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Top 5 Mobile Apps For Labor Day Weekend


Family reunions and quick getaways have become a Labor Day tradition for most people, but which apps work best for taking holiday trips? Grip’d.com spent several months testing various apps on each platform to see which ones make Gripd.com’s top five travel apps. If you have an iPhone, Blackberry or Android phone, here’s a quick rundown of the best 5 travel apps:

Weatherbug – The simplicity of Apple’s Weather app, but with a few extras for your phone. It’s the largest network of professional weather stations in the US and is the only source for truly live, local weather (as taken from their site).


BePut – enables users to share their whereabouts with people they want to find them. Users simply use the application to locate their exact position and with a touch of a button, have the opportunity to send an email or text message to the desired recipient with their exact location. The recipient gets a special FindMe Key which is secure. The only guaranteed way to not get lost.

Car Care & Roadside Emergencies – I don’t know about you, but I absolutely hate it when things don’t go according to the plan. You have this important presentation, and you end up with a flat tire in an express way. Or maybe you are trying to get home from a concert, and your car doesn’t start up. These situations happen all the time, and they usually tend to happen when you expect them the least. Now some of us have a knack for breaking and fixing things as far as cars are concerned.

Waze – Waze is a social mobile application that enables drivers to build and use real-time road intelligence. The service includes constantly-updated road maps, alerts on traffic and accidents, and data providing users with the fastest route to get to wherever they need to go. Map and traffic updates are automatically collected and generated as users drive with Waze activated, but drivers can also actively report and update other users with what’s happening on the road.

Shazam – In the car for hours and can’t figure out the song playing on the radio? When you hear a song and wonder what it is, Shazam is there with the answer. Hold your iPhone to the music and within seconds Shazam will tell you the artist and track name. You can even download the song through iTunes on your iPhone.

2010 Demographics / Country Usage for iPad

Guest Post
Apple’s revolutionary tablet computer, the iPad, was announced January 27, 2010. The iPad Wi-Fi version was first released on April 3, 2010. The 3G version was released April 30, 2010. In the first 80 days, 3million units were sold. Projected sales for 2010 will be 10 million units worldwide. The iPad has been breaking sales records in a world wide recession. One can only wonder what sales would have been in better economic times.

Apple had to delay international release of the iPad due to overwhelming US demand for it. Apple released the iPad to nine countries on May 28, 2010. Preorders were available May 10, 2010. The nine countries are Germany, Great Britian, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Japan, Canada, and Australia.

On July 23, 2010, Apple released the iPad to Hong Kong, Singapore, Belguim, Netherlands, Mexico, New Zealand, Luxembourg, Austria, and Ireland.

For the US and international markets, 60% of sales were made to people aged 30 to 54 years old. One difference between US and international users is the level of interest in technology. US iPad owners are focused more on social media, video, and audio. International users are more interested in the more traditional computer applications such as web research and could computing.


Japan has shown special interest in the iPad. 50% of the computer and technology magazines featured iPad cover stories for May and June 2010. One of the most interesting demographic features of the Japanese market is the interest level among the elderly, age 55+. They like the iPad for its simplicity and forgiving nature in regards to mistakes.

About the author: James Mowery is a computer geek that writes about technology and related topics. To read more blog posts by him, go to laptop computers.

Our New iPad App for Kids: Josh and Emma Go to the Beach

With the arrival of my baby girl a couple of months ago, I’ve been looking for good educational apps for kids in the iPad app store. There actually isn’t a whole lot compared to the amount of games and business applications so a group of friends and I decided to build one for ourselves. It’s called Josh and Emma Go to the Beach (priced at $1.99) and it just hit the app store, so get it while it’s hot!

Here’s a brief description of the iPad app:

They are brother and sister and love to go on adventures with their mom and dad. Tag along with Josh & Emma as they discover the world around them.

Josh & Emma Go to the Beach is the first in the series of Josh & Emma educational apps for iPad. There are many more to come.

Each app is designed to help children ages 2 to 6 learn their numbers, colours and the proper names of objects.

7 Steps to Publishing / Selling Online Magazines with MagCloud

Companies like Time, Wired, and BMW have invested in publishing magazines on the iPad ever since it came out but now with help of HP’s Magcloud, literally anyone can begin publishing magazines of their own. Magcloud suggests that using their 7 step process (and about 2 weeks in time, you can setup and begin selling online magazines. Below is an out line of their 7 step process:
  1. Create: The publisher creates a magazine in a design program
  2. Upload: The publisher uploads the PDF to MagCloud, fills out the description, and orders a proof
  3. Proof: MagCloud prints, binds, and mails the proof to the publisher
  4. Publish: The publisher reviews the proof. If changes are needed, the publisher can upload a new PDF and order another proof
  5. Buy & Sell: When the issue is published, people can buy it on the MagCloud website
  6. Print & Mail: When someone buys an issue, MagCloud prints, binds, and mails it to the buyer
  7. Publishers Get Paid: Publishers can check their sales online at any time

New iPad App from UrbanSpoon

According to ReadWriteWeb, UrbanSpoon is in the process of testing a new iPad app called RezBook (starting in Seattle), whereby restaurants can manage their own reservations. Below are some screenshots of the new Urban Spoon iPad app.

UrbanSpoon Launches on iPad

According to Techcrunch, app store veteran, UrbanSpoon, has officially launched their iPad app. I agree with them in that the iPad app will not be useful for quick dinner solutions (like it is when firing up the app on an iPhone), however the iPad app will be useful for longer, more thoughtful decisions. Details of the UrbanSpoon iPad app below:

iPad Review from David Pogue, NY Times

David Pogue of the New York Times has written one of the first reviews of the Apple iPad. He approached the review from 2 different angles, 1 for techies and the other for everyone else. You can read the entire post here, below is few tidbits from his findings:

  • The Apple iPad is basically a gigantic iPod Touch
  • At 1.5 pounds, the iPad gets heavy in your hand after awhile (the Kindle is 10 ounces).
  • Things open fast, scroll fast, load fast. Surfing the Web is a heck of a lot better than on the tiny iPhone screen
  • In my own test, the iPad played movies continuously from 7:30 a.m. to 7:53 p.m. — more than 12 hours
  • The iPad is not a laptop. It’s not nearly as good for creating stuff. On the other hand, it’s infinitely more convenient for consuming it — books, music, video, photos, Web, e-mail and so on.