Top 5 iPhone apps for the driver

By: Lisa Keegan

Date: Friday, 26. March 2010

There are now more than 150,000 apps available in the iTunes Store, so whether you want to download a virtual pet or turn your iphone into a zippo lighter for a rock concert - there will be an app out there for you! There are many apps aimed at drivers and car users generally, some of these are very practical and some, like the iphone shotgun for a virtual drive-by, are possibly less so!

To select the top 5 iphone apps for drivers we looked for those apps that would be the most useful to drivers, whether driving for work or pleasure. Here�s what we came up with, feel free to vote for your favourite using the poll at the end of the article!

1.Zipcar: quick car rental with the iphone

iphone apps for drivers zipcar

Access the world's largest car-sharing service via an easy-to-use app! The Zipcar app allows users to register with the service and rent a zipcar for anything from a trip to the shops to a couple of days drive up the coast. Cars can be picked up from various city locations and dropped off again in another designated area. Members pay a monthly subscription and then hourly and daily rates for the use of the car.

The iPhone Zipcar app allows you to find the location of your nearest pick-up/ drop-off points, select a model and look at features (such as cargo capacity) and also view hourly/ daily rates.

This app also enables remote locking and unlocking and the ability to toot your car's horn from your phone should you forget what it looks like or lose it in a busy parking lot!

Price: Free from the itunes store

2. MileBug: Mileage log and expense tracker

Anyone whose work involves a lot of driving will tell you the worst thing about it is not the driving, it's the paperwork. Recording mileage in a logbook, transcribing this to a document or spreadsheet which then has to be emailed on to the relevant department all makes for a lot of extra work.

Enter MileBug! This neat little application enables you to enter odometer readings at the start and end of a journey and input details like type of trip and reimbursement rate. Crucially, the app saves settings such as the last odometer reading and defaults for reimbursement and tax deduction rates.

One pitfall of MileBug is, if data were lost, there is no way to reimport it.

Price: $2.99 from the itunes store

iphone apps for drivers accufuel

3. AccuFuel: Calculate and Graph Your MPG

This app lets you monitor your vehicle's fuel efficiency in an easy and fun way! Driving habits, as well as the type of vehicle and conditions, all effect fuel efficiency and now you can monitor this for yourself!

AccuFuel allows you to track your fuel usage for multiple vehicles which could be a very useful feature for businesses in these cash-strapped times! When adding a new car to the app, you can select from a list of vehicles to automatically display the expected fuel efficiency (only 1998 and newer vehicles). For older cars you can enter these details manually.

Price: $0.99 from the itunes store

4. TomTom for iPhone:

TomTom gives you all the functions you need and expect in a standalone GPS navigation system and may indeed prove to be a viable alternative to buying a dedicated GPS device. A recent upgrade now means that features such as real-time traffic information and Google local search are now packaged with the standard SatNav features like turn-by-turn instructions and points of interest.

Original iPhone and iPod touch users need the TomTom car kit with its built-in GPS receiver for this app to work. Only the iPhone 3G and 3GS do not require the TomTom car kit as these models have GPS technology embedded. However, the car kit gives you a better speaker, better microphone for hands-free calls and a stronger GPS signal performance so if you can afford it, buy it!

The app is pretty big (1.25GB) but this initial download includes all maps so network connection will never be an issue when trying to access map data.

Price: from $49.99 from the itunes store

5. Road Trip Scavenger Hunt

'Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?' - if this is a familiar refrain then you need this app!

Scavenger Hunt is based on the tried and tested car game many of us have played as kids on long car trips. An item is suggested (such as a green car, dog, oak tree) and everyone in the car (bar the driver of course!) tries to be the first to spot that item along the journey.

The iphone app version allows you to enter the names of all the players and to choose whether you are looking for objects (cow, ferrari etc.) or words (from billboards or road signs) or a combination of both, making this a great game for all ages. You can also choose how many points it will take to win the game.

When you start the game it randomly selects an item for everyone to look for. When someone spots this item, you hit the button with their name and it allocates a point to that person. All player's scores are displayed so you can get as competitive as you like!

Price: $1.99 from the itunes store