I have realized that I have written several articles about the computers and such but not many articles about the apps so I decided to write something about the apps this time especially for on the road. I know that there are some of the law in some of the states says that you are not allowed to use the smartphone or tablet while driving the vehicles on the road such as the law in some of the states in United States and it is soon to be a law in every states where anyone are not allowed to text while driving or making a call while driving on the road although the governments are encouraging the cell phone users to buy some bluetooth devices such as speakers with microphone or some of new cars are coming out with their own bluetooth where it enables the drivers to make a call to anybody using the bluetooth through their dashboard that will use the car speakers itself to hear the caller which is a good thing so not to distract the drivers on the road but what about everyone not being allowed to text while driving on the road? What they don’t realize is that it’s a bit unfair because the people who are deaf or hard of hearing can only contact with anybody is through text messaging but it’s against the law to text and drive on the road while the people who is able to hear can make a call through the bluetooth or on speaker while mounting the cell phone to the dashboard is allowed? That is somewhat discrimination by our own governments if you think about it.
Nonetheless it is understandable as it is a distraction but still it’s unfair of the governments to do this with the laws and apparently they did not write the law carefully enough to realize that not everyone are able to hear as the deaf and hard of hearing popularity are increasing daily. Enough of me ranting about that law and get back to the subject, the owners of cell phones and tablets are growing larger as the days goes by and more apps coming out to use for their cell phones and tablets.
Apps On The Road.
Even with the law where we are not allowed to make a call or to text on the road doesn’t mean that every one of us are going to obey the law as many of the people including myself always break the law beside the law are meant to be broken, making calls and texting isn’t the only thing we use on the road as we use a different type of apps such as games, navigation, utility and others when we are out on the road. I have realize that there are many of the people who starting to like to check in the spots while they are on the road including myself and it’s becoming addictive because by using the check-in apps is marking some of the places in our journey. Many of the people like to check in the places that they have went so that they can write their journey, because then sometime later in the life they can take a look at their past where they have went through and the places they went to.
That isn’t the only kind of apps that everyone use on the road as there are few of others such as map apps to use as their directions and to record their track when they are on the road or apps like ordering some of the foods out such as Pizza Hut, Papa Johns and few others and Starbucks if the areas they are in has the Starbucks while they are on the road. Nonetheless there are many kinds of apps that everyone uses while on the road, but there are few of the apps that everyone must to have on their cell phones and I am going to give you a list of the apps that is good to have while on the road.
- Foursquare (Free) – Foursquare has changed into a different type of the service to compete another service such as Yelp but Foursquare has much more features and better functions than Yelp has because in Foursquare you can search for some business such as restaurants, gas stations, stores, clubs and many others. Since the changes on Foursquare, they still offer a check-in spots where you can unlock the badges which is challenging and very fun but that is not all, you can become the mayor of the spots you goes to but to become a mayor you would have to have more check-ins at the places than anyone else and to use that service you’ll have to download a separate app which is the new app Foursquare created which is practically what Foursquare used to be but at same time separating themselves to expand with more features to compete some apps like Yelp – I highly recommend it!
- Swarm (Free) – This app is relatively new as it has been released about no longer than a month ago by Foursquare when Foursquare decided to change but at same time keeping the same features they are best known for with improved features and redesigned and reason of this change is to compete the other popular apps such as Yelp by using Foursquare itself. You must get this app, I highly recommend it but be sure to get both Foursquare and Swarm as they works together. Swarm app is use to connect with your friends, unlocking badges, write reviews, check-ins spots while Foursquare is used to find the places.
- MotionX GPS Drive ($0.99) – One of the best navigation app I have ever seen and used while being on the road. This app is in top 5 navigation paid apps list on Itunes and Google Play, and it definitely deserves to be so. It has one of the best graphic quality I have ever seen and has very accurate mapping to use, it is going to guide you to the places you want or need to go along with turn-by-turn feature but if you would like to have a voice guidance you would need to pay $9.99 a year and this GPS app topped two most popular GPS company such as Garmin and TomTom. I highly recommend this app and I suggest you to check this app out in the snapshots so you can get idea what it has and how it looks.
- Waze (Free) – Recently I have just downloaded this app after I found out that it’s so good that Google had to acquire the app and implement it into their own maps service, where you go to Google Maps on the internet and then search up some addresses and you will see some icons where it will let you know any areas around your address or from your location to the location you want to go has car accidents, hazard such as potholes and others, and one of the best out of all is speed traps and reported locations of polices! That is from Waze app and you can use Waze app to connect with your friends, reports hazards, speed traps/locations where polices is hiding, report accidents and others then they’ll be shown on Google’s own maps. I highly recommend this app as it’s one of the most useful on the road app I have ever seen and used.
- GAIA GPS ($19.99 to buy) – This is the only best app for to use GPS when you’re on the trails or in mountains as this app has topo maps, trails, and tracker for hiking, biking, camping, or hunting offline. Gaia GPS has many of maps where you can download the maps for some of the trails to navigate through the popular trails such as Hatfield & McCoy trails system like Buffalo Trail, Rockhouse Trail and others while riding ATV or side by side. But some of that is the part of the premium service which isn’t entirely free as it costs $39.99 a year or $3.99 monthly for GaiaPro which is the premium service with premium features such as downloadable maps and the features that are important to have. Although this may be a bit expensive but definitely worth it if you love trails riding like myself, or hunting and others as this is a truly mountains GPS app so I highly recommends it.
