Welcome to our weekly installment of Picks of the Week at iSource where we provide our expanded coverage of Apple accessories and applications Here we will promote our favorite iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac and Apple TV related items, as well as bring you occasional tips and tricks. Hopefully many of our favorite items will also be of interest to you. Please feel free to comment on our selections, and suggest picks of your own. Check out this week’s picks after the break
Magellan RoadMate USA (v2.0)
Picked by: jhrogersii
With Summer now in full swing, what better time is there to think about picking up a GPS app to aid you in your travels. Magellan’s RoadMate USA has been in the App Store for a while now, but it just got a major face-lift a couple of weeks ago, moving to version 2.0. The upgrade is a dramatic improvement to what was already a pretty good app. Magellan fixed the horribly annoying proprietary keyboard, and made much better use of the screen real estate on the map screen while you are navigating.
As for features, you get on-board maps of the entire US, a solid POI database, easy to use Google and Yelp searches, multi-point routing, and free map updates for the life of the app. Even better, lifetime traffic service is included in the price, which makes RoadMate a really good deal. All of the other major navigation apps in the App Store either charge extra for traffic, or a yearly subscription fee.
So, if you’re getting ready to hit the road for business or pleasure, check out Magellan’s RoadMate. It is well worth the price, and will make a great Summer travel companion.
($34.99) iTunes Link
Trickle for Twitter (v1.2.1)
Picked by: Thomas
Trickle isn’t so much a Twitter client as it is a Twitter widget. You let it sit on an idle iPad or iPhone screen and let new tweets trickle onto the screen, one by one. It’s an interesting way to passively keep up with Twitter, and it also looks quite cool without being too distracting. I don’t load Trickle terribly often, but it’s as close to a good iPhone and iPad screensaver as we’ll get for a while.
Trickle is free for the rest of today (the 17th), but is just $0.99 at normal price.
(Free) iTunes Link
Tripit (v2.6)
Picked by: Joe Tomasone
Road Warriors are constantly juggling multiple hotel, air, and rental car reservations. Tripit and it’s iPhone and iPad apps organize them and bring order from chaos.
Tripit is a freemium service that will accept your forwarded reservation confirmation emails (or optionally, with your permission, log into and read them directly from your email without any action required). It then organizes them into trips, and allows you to view each itinterary on the web or via iOS apps. The pro service will also track your flights and alerts you on your iPad or iPhone to any changes that may occur. You can also manually check flight statuses – if you are meeting someone at the airport, perhaps. The “network” feature allows you to share your itinerary with family, friends, or colleagues and to show who is close to your destination.
Tripit and its basic apps are free. An ad-free app for non-Pro users is $3.99, and Pro service is $49.95 per year.
(Free) iTunes Link
Audible (v1.6.1)
Picked by: Renkman
I do a lot of driving in my line of work. I travel all over Central Florida, and it isn’t uncommon for me to put close to 1000 miles on the my truck in a week. Having said that, sometimes you need a little something to keep you awake and focused on the road. Previously I would listen to podcasts, but found that I would get through all of my downloads rather quickly. Ironically, it was while listening to some of those same podcasts that I was introduced to Audible. With a basic Audible membership, you get one book a month for $15. Most of the books I read/listen to are unabridged versions that are anywhere from 12-16 hours long. In addition, if you are lucky enough to get started during a promo period like I did, your first three months are generally at a discounted rate.
With the Audible app you can display your library by titles, author, or the most recent listened to books. Through the news section you can follow sales, and upcoming promos. Additionally, there is a stats section that keeps track of how many book you have read, and the total amount of hours spent listening—with the ability to collect badges like other familiar social apps. Unfortunately, it ONLY keeps track of the books listened to through the app itself—other iPod apps, including the native iPhone app are not tracked through the stats section. Perhaps the best/most useful area of the app, though, is a button to enter the mobile store, currently in beta, which allows you to browse and search for your next audible book.
(Free) iTunes Link
There you have it! Hope you enjoyed this week’s installment of Picks of the week. Please let us know what you think, and share with us some of your favorites.
Continue reading:
- Everything New Apple Just Announced (Septembe
- Apple Watch Pre-Order
- Apple Research Kit launches with 5 Apps
- Apple TV now only $69
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