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iPhone apps for the road

Category: The Road Geek

Published Date

Written by Randy Garbin

UPDATE--January 13, 2010: The folks from Trapster just issued a new version of the app which adds even more features, including the ability to communicate and track other users of Trapster. I can't wait to get out there to give it a go, but the program did crash upon first launch.

For me, serious roadtripping began a good ten years before the I began publishing Roadside. Still in college and a few years beyond, I'd take off with a friend or two deep into Vermont and New Hampshire foliage country, challenging myself to see how far I could travel and how lost I could get in a single day.

Over the years, I've taken every possible opportunity to apply some of the latest tech to road tripping. Back in 2000, while traveling on Ball Publishing's dime, I used a Delorme GPS system that required having a laptop in the next seat. I also had a Handspring PDA for recording changes to the database, a Motorola Timeport cell phone, which allows me to surf the web and email people in a very primitive fashion as well as make phone calls. The phone also served as a modem I could hook up to the laptop.

Today, I hit the road with my iPhone, which largely incorporates the functions of all of those aforementioned gadgets. I've come to rely upon it more an more for navigation as well as communication in all forms. I waited out the whole dedicated GPS thing, and I'm glad for it since I mostly have that ability with the iPhone now. The iPhone also directly connects back to the diner database on my home server, so I can make real-time updates.

For apps, I've installed both Trapster and Waze for navigation, but I often fall back on the included Google Maps app for its better traffic reporting, and I've had the opportunity in the past few months to really put these apps to the test.

Not long after getting my iPhone, I began to think of my own app ideas. One of those ideas included an app that allowed users to report speed traps along the highway. Lo and behold, there it was: Trapster.

Trapster provides a comprehensive list of police enforcement points and landmarks for drivers, but it does not integrate traffic conditions well. It's also a processor hog.

Trapster (http://www.trapster.com/) does more than report speed traps. The program incorporates Google maps and pinpoints your location as you drive along. You can also use Trapster to record your route and place photos and notes into your itinerary. These are then saved to your account at the Trapster website and can post to your Facebook account as well.

As you drive, Trapster presents you with a battery of information. It tells you the locations of banks, gas stations, restaurants, and where the cops like to hide along the highway. It also informs of red light cameras and most intriguingly, allows users to report current enforcement points, which potentially obviates the need for radar, lidar, or even the CB radio as a means to evade Smokey.

In actual use, the program still feels a bit clumsy and sluggish. First of all, it requires tremendous processing power for an iPhone app, and actually drains the battery even while plugged in. For me, the program would often crash on start-up, but once launched, it used both visual and audible warnings of forward enforcement points. These also included nearby local road conditions even while you drove along an interstate, a niggling distraction. And of course, live reports require other dedicated users — lots of them — to make this feature truly practical.

Finally, my other misgiving about Trapster lies in the awkward way it displays traffic conditions. The original version of the program didn't do this at all, which required the user to switch back and forth between Trapster and the Google Maps, a laborious and hazardous process while driving. The new version incorporates traffic, but in a screen overlay that slides out. Fine, but this often choked the phone and sometimes didn't work at all. Plus, when it does work, the layer covered all the other indicators.

Waze will show when other "Wazers" are in your vicinity. It uses their data to show road conditions and gives you the opportunity for mobile social networking.

Waze encourages drivers to explore local streets by putting Pac-Man-like dots in the streets. This not only gives users a chance to score points and win prizes, but helps Waze improve their maps.

Trapster definitely fills a need for good informational and navigational apps, but I think it bites off a bit more than it can really chew. However, it is free, so there's no risk in taking it out for a spin.

Waze, on the other hand, does much of the same thing as Trapster, while taking a different and rather tantalizing approach. Waze (http://www.waze.com/) adopts the concept of "crowd sourcing" as its primary means of disseminating road conditions. In other words, the more people out there driving around with Waze on their mobile phones, the more information gets gathered and disseminated — fantastic if millions have it, useless if used by few.

In order to entice more users, Waze has turned the landscape into a giant Pac-Man game, inviting drivers to "eat dot" as they drove and have the opportunity to win prizes. Right around last Thanksgiving, Waze awarded a $500 Amazon gift certificate to the person who generated the highest score in a two week period. Besides the single-point dots, Waze also placed bonus symbols on their maps with 50, 100, and 250 point awards just to make it a little more interesting and to get you to drive out of your way to help them verify their maps. I have to admit, we did often pull the car far off the beaten (or dot-free) path to claim a 50 point award.

Waze's greatest potential, however, lies in the whole crowd-sourcing concept. Waze displays its info based on passive feedback from users running the app. In other words, if you're stuck in a traffic jam, Waze transmits this info automatically back to the mother ship, which distributes the condition back to other users. You can also report police enforcement points, accidents, and other info by clicking on the screen. You can also chat with other "Wazers," but not while the car is in motion.

It's too bad a gallon of gas costs so much, because I can see endless hours of fun just driving around neighborhoods eating dot and spewing carbon into the atmosphere.

Waze is also free, but does not have the best documentation, either in the app or on their website. Some features are not all that intuitive, but after frequent use, the program becomes somewhat addictive and in my experience, preferable to Trapster on long trips.

Have any of your own thoughts or recommendations for good road gadgets? Share them with us at the Roadside Chatterbox.