10 iPhone apps for a UK holiday

On a recent trip to the Lake District and Yorkshire I used a couple of iphone apps which I thought I’d share.

For taking photos and video

Camera+ – £0.59
What makes this worth the 59p is the ability to specify the point to focus on and a separate exposure point, gives you excellent control. There is also an editing suite to rival anything else available, all on one app.

Autostitch – £1.19
The quality of the images that this app “stitches” together is very impressive and makes the app perfect for capturing a large valley or waterfall. The recently launched Photosynth app is also worth a mention but is doesn’t stitch pictures together quite as well in my experience (but is free).

Vimeo – Free
Apart from being able to watch videos from the vimeo website (but not search – yet) the killