Of course, users can take advantage of travel applications before, during and after they travel. So software developers have clearly defined their offerings to match each stage of the pre-planning, travel and return home process.
Web-based flight booking price comparison applications start the process, travel guides help the traveling man or woman along — and image hosting applications (such as Google’s Picasa or Flickr for example) do a good job of allowing the traveller to share pictorial references after any journey.
With these thoughts in mind – a quick list of top business travel applications is in order. Although by no means exhaustive and all-inclusive (there are just too many to list) the following may you a taster for the kind of thing you might like to use yourself.
1 – iFlight - If you are a slightly nervous traveler or perhaps the sort of person that finds themselves glancing at the departure board every two minutes once you are inside the airport, then this application could be just what you need. iFlight is a nicely-presented virtual representation of that same airport experience – fire it up on your smartphone or tablet PC and get on with some work.
2 – Espensify – We’ve picked Expensify to illustrate a point, there are a range of business traveler expense tracker applications available and they all do a pretty similar job. Rather than having to log and track every receipt you pick up when on the road, most of these apps will use a smartphone’s camera to capture an image of a bill to digitise it and just tot up journey costs along the way.
3 – iCarPark - One of the cleverest ideas around, rather than having to remember the exact location of your car at the airport car park, this app will actually use your phone’s on board memory to give you walking directions back to your vehicle. It also tracks your parking meter so you can keep an eye on parking charges.
4 – TripIt - What the business traveler really needs is a dedicated secretary to manage all his or her itinerary details and handle alternative flight options and provide alerts throughout the process. That’s something close to what TripIt tries to provide in an electronic form and it’s available in standard and Pro version releases too.
5 – Wi-Fi Finer Apps - Wi-Fi location applications such as JiWire can be a lifesaver if you really need to connect online during a rushed business trip. Typically installed on a smartphone, this type of app will give the user a choice of Wi-Fi hotspot locations and may also provide walking directions too.
6 - XE – If there is a de facto ‘industry standard’ international currency converter, then it is probably XE.com and its accompanying smartphone and tablet PC versions. Provided free of charge, XE seems to have built its reputation up on the basis of ease of use, accuracy and functionality. The app even stores ‘last updated’ rates when a user is last online so that it works even when there is no Internet connection.
7 – Earworms – These language-learning applications are unusually effective. They take the form of hour long audio lessons that employ the use of hypnotic music and repetition to tech your brain the new key words and phrases that you will need when you visit a new non English speaking destination – give it a go.
As we always say at AVG, it’s important to travel safely, but it’s also important to surf safely and keep malware well at bay. So please make sure you have your computer, smartphone or tablet safely secured and protected before you start downloading and using any applications, of any kind – wherever you are in the world!
