Waze - no brainer to download
Couldn't see any app recommendations more recent than the last couple of years, and I'd like to know if there's anything I'm missing out on. I don't go in for a whole bunch of apps, but would like to make sure I had anything that was genuinely useful, whether paid or free.
To kick off, a couple that I find useful that not everyone seems to be aware of:
Office lens - from Microsoft, great way to scan anything into a pdf, and free.
Baby and Child First Aid - from the British Red Cross, free, great peace of mind when we had our little ones, and still good to have in the pocket now they're getting to school age. The general /adult version is also free and great.
Watch tuner - I suppose the reason for posting this thread, I bought this earlier today (£9.99), and after some cursory fiddling with mic positioning and sensitivity adjustment, it seems like a good quick n dirty field timegrapher for a tenner. It's not going to replace the real deal, but it might be worth having on your phone for the odd unexpected potential purchase...
I also use Watch Tracker, which I think has already been discussed on TZ...
What apps do you rate ?
Waze - no brainer to download
Waze definitely!
I come across DuoLingo last week. A comprehensive, free App that helps you to learn new languages. It even has Welsh, I may give it a bash! From the ten monites i haven spent on using it the app looks very promising.
iCab browser and Spark for email on iPhone/Pad, goodbye crappy inbuilt apps.
F.T.F.A.
Autotrader.
Apart from an alarm it’s literally the only thing you need on your iPhone to fill an entire day.
Waze seems to smash my battery, even when not in use?? Have tried it a couple of times now. The first time I deleted it after it took me into a massive jam on the M1 near Loughborough. That was definitely a time to override satnav advice. The motorway signs were telling me it was closed ahead and time to leave. Waze happily was taking me straight on...
I haven’t found anything better in terms of Satnav than Waze
It’s excellence is linked to the number of users. The more you have ahead of you, the more accurate his traffic info will be on your journey.
I regret that their mapping isn’t better. Google’s is excellent, and considering that Waze belongs to them I’d had expected either a fusion or at least some improvements on both counts, mapping and traffic info.
Neither seem to have happened. Waze mapping is still a bit vague, especially on unknown roundabouts where picking the right exit after a quick glance at your screen is more down to chance than it should be. And google traffic info is not as up to date as Waze’s (when my wife is bored on the road, or traffic is scheduled to be dense, she often sets Google maps on hers so we have info for both. There hasn’t been a case yet where Google had the scoop to a traffic incident)
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
ISS spotter if you’re interested in seeing the international space station fly-overs and ISS HD Live if you want to see live pictures of earth from the space station.
Sky View Lite if you like identifying planets etc.
Voyager- if you want to make multiple visits in a day this free app is an excellent route planner.
CamScanner - document converter.
Last edited by number2; 18th December 2018 at 09:21.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
"You gotta know when to hold em and know when to fold em".
Then change your settings as you must have them set to allowing Waze to access GPS on your phone even when the app is closed. Any constant GPS service will trash your battery
Which other systems use direct feedback from drivers and their phones?
As far as I know (and admittedly it’s not much) Waze is the only app with direct feedback
In several years (can’t remember when I started) I have never, ever, experienced catch21’s situation. Quite the opposite, really. And that includes at least 4000 miles to the continent every year as well as domestic driving.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
I use sound hound a lot…. Good for spotting tunes when listening on the radio or out and about…
Cam scanner when doing my expenses or generally scanning things is also good
I like Waze, but I do have a theory about who it sends in what direction - if it is aware of a jam or crash, and continuously routes others around it, it will eventually reach the point where it's data on that road segment is stale and is therefore required to sacrifice users down that route to gain fresh data about transit speed on that segment. I firmly believe that's why you still occassionally get routed down paths that have issues that the system has known about for a while.
Vivino - wine ratings and reviews but the killer feature is you can photograph a label and it will give you an immediate rating and target price. It also has a compare so you can snap multiple bottles in a shop and it will tell you the "best". Same for restaurant menus. Can follow friends reviews etc. and see both crowd sourced scores and also publications such as Decanter.
FAST - is the simplest bandwidth measurer by far and doesn't only do down speed as some people think - press more info at the end and it will give you full upload and latency details)
Photon / Puffin - web browsers for iOS that support Flash. Occassionally useful when you absolutely must have flash access (I had to place a bid on a live (as in literally live) auction site once that was flash only).
