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Airbnb wants to offer travelers more than a place to sleep
Airbnb has been taking tentative steps towards being more than just a vacation rental service -- the company has shown some ambitions to plan entire trips for its users. Today, the company acquired Trip4Real, a travel-focused startup from Barcelona that Airbnb had already been partnering with. It's a move that should help Airbnb expand on its ambitions to offer travelers more and more things to do in their cities of choice. Trip4Real's business was built on offering activities in cities around the world; the company's slogan of "experience a city like a local" sounds like the same message Airbnb has been pushing for some time now.
Google and ITA's OnTheFly app update puts flexible flight planning in your pocket
Google went through a lot to buy ITA and its travel software, and we saw the acquisition first bear fruit in the form of Mountain View's web-based Flight Search. Now the partnership has produced version 1.2 of the OnTheFly airfare booking app for Android, iOS and BlackBerry. What's new? Flexible date searches that let you peruse departures 35 days at a time, plus a price graph that shows the most fiscally prudent times to travel. Additionally, globetrotters can access their itinerary search history and see price changes for those fares throughout the year. Nice job fellas, now let's work on bringing bargain-basement fare finding for the final frontier in the next revision.
TomTom announces Go Live 1535M in all its app-wielding glory, offers dashboard tweeting
If you're a fan of TomTom's Go Live series of nav units, you'll get a kick out of what the company announced today. Hitting retail and online stores in October is "the world's first portable navigation device with a suite of popular travel apps," the Go Live 1535M. That's right folks, this piece of dashboard flair will allow you to use Yelp, TripAdvisor, Expedia and Twitter all from the comfort of its 5-inch touchscreen. In addition to the new application integration, the GPS juggernaut's classic features will be available as well: hands-free calling, real-time traffic info, local search, fuel prices and weather forecasts. Sounds great, right? But what's that... you already sprung for the 2535M model? No worries, mates -- you'll be able to download the new features this fall via software update. Pricing for these app-enabled navigators will start at $250 which includes a free 12-month subscription to TomTom Live services. Pretty soon, you'll be able to make that dinner reservation while TomTom tells you how to get there, seconds before you tweet about it.
GateGuru is free and just in time for holiday travelers
I love finding useful free apps. Today I'll steer you to GateGuru, a free app that will help you navigate airport terminals and find food, ATMs, conference rooms and shops. The app was featured in an iPhone TV ad earlier this year, and it has been updated since then with some new features and bug fixes. GateGuru starts by locating the nearest airports via GPS (U.S. and Canada only, unfortunately). You can also type in an airport's three-letter identifier code or city name. Once your airport is identified, you can select the main terminal or a particular concourse. You'll get a map and a list of what's there, be it food, shops, or services like shoe shine stands or free Wi-Fi. You also get user-supplied ratings of shops and restaurants. Sometimes there are photos as well. This is all pretty handy, especially if you are in an unfamiliar airport. You can also add your own photos and reviews. %Gallery-108428%
A Delta Airlines app is on the way
Rather recently, American Airlines released an iPhone app that offers quite a few nice features for the AA traveler, including flight status, boarding pass access and ... Soduku. With the exception of that last feature, travel app Kayak offers many of these features already, though it's not stopping other airlines from following suit. Just the other day, a Delta executive mentioned in a short interview that a Delta iPhone app is on the horizon. It's not clear yet what kinds of services and features the app will provide, though it's a safe bet the American Airlines app will give you a decent guess. What kinds of services and features would you want to see in an airline-dedicated iPhone app that's not already present in current offerings?
What's on your iPhone, Steve Sande?
What's on your iPhone? is a new TUAW series that we'll run occasionally so you can see what the bloggers at your favorite Apple site are running on their pocket devices. This was suggested by one of our readers, who wanted to know just what kind of stuff we had on our iPhones. Since we're a group of individuals who all think a bit differently, it makes a lot of sense to have each of the bloggers in turn write up a short blurb on their favorite apps. In this post I'll list those apps that deserve special attention, but to see all of the apps that I currently have on my iPhone 3GS, you'll need to take a look at the gallery at the end of the post. To start with, you'll find that I have a lot of camera apps. In nearly three years, I've used my iPhones to take literally thousands of pictures. I love the look of most of the photos, and it's even more fun to run them through a filter or two to add some pizazz to the pics. I currently have the default iPhone Camera and Photos apps, but have added Best Camera, Zoom Lens, Pano, Color Splash, Project 365, Lo-Mob, Self Image, ReelDirector (for video), FocalLab, CinemaFX, iTimeLapse, iCamcorder (for video), and CameraForiPad to my 3GS.
