings users into teams and forms virtual communities with shared and individual goals. What it also means for the average user is that our own personal apps have become more mobile-enriched. We can now enjoy more on-the-go apps than ever before and so many applications in this space now work as electronic travelling companions for short local trips or extended travel overseas.

Tracker

World Clock on Apple iPad is one of many apps that all do the same thing i.e. display several international clock faces at once. Thankfully nobody owns the trademark for the term “world clock” so you can get yourself tooled up with a version of this basic app whether you happen to own an Android, Windows, Apple or other Linux-based device of any description.

One of the more exciting new products in this space is the Prime 1300 from GPS experts Bluetrack. This GPS tracker claims to be able to revolutionise travel by making lost luggage a thing of the past and is one of the smallest real time tracking devices available. It is designed to be discreetly and easily placed in any size and shape of luggage and can track almost anywhere in the world and can be operated from a range of devices including smartphones and tablets.

Travellers arriving without their checked bags can activate the tracker and see where their suitcases have ended up while still in the terminal building. This makes it easy for the airline and baggage handlers responsible to put plans in motion to recover misplaced items and return them to their rightful owners with the minimum of delays.

Essentially a website, but also downloadable as a dedicated application in its own right on all platforms, Kayak is the supreme master of travel tools and will help you find flights, hotels and car rental deals. Apologies if you have already found Kayak yourself, but no round up of travel tools would be complete without it and — if Kayak is new to you — you will be delighted to find that you can almost always find prices cheaper through this app than via any other route. The best function inside Kayak is the “Explore” tool, which allows you to see where you can go for how much money (in any currency) at any time (or during a specified time period by month) all of which functionality is displayed in a zoomable searchable world map function.

Language options

It’s worth bagging a translation app in your travel bag along with your other essentials and the logically named Travel Translator on the Apple Store is among the highest-ranking right at the moment. This is not a free app, but it does support Arabic, Hindi and what its makers list as Filipino (although we presume they mean Tagalog) among its language options. Although many apps in the translation category will require an online connection for their full dictionary power, some like this one will provide you with a basic set of translations even while you are away from the flowing juice of the internet.

City Lens on Windows Phone 8 is a fabulous app to keep in your pocket when you are on the go. Fire this up and you’ll get a camera view of the world around you with a superimposed radar-style listing of places to eat, accommodation, sights and museums, shopping areas and transport links. There’s a similar (although not quite as good) version of this on Android called Street Lens, so if you want to play around looking for other tools like this by now you’ll know that they keyword is “Lens”. Travel Lens apps are part of the we are now developing so-called “augmented reality” style apps that overlay information on top of a camera view of the world that we look at.

So you see we have a world of travel tools waiting for us to use and most of the best ones are geo-location aware so that they can give us extra data based upon our location. Given the amount of aircraft now offering Wi-Fi and power cord connections, most of your travel planning could soon be done while you are sat at 33,000 feet and if there’s a better use of nine hours stuck in a tin tube then we haven’t found it yet. We are mobile individuals by our very nature and our apps have finally caught up and become mobile first, so safe travels and happy landings.