Citymapper - easily the best TFL style map. Does routing for all major cities globally.
Snapseed - still the best photoshop editor on the go.
Re. DuoLingo - I don't get on with it as I found that I was learning how to pass the tests at the end of each segment, and not actually learning the language. Good for vocab though. Babel is apparently better but I haven't got stuck in. Having said that the Italian I learnt via DuoLingo did come in handy this year.
I use to use Waze but have gone back to google maps since google own waze anyway. Google maps now updates routes etc if their is traffic so the benefit of waze is limited.
With regards using your phone even when its in a phone holder I can confirm it is illegal. I was updating my route on google maps whilst in stationery traffic and got caught by the police (say caught I genuinely didn't think I was doing anything wrong especially as I was sat in stationery traffic), had to attend a drivers awareness course along with a £90 fine.
That's very strange???
Taken from the ask the police website
Mobile phone/other hand held devices - legislation
The legislation states that it's an offence for a person to drive or supervise the driving by a provisional licence holder, or cause or permit to be driven a motor vehicle on a road if the driver is using:
a hand-held mobile telephone, or
a hand-held device (other than a two-way radio) which performs an interactive communication function by transmitting and receiving data.
The use of a hand-held phone or a similar hand-held device while driving is against the law. A hand-held device is something that is or must be held at some point during the course of making or receiving a call or performing any other interactive communication function. Provided that a phone can be operated without holding it, then hands-free equipment is not prohibited by this legislation. Therefore, the use of a phone as a sat nav is lawful providing you don't have to hold it.
Pushing buttons/touching a phone while it's in a cradle or on the steering wheel or handlebars of a motorbike for example is not covered by the above offence, provided you don't hold the phone.
And from Gov.uk
Using a phone or a sat nav when driving
It’s illegal to hold a phone or sat nav while driving or riding a motorcycle. You must have hands-free access, such as:
a bluetooth headset
voice command
a dashboard holder or mat
a windscreen mount
a built-in sat nav
That's very interesting! So sounds like had I decided to contest it I would have won. Drivers awareness course seemed path of least resistance when I was 'stopped' by police. I'll admit at the time I hadn't really given what I was doing much thought in terms of what I was doing as just assumed it was fine, I therefore just looked at the incident as an annoying learning lesson.
Although they could easily have argued you were “distracted” and so gone for due care or similar so path of least resistance was probably the correct choice.
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I've just discovered the GasBuddy app and it's very awesome, I've found the review here. This app allows saving up to 300 bucks on gas, strongly recommend to every driver.
Gladys - free or 99p for the full version. It's a place to clip stuff to. Useful if you move text, images etc. between apps.
Vehicle Smart - reminds me when the Mot and Tax are due for all the family's vehicles.
Carrot Weather - who doesn't want abuse when checking the weather
Citymapper - excellent for checking tube/bus times at the stops
Infuse - great video player (played most of what I've thrown at it) that can play local files or over a network
Notability - nice for taking handwritten notes and quick doodles
Working Copy - if you need to interact with a Git repo on the go, this is the app you want
Albert - found it great when I was contracting for creating invoices
maps.me
Excellent offline maps for those remote places where you can't get a data signal, like Glashütte.
WaveApp for invoicing
- - - Updated - - -
WaveApp for invoicing
Tinder for business.
Fas est ab hoste doceri
Anything out there that can photo text and turn it into editable copy?
I use the Navmii sat nav app on my iPhone. It actually works better than the JLR sat nav in the car, which has a habit of taking you off main roads for country lane excursions!
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Waze is excellent for navigation
Evernote Premium certainly does it for business cards.
I use it to scan cards and upload the details direct to my contacts on my iphone
Tik Tok for Music
geonet app.
download it and laugh at how unstable NZ is!
Office Lens
Jake
Planefinder.
You won’t believe how many are up there!!
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Since this thread came up Google seem to have integrated more of Waze's features into Google Maps. Eg now speed cameras, richer traffic reports, and live speed is now in Google Maps. Seems to be no way to report your own data yet.
Now that TomTom works on CarPlay it’s crept to the top of my satnav list. I’ve not tried Google maps since their last update but it sounds like they’ve addressed most of the main issues I had with it.
Is there a free app to time watches? Did a search and found not a lot.
Edit just found Toolwatch
Last edited by IAmATeaf; 11th June 2019 at 20:04.
What3words location app
https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/wh...ey-and-do-good
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