iPHONE APPS:Free or very cheap iPhone apps can help consumers make more of their money
HAVING TURNED its nose up at an iPhone for over two years out of a firmly held conviction that those who succumbed to the shiny temptation clearly had more money than sense, PriceWatch finally caved in last week. Within hours we were in love and thinking “where have you been all my life”.
Who cares if all the cool apps, the easy access to the iTunes money pit and the mobile phone operators’ irksome tendency to hook us with low fees for our first megabyte of data before charging €100,000 (or something) for every additional kilobyte we download, will see our average monthly bill go through the roof in the weeks ahead?
And does it really matter that the amount of time we spend talking to real people falls dramatically because we’re suddenly far too busy updating our Facebook profile or tapping away on the ridiculously easy to use Twitter app on the hoof? Last week, to salve our guilty conscience, we went in search of applications which could help save consumers money, encourage them to better manage their finances and make their lives just a little easier. Here are some of the ones we found.
EIRTEXT (FREE):It is a truth (almost) universally acknowledged that mobile phone companies have been ripping people off for years by charging ridiculously high amounts to send a text message. When we canvassed opinion on Twitter – via our iPhone, obviously – about which app had the potential to save people the most money, this came out on top by a long margin. It allows anyone with a webtext account to send text messages directly from their iPhones for free. If you want to send messages internationally you have to sign up for EirText Pro which costs €2.99, which seems like very good value to us.
SKYPE (FREE): Another application which is sure to give the phone providers nightmares, in themonths ahead, this allows you to make Skype-to-Skype calls to anywhere in the world for absolutely nothing and to make calls to regular numbers at greatly reduced rates. You do have to have access to a wi-fi network to be able to use the service as the phone companies are reluctant to allow Skype piggyback on their 3G networks. This restriction may seem mean but is not much of a surprise. If the mobile operators allowed such carry-on on their networks, they'd have almost no reason to exist.
PING (€0.79):There is a real danger that the verb 'to ping' will soon enter our vocabulary. While the notion that people might start saying things like "Ping me when you get to the pub" fills us with horror, this could turn into a real money saver so we have to give it a chance. It allows you to message other iPhone users or groups of users for nothing and could easily replace texting and instant messaging as the most cost-effective way for people to communicate with people outside of talking face-to-face.
IRISH TAXI (FREE):With this app installed you'll never need to call directory enquires in search of a local cab company if you find yourself stranded in a strange part of town late at night. You just launch it and it goes off and hunts for all the nearby taxi firms before presenting you with a list. It also has a fare estimator which is supposed to tell you how much any given journey should cost, although we're still waiting for the app that comes to your aid when you get into a fist fight with a cabbie who charges you twice the iPhone estimate.
RED LASER (€1.59):We've been particularly taken by the idea of barcode scanners. This one allows you to read barcodes on a massive range of products and promises to show you where else the item is for sale and how much it costs there, giving you the chance to find the best bargains with virtually no effort.
AWESOME SHOPPING (€1.59):If writing shopping lists sounds like too much hassle, which it does, then jazz up the experience with this funky little 21st century tool. We had a grocery shopping list containing more than 50 items ready to go in less than a minute – or in less time than it would have taken to find a pen in the normal course of events.
Admittedly the app doesn’t have everything you might need – we couldn’t find the cling film or the Brazil nuts, for instance – but it makes up for these deficiencies by automatically ordering our list by aisle in which the items appear, something which might stop us running round our local supermarket like an eejit every weekend. You can even keep different shopping lists for each store you visit.
DUBLIN BUSTER (FREE):There are all manner of apps developed to help people navigate our seamlessly integrated public transport network. Oh, wait, did we say integrated public transport network? What we meant was "all over the shop public transport network". Train, Dart, Luas, intercity and urban buses and airport information is now all available via your iPhone.
APPBOX PRO (€0.79):If MacGyver was to buy a single app we're pretty sure he'd go for this one. It comes with a torch, a spirit level, a translator and more than two dozen other natty things – all it's missing really is that thing you need to get stones out of horses hoofs. Of most interest to the savvy shopper will be the Price Grab app which allows you to work out the unit price of products in your supermarket so you can draw accurate price comparisons. It also allows you to work out sale discounts and how much you should tip. And then there's the virtual wallet for storing all your personal financial details – although exposing yourself to fraud in this way should you lose your phone sounds like a dreadful idea to us.
WHERE IS COFFEE (€0.79):If you're in need of a coffee fix but haven't a clue where to go, this is just one of many apps out there designed to help you out. It records where you are by using the phone's GPS system and highlights all the cafés close by. The makers even promise to tell you where the best coffee in your area will be found. It is a work in progress, however, and for it to really come into its own, a lot more independent reader reviews for Irish cities are required.
COPPERS (€0.79):No, it's not an app designed to help you navigate your way through the guards and nurses in Copper Face Jacks but a nifty budgeting tool. "Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves" the site's splash page says, although users should not be put off by the use of such a lame cliché so prominently.
It has a budget management tool, built-in expense categories and a statistical analysis of expenses.
PUMPS.IE (FREE): While the pumps.ie website, which offers real-time information on the price of petrol and diesel all over the country, is useful, this is even better. It uses GPS to work out where you are and then gives you the prices being charged by the garages near you.
AND THE REST:They may have little practical benefit but, if you're new to the iPhone and are wondering what other appsare good, can we recommend Shazam (it uses some class of magic to identify tunes you hear on the radio), Sleep Cycle (it also uses magic to identify the best time to wake you up), Stanza (for free books), Talking Carl (it keeps kids mesmerised), and Bloom (a Brian Eno-designed piece of magic that is in a world of its own).