- Geocaching ($9.99) – If you would like to have a bit of fun while you are on the road then this is definitely the app for you to download because Geocaching is treasures hunting where you use the coordinates to go after in many strange places ranging easiest to most difficult and then when you arrive the spots where the coordinates tells you to and then you will see some boxes or bags to open and write in a log with your name and then you can pick some of the things that’s in the box or bags and then exchange with something. It is definitely adventures for you and to become a member for geocaching where you’ll find millions of queries with coordinates to hunt treasures you must pay $29.99 for a year or $9.99 for every three months. I highly recommends it and if you don’t know what is geocaching, I suggest that you look it up and you will understand what’s geocaching is all about or click this link but long story short, its adventures with full of fun!
- Homebudget with Sync ($4.99) – A great app to manage your money without being required to store your credit cards like some of the other apps does such as Mint. This app is very useful for you to take a control of your money so you can see the total money you have, also you can set some of the budgets so that you can be able to save some of the money. If you want to keep a track of your expense then this is definitely the app to have and an ability to set the budget and when you spend some of the money then enter the amounts of money you’ve spent in this app and every income you gets will let you know how much you have left over, or saved. To get a better understanding of what this app does then I suggest you to search Homebudget with Sync at Itunes store.
These are the essentials or a must to have when you are on the road or off-road, I have tested these apps I have listed and I truly recommend them otherwise I wouldn’t add them to the list and they are the main apps I use when I am on the road and same way goes for my mother since I am the one who get her to download them with a help by showing her how to use them. I have notice lately that every incoming vehicles flashes their light to alert all the vehicles on the other lane which is an old fashion way to let everyone know that the police or speed traps are nearby but not everyone is willing to flash their lights for the drivers on the other lanes especially the drivers that like for the drivers to be caught by the polices but you can no longer need to worry about by using Waze app so you can be notified when there’s police nearby or speed traps, and when there are some accidents few feet away from you or letting you know to watch out for the roads that may cause you to wreck such as potholes, or construction and others.
As goes for searching for some places to go is Foursquare app so you can look up at some reviews so you can get the idea if the places you’re thinking about going is good or not along with some of the pictures and use the Swarm app created by foursquare so you can see if your friends are nearby at some places in the area that you are in and to check in with the options either not letting anyone be notified that you are at some places or letting your family or friends to know that you’re checking in some the places so that if they are nearby then they can come and see you. Not only that with Swarm, you can unlock some badges with your friends so to brag or leave some the reviews so that everyone can know if the places they’re going to is good or not and I am a proud Foursquare editor so the locations of businesses you’re searching is accurate because I make sure that they are.
To find the apps I recommended in the list can be found on Itunes or Google Play, all you would have to do is head over to Itunes store or Google Play store and search the names of the apps that is in the list I recommended above and not only that you can get a better idea of what these apps can do and provide you better details than I could as I only wrote my own details about these apps. Nonetheless these apps are definitely a must to have when you are out on the road and in case if you don’t know what I meant by “On The Road”; I don’t mean that as when you are traveling or going on somewhere for a vacation, I meant when you are on the road for any reasons or more so when you’re getting out of your home to do something.
On the water instead on the road.
If you are at the edge of the countries especially where the oceans are at and you are a boat driver or own a ship then there is an app I highly recommends and that would be Navionics Boating which is free to download but you must pay to use the service such as $9.99 for USA, $3.99 for Advanced Map Options, $4.99 for USA Navionics+, $14.99 for USA and Canada, $1.99 for Nav Module, $3.99 for autorouting, $14.99 for Caribbean & South America, $14.99 for USA and Canada Navionics+, $16.99 for Mediterranean & Black Sea and $14.99 for Caribbean & South America Navionics+ so there’s several options for you to use depending on where you need it for and what features it is necessary to have.
Hopefully that these apps will be useful for you as it is for me and many of others and they are definitely worth to check out. Of course that isn’t the complete list of the apps to have on the road as there are many of games, books or other apps to choose but these are the essentials ones that I consider but the rest of others is up to you to choose if you need them or not while you are out on the road and note that it is often the gps app is better than the cell phones own apps such as Apple Maps, Google Maps or Bing maps and many of others because some of the gps app offers important features that the cell phones own GPS doesn’t offer, such as Garmin is considered the only best GPS/navigation company which is true yet they are very expensive because they have the features and has better mapping engine than some of other has and Garmin recently launched a new app called Viago but I will NOT recommend it because it’s not as good as Garmin itself although I can believe that Viago can will be better in the future as usually when some of the new apps came out and start slowly improving themselves to become better in the future.
If you can think some of the apps to have while on the road, please let me know by leaving a comment below here and if you have tried any of the apps in this list then feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts on them! Thank you very much for reading this article and please keep checking back here to see if I am writing another article or not which I am planning on to write another article before end of the day if I can find something interesting or heard something interesting that is worth to write about or on but if you have some ideas for what I should write about or on then I would greatly appreciate if you will submit your ideas here! I hope that all of you have a great day, and be safe wherever all of you are at or whatever it is that you are planning on to do for the day, stay awesome my friends!
- Joshie.
