Test driving the Zipcar iPhone app

by Amy Chen on

My brother got married last weekend in Los Angeles, which meant that I had to fly out Thursday night and back to New York City on Sunday. Rather than deal with getting off a long flight and renting a car from the airport — I didn’t think navigating an unfamiliar city at midnight when your body thinks it’s 3 a.m. was the best idea — I cabbed it to my hotel and retrieved a Zipcar the next morning.

I’d also been meaning to test out the Zipcar iPhone app, which lets you unlock your rental straight from the phone. This seemed like the perfect time to give it a whirl.

Here’s what I learned:

Make sure you still bring your Zipcar membership card. Once you activate the app, you need to unlock the car first with your membership card by waving it over the designated area on the windshield. Next, you have to enter your membership number into your phone. Don’t know your number? It’s on your membership card. Though these preliminary steps seem to defeat the purpose of ditching the membership card, your iPhone is now all set to start unlocking and locking your car.

Using the iPhone app to unlock the car isn’t always the most efficient. There were a few times when it took longer to unlock the car with the iPhone — as in, it was much faster for me to open my bag, dig out my wallet, and wave the key over the windshield. Once the novelty wore off, I ended up using the keycard about half the time and the iPhone app for the other half.

Zipcar isn’t necessarily the cheapest option, but it can be more convenient.
My two-day rental cost about $180, including gas and insurance. And unlike major car rental agencies where you reserve a certain vehicle class, Zipcar lets you call dibs on a specific make and model, so I knew exactly what I was getting. The last time I was in L.A., I used Zipcar to rent a Mini Cooper. Unfortunately no Minis were available on this trip, so I settled for the Toyota Prius.

Zipcar requires a $50 membership, which I auto-renew each year. Unfortunately, I’ve only used my membership once so far this year, so I haven’t yet maximized the value. If I factor in the membership cost, the two-day $180 rental increases to $230 — pricey. Tack in the $50 cab ride to and from the airport, and you’re looking at $330. But I’ve long believed that traveling on a budget isn’t always about finding the cheapest price — it’s also picking the smartest option to reduce your stress level. And since I was traveling to my brother’s wedding, I figured it was worth paying a little extra money to preserve my sanity.

The Bottom Line: Consider the Zipcar app as an alternative to your keycard, not a total replacement. I will say the app is good for at least one thing — making sure that I didn’t leave my cell phone in the car (or lose it).

[Photo by Amy Chen]

Review: iCam app streams webcam to your iPhone

by Mike Barish on
I was pretty shocked when I read on Gizmodo that a man had used the iCam iPhone app to watch as someone burglarized his home. Not just because the story was so crazy, but because I often wondered what I would do if I witnessed my home getting robbed while using that exact same iPhone app. I’ve been testing the iCam app for several weeks and, while it won’t keep intruders out of your home, it will certainly give you some piece of mind while you are traveling.

The iCam app allows you to monitor your webcam via your iPhone (or iPod Touch) from anywhere so long as you have an Edge, 3G or WiFi signal. Obviously, WiFi is ideal for monitoring the video, but I was surprised with how well it streamed over 3G, as well. You can also enable motion detector alerts which will push notifications to you whenever your webcam senses movement. This is ideal for people wanting to use iCam for home security.

In order to use iCam, you must first download the free software to your computer (available for both Mac OS and Windows) and download the $4.99 app to your iPhone. A very simple setup process links your webcam to your iPhone, allowing you to remotely view your camera feed from anywhere you have a signal.

I tested the app while remotely keeping an eye on my two dogs. iCam allows you to stream up to four webcams directly to your iPhone, so my girlfriend and I set up both of our MacBooks in the bedroom while our dogs stayed behind. Leaving your dogs at home can be stressful, so having the ability to check in on them no matter where we are definitely intrigued us.

When you open the iCam app on your iPhone, you see thumbnail views of every feed that you linked to your phone. In the photo above, you can see our two camera feeds. Tapping on one of the small boxes opens that feed in full screen, as shown here:

Additionally, you can set iCam to take still images of any motion activities that it detects. Curious pet owners will finally see what their dogs and cats do when left alone and victims of burglaries may just have a critical piece of evidence to show to law enforcement officials.

On a few occasions, iCam failed to sync with my webcam. I remedied this once by repeating the initial setup and two other times the situation resolved itself when I closed the iPhone app, waited a few minutes and relaunched it.

Overall, the iCam app is worthy of its $4.99 price tag. It provides piece of mind, shows only a few signs of being infrequently buggy and offers more than enough features beyond just the video streaming to make it both useful and entertaining (at least for people watching their pets while also out with friends).

