Why You Should Never Be Without Your iPhone...

Public and online polling has revealed that the general public truly believes that the iPhone is the ultimate travel tool. The iPhone allows individuals to stay informed, connected, and entertained. A creative consultant who commutes weekly from NYC and London, Felicia Tumaneng, said, “I wouldn't be able to leave the country without it.”

The iPhone is the best electronic guide available right now. Here are some of the ways that you can use your iPhone as the ultimate travel guide.

In the Car
One of the great features is the new TomTom App for the iPhone. It features “navigate-to-photo,” turn by turn directions, and rush hour and traffic alerts. The TomTom App turns your iPhone into a fantastic GPS system. It is available for $39.99.

The useful GasBook app is available at the Apple store for $0.99. This app offers you the most up-to-date gas price listings at stations nationwide. It also includes a fuel log that will keep track of your vehicle’s fuel stats. This is a very convenient app to have on your iPhone.

Trapster is another great app to have in the car. It is the perfect app for those individuals who might drive a little on the speedy side. This app alerts users when they approach speed traps, red lights, speed cameras, police check points, accidents, and other roadway hazards.

At the Airport
FlightBoard is another amazing app to have on your iPhone and is available for $3.99. It gives you an interactive view of over 4,000 airport and 1,400 airline boards. You can view either the arrival or departure board from basically any airport in the world.

The FLYSmart app is free and is geared towards individuals traveling within the United States. This app allows you to not only track flights but also find restaurants, bathrooms, and clubhouses in airports across the nation.

Bored and Need Entertainment
There are thousands of games available for the iPhone at the Apple apps store. One of these incredibly entertaining games is Words with Friends. It is a game that is essentially Scrabble. It is a great game to exercise your mind and waste some spare time when you’re bored.

Recently an app was released that allows subscribers to watch TV on their iPhone. PlayOn is available for $40/year and allows users to watch Hulu, ESPN, Netflix, Comedy Central and lots of other channels right from their smartphone.

Need a Bite to Eat
There are plenty of restaurant locating apps that are available for the iPhone. Yelp is free, UrbanSpoon is free, and Local Eats is only $0.99. These are all great apps that will help you locate any kind of restaurant you want no matter where you are.

Want to Make a Payment?
You can easily pay your bills with your iPhone. Apps like MobilePay USA allow users to make payments directly from their phones. Users simply enter their account information online. The card’s information is not stored in the phone, and a PIN number is required to access the information online. It is a safe and secure app that can be very useful at times.

These are just a few of the incredibly useful travel apps offered for the iPhone. There are plenty more that can be found at the Apple apps store. It is definitely true that the iPhone is the best possible travel companion. It can assist you with so many of your travel needs. So before you walk out the door, always make sure that you have your iPhone with you.

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Apple Increases 3G Download Capacity

In a move that some say is preparation for the upcoming release of the iPad, Apple has increased capacity for downloads over its 3G networks. The move from 10MB to 20MB would support the heavier multimedia content for the iPad. Not only will give iPhone users more flexibility with content they can download, but it's also a sign that the iPad may have higher resolution graphics and more complex applications.

From now on, if you're trying to download a podcast or app from the App store, you're less likely to get the message (pictured above) asking you to connect to Wi-Fi because the file is too large. This will allow you to download more videos and podcasts using the 3G networks. But of course, if you try to download something that's over 20MB, you'll still receive the Wi-Fi message.

The original 10MB limit was there because iPhone downloads had the potential to put a huge strain on wireless networks. And as many iPhone users know, AT&T is already struggling to handle the traffic it does get currently. Even so, Apple continues to partner with the company, giving them exclusive rights to the 3G-enabled iPad, despite the fact that AT&T's exclusive contract with the iPhone in the United States ends soon.

AT&T also announced this week that they would be enabling Sling Player 3G streaming on the iPhone. The company supposedly held back on this feature in the past due to fears of increased traffic.

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Meet Your New iPhone Personal Assistant

Ever wish you could bark orders at your technology and have it do exactly what you asked? If you're an iPhone owner, your wish is becoming much more realistic thanks to Siri. The artificial intelligence-based voice-recognition startup has created an iPhone app that takes your questions and fields them to the appropriate search engine or web service.

