Gone are the days when your cellphone was just an innocuous wireless device to help you talk when you are on the road. Today, it is the ultimate gadget which can accomplish so many great things. Occasionally I wonder if people might forget that they could use it to talk too!
The following mobile tools allow you to check traffic conditions, share your location, hunt for ATMs, save on gas and much more. Although a couple of these are only available in the US, all are free.
Check them out and let me know if you've found any must-have apps that you rely on during your travels.
Cheers,
Trapster is an innovative mobile tool which alerts you about the police speed traps that fall in your way. The information is user generated as people in your vicinity log where they've seen radar traps. Logging traps is as simple as the press of a button or by calling a toll free number.
You can download Trapster for free on your cellphone. It works on all the major phones, however if you find that it isn't compatible with your phone then you could still get the alerts via text message.
Waze is a great mobile app launched recently and utilizes crowd-sourcing to get you real time information on traffic conditions. It uses GPS to get the location of the car and shows the corresponding road routes and traffic information. Hence it helps to find the quickest route to reach your destination.
The tools is available as a free download for iPhone, Android and most of the other major mobile phones.
Since I have a soft corner for the iPhone, I thought I could get away with talking about a cool iPhone app which could be of great use when one is traveling to an unknown place and needs cash urgently. ATM Hunter helps you locate the nearest ATM in almost any location in the world.
This MasterCard created app could search for ATMs using your current location, address or by the airport you are at. You could also filter the results by surcharge free, drive through, 24X7 ATMs and more.
BuddyWay is a cool tool that offers to track your cellphone via GPS for free. While that is the main purpose of this app, you could also use it to track and save your journeys, share them with friends, check out friends in your location and view your trips using Google Earth.
SeeMyWhere is a simple mobile tool with a simple purpose - helping you share your real-time location with people you think would want to know and should know. The way it works is that first you sign up on their site, download and install the software on your cellphone and then share your account username with friends.
Your friends could easily find your location by entering your username on the SeeMyWhere website. The cool thing - it does not require GPS. And it can also share your location on Facebook.
Aha Mobile is another great iPhone tool which will tell you if you about to hit a major traffic jam. It connects drivers on roads which are close to each other and lets them record traffic updates in their own voice. It can also tell you the traffic conditions instead of showing you, which is cool since you won't get distracted while driving.
Saving on gas is usually the first thing on the mind of everyone who is on the road. So my previous article on some nice web apps to help you track and save on gas is worth including. If you can browse the internet on your phone, you should be able to access most of those apps.
Abhijeet
Written on 9/22/2009 by Abhijeet Mukherjee. Abhijeet is an internet entrepreneur who loves writing about tech, productivity, blogging & making money online. Catch him at Jeet Blog and also subscribe to his weekly newsletter.
7 Great Mobile Tools To Use When You're On the Road