If you have pets (or perhaps a babysitter that you don’t trust) or want an inexpensive home monitoring system, then iCam might just be right for you.

The iCam app is available in the iTunes App Store and the software for your computer is available on the company’s website.

Havana Good Time: A helpful new Havana travel app

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Sutro Media has just released a very useful Cuba app for iPhone called Havana Good Time. Created by Havana-based travel journalist Conner Gorry, a Lonely Planet contributor who has lived in Cuba for eight years, Havana Good Time provides essential assistance for visitors interested in navigating the somewhat challenging Cuban capital.

All 125-plus entries were researched by Gorry herself. Restaurants, neighborhoods, bars, cafes, hotels, museums, and basic information are covered. There are recommended casas particulares in cool neighborhoods, detailed transportation tips, and tailored information for families, gay travelers, and budget travelers. There is especially careful attention to free and very cheap activities. Strewn throughout is an ongoing effort to bust a number of myths swirling around travel to and in Cuba.

There are lots of little insider tips here: a bar called Bazar 43 with whiskey shots for 50 cents; the hipster café located in the basement of the Café Teatro Bertol Brecht; a Chinatown pizza joint; and a Vedado restaurant-bar teeming with locals. There is an immediacy in these and other listings. And unlike many travel apps that feel somewhat formulaic, Havana Good Time seems like an invitation into a half-secret world.

Given the loosening of restrictions on travel by US citizens to Cuba expected to be announced soon by the Obama Administration, the timing of the release of the Havana Good Time app couldn’t be better.

Havana Good Time retails for $2.99. There is no charge for update downloads.

(Image: Flickr/malias)

Survival guide app

by Jason Heflin on
No one likes to think of the bad things that could happen on a trip. But what would you do if you survived a plane crash, were caught in a terrorist attack, or encountered a tsunami while on vacation? Well wonder no more iphone users. The SAS Survival Guide has been around in book form for over twenty years but now there’s an app.

John “Lofty” Wiseman spent years as a soldier and instructor for the SAS, an elite British fighting unit. In the app, Lofty guides the reader through a myriad of nightmare scenarios. Stranded atop an icy mountain? Covered. Need to know what local plants are edible? Check. Stuck in a forest fire with no obvious escape? No worries. The guide provides detailed information on all these would-be disasters. The app will cost $6.99 at itunes and is compatible with the ipad and ipod touch as well.

Although the guide is a great read, and the bulit-in survival quiz is fun for parties and around the campfire, the practicality of using it on-demand in some of these situations is questionable. For instance, if your plane were to crash land in the ocean your cell phone would be wet and useless. Then what? You are stranded on a mountaintop in the Himalaya and your phone runs out of battery. Tough luck. To get the most out of the guide read it before the disaster strikes.

The app holds interest by utilizing several interactive features including the survival quiz, an instructional video, and even a morse code feature that will turn your iphone into a beeping/flashing communicator. These make it fun for the user to learn a bit more about surviving if and when disaster strikes. That can’t be a bad thing when the shit hits the fan.

StreamThru for iPhone – the ultimate all-in-one trip manager?

by Scott Carmichael on

Last week, the developers of a new iPhone app asked me to take a look at their newest creation – now, I’ll admit right away that I get about 30 of these requests a week, and a large portion of them are just not “travely” enough for Gadling. But in the case of this app – I’ve been taken by surprise and may have found a new favorite travel app.

StreamThru is a mobile travel assistant that takes all the best parts of many other travel apps, and turns it into a single all-in-one assistant.

With StreamThru, you can email your travel itinerary to their service, and it’ll automatically add your trip to your online StreamThru account. Those trips can then be viewed inside the iPhone app. But the best part is the amazing amount of information included inside the app.

Not only do you get your schedule, but you can also check the weather, airport amenities, information on how to get from terminal to terminal, airport terminal guides, city guides, local events, phone numbers and more.

Flights can be added using the email option, or by manually entering it into the app – which is assisted by a flight schedule system – so you only need to enter the date and city pair, and StreamThru will display all available flights. Once flights are entered, StreamThru will notify you of any flight changes and status updates.

Itineraries can also be accessed using the web, where you’ll also find additional (paid) add-ons like daily weather reports and a destination assistant feature that provides phone based translation services.

All in all I’m amazed by the app – but the best part is that it is (currently) free of charge. The app is also available for Nokia devices, and can be found in the Ovi store.

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