To use the app, you simply voice a command into your phone. The app takes the sound, interprets your request, displays a transcript of your words and then searches for an answer. The results are displayed and you can tap the screen to correct or adjust the information.

While, other phones, such as Google's Nexus One do have voice recognition abilities, Siri is the first to actually interpret your words. The Nexus One simply displays a transcript of what you say, so that you don't have to type it. Siri was created out of artificial intelligence research done at SRI, a lab located in Silicon Valley that was also the birthplace of the mouse and graphical user interface.

The app can answer questions such as "Will it storm today" and "Where can I go to get a hamburger" because it's integrated with about twenty information services such as Yelp, CitySearch, and OpenTable. Others are expected to connect in the future. According to Wired.com, it will also answer more specific questions and commands such as, "Find the nearest Chase bank."

The app is free and can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store. You must have an iPhone 3GS to make use of it, but the company is currently working on a version compatible with older phones, as well. To see more about the new app, check out the video below.

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MightyMeeting: Conduct Presentations On The Go

MightyMeeting is an application that will host your PowerPoint presentation or allow you to manage your PDF or Office files, while on the go, from your smartphone.

The process is pretty simple and quite handy if you're constantly on the go and not quite sure when you'll have to give that ever important presentation. You essentially upload your PDF or PowerPoint file to the service using a special Email address or directly from the web interface. You can then share the presentation with anyone you choose via email or SMS text message.

Once your audience has received your "link" they're ready for you to proceed. They can watch the presentation on the web or on their smartphones. When you flip the page on your smartphone, the change will be made on every "attendee's" computer screen or smartphone. You can use an integrated chat feature or use a simultaneous voice call to communicate with everyone.

To use the service you will need a 3G or WiFi connection. And to avoid any major network disruptions, you should be in an area with a strong connection. Another great feature is that you can choose to share your presentation with anyone and everyone with the Facebook and Twitter options.

I'm not entirely sold on the fact that this app will be the newest thing to hit your presentations. It is pretty handy and easy to use and could make traveling to meetings much less necessary, especially since you can operate it all from your iPhone.

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The Ins and Outs, Ups and Downs of the New 3GS iPhone

Technology today is seeing amazing heights, and Apple is at the top of those heights, with the creation of iTunes, the iPod, Mac book and now the iPhone. The 3gS iPhone is one of the most innovative pieces of technology of our time, with the ability to read maps, make movies, edit photos and movies, and voice recognition. With touch screen functionality you can navigate with just a touch of a finger between applications, pictures, messages, and phone numbers. The iPhone has become even more affordable with a price of $199 with a two year contract from AT&T.
The easy to recognize face that is identical to the original iPhone with the exception of the bright, high quality, high resolution 480 x 320 3.5-inch display is easy to hold in your hand with the slightly curved back. However they haven’t found a way to cut down on smudges and fingerprints, But alas, the smudge loving plastic cover is needed now that the iPhone has so many technologies like GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. One of the down sides to the new body shape is it will not fit in the original iPhone docking station, and it is sold separately for about $30.00.

The Apple 3G S iPhone has improved on the call quality that may not be noticeable when you upgrade but in a side by side comparison there was an obvious difference. Apple has also had to lengthen the life of the battery because 3g does require more power, not to mention the support of all the cool new applications and music, video and pictures. If you are in an area where 3G isn’t a necessity you can dig down into the menu and turn that feature off.

You’ll notice that the camera is the same as on the original iPhone although images were a little crisper and sharper. The camera will now ask permission to use GPS to geotag photos with your current location. Geotags allow you to have an image tagged to a map position so you can have landmarks to refer to and make maps a little friendlier.

Outside of the cool features I think it is important to mention a few pros and cons of the programs.

- Power Point documents can now be seen on the new iPhone but to save any files you still have to email them to yourself.
- If you sync MobileMe calandars your calendar subscriptions like iCal or Gcal will be disabled
- However, even though the full Exchange Suite is not available the core elements work really well, like email, calendar and contacts. Unfortunately, enterprise contacts and calendars coexist on the same device with personal contacts and calendars.

Over all the new 3GS iPhone has all the bells and whistles any tech loving on the go person could want and outside of renting laptops for business trips it really can keep you in touch with your office and fits nicely in your pocket. However, if you are going to pay around $170.00 a month in cell services I do advise doing your homework as some of the application conflicts just might be a deal breaker.