Smartwatches are similar to smartphones and tablets. Gorgeous hardware is of little use to people unless it’s coupled with brilliant software. Pre-installed apps can be a good foundation, but most users want their favorite third-party services such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram....
From Moves to Narrato, apps that allow you to record what you’ve been up to and where you’ve been, either automatically or manually, seem to be enjoying a resurgence at the moment. Rove is a beautiful-looking iOS app that records your journeys in a similar way to Moves, but focuses more on the locations than your physical activity, and allows you to add photos of your adventures....
Labor Day is the greatest weekend of the year—the entire point of the holiday is to have an extra day to take it easy. And while the airports and highways will be jammed with people trying to squeeze in one last trip of the summer, to truly take it easy you don’t have to go far from home. It’s time for a good old-fashioned staycation. These apps can make sure you have a great one without sweating too much over the planning....
people are about to ascend on Black Rock City, Nevada to join in the Burning Man festival experiment. There’s going to be art galore, crazy events, weird costumes for days, and the brutal Black Rock Desert meting out its hellish punishments on each and every Burner. Making the trip to BRC is easy, but surviving is entirely different, so we’ve found eight great apps that will help you get out of the desert alive:
Had enough of haggling with local tour guides to make sure you’re not being scammed, or getting sick and tired of being herded to overly-touristy destinations when traveling with a tour package, but can’t imagine going through the laborious logistics of planning a free-and-easy trip?...
Have you had one of those moments where you wondered, “Damn, what did I actually do this weekend?” Or maybe where you couldn’t think of the name of that awesome restaurant you visited last week? A new iPhone app called Rove might help you remember. The app was created by the company behind social travel service Zetrip, which wasn’t getting enough traction, according to co-founder and CEO…
Uber has updated its iOS app to add support for simplified Chinese, dropping a huge hint that its move into China could be imminent. Its Android app on Google Play has not been updated yet, but that could just be a matter of time....
Electronic payment company VeriFone's Way2Ride app lets users wirelessly pay for cabs using ultrasound. The app relies on Zoosh, a payment system first demoed two years ago, to make the payments. From within a New York cab, Way2Ride users can simply tap a button in the app to generate an ultrasonic signal and pay for the ride. When the ride is over, the payment will automatically be deducted from the user's pre-defined payment method. You can also set a default tip amount before traveling, and receipts...
Yelp has built a hugely successful business around its millions of user-submitted local reviews. Yet prior to today, the company didn't allow reviews to be published from a smartphone. To the delight of its community, Yelp has finally reversed course on that poorly thought out policy. A newly released update for Yelp on iOS adds the ability to pen reviews for any local business directly within the app. Before, users were limited to posting brief "quick tips," requiring more thorough feedback to be...
Car maker Audi has rolled out a new app for those that own both an Audi A3 and an iPhone or iPad, and Yelp has released a new version of its app that allows users to publish reviews within the app. Meanwhile, Vevo has released another update to its iOS app, adding full AirPlay support.
Apple’s started to add a lot of Yelp integration into iOS the past two years, but despite providing copious amounts of reviews of every restaurant in the U.S. the app hasn’t let you actually write a review from your iPhone until today....
Social travel startup, Minube, which focuses on helping would-be travellers figure out what to do when they get to their destination, has added a real-time hotel pricing and booking feature to its iOS and Android apps. The new versions of the apps support hotel booking for more than 300,000 establishments in more than 40,000 cities, across 180 countries.
Facebook’s latest acquisition could help it connect users across language barriers. It has just announced that it’s acquired the team and technology of Pittsburgh’s Mobile Technologies, a speech recognition and machine translation startup that developed the app Jibbigo.
If you ever find yourself struggling to catch twenty winks on a transatlantic flight, Airsleep for iPhone might just come to the rescue....
What's everyone's favorite thing to do on a plane? Sleep, of course. Coincidentally, it's also one of the hardest thing to do. Airsleep aims to fix that....
Hipmunk is expanding its hotel listings with the introduction of a new feature Thursday that lets users search for last-minute deals on lodging. The feature, called Tonight Only, is available as part of an update to Hipmunk's iOS and Android apps. "The way that people search is different when they are on their computer or their phone," Adam Goldstein, co-founder of Hipmunk, told Mashable in an interview.
CityMaps, a mapping startup that picked up $2.5 million last year to offer “social mapping,” has been down a long and winding road. Founded in 2012 by an urban panner and a former financial product manager, the company began by mapping New York and adding SoLoMo tags to various locations based on popularity and friend recommendations.
In the span of a few short years, I’ve learned that my iPhone, among its many virtues, can be a valuable ally in making an agonizing experience slightly less agonizing. Take shopping, for example....
While it has mapping data and navigation, the primary purpose of the app is to create personal maps that can be shared and collaborated on with friends.
In an email being sent to Google Maps users, the Internet search giant announced that it will be retiring localized dining, shopping and entertainment discovery app, Google+ Local for iOS, on August 7.
Google Maps is pretty great. So is Foursquare and Yelp and Instagram. Now imagine combining the best of all those and what you get is Citymaps. It's a brand new type of map that lets you explore what's around you and share it with friends....
The last thing the App Store needs is yet another Instagram-style photo filter app, right? Well, probably....
HotelQuickly, the Asia-focused hotel booking app that takes its cue from HotelTonight, has added multiple-night bookings to complement its existing same-day booking feature....
Superfly, which helps travelers take advantage of frequent flier miles and airline rewards programs, is expanding its services to include a mobile app for finding and booking hotels. Superfly first launched at TechCrunch Disrupt SF in 2010 and uses big data to personalize flight results based on consumer travel records. In April, Superfly developed Superbox, which allows users to organize all…
Do-it-all video app VLC will return in a new iOS version on Friday, while RunKeeper has gotten a few new options to boost its utility, and cab-calling app Uber has gotten some new features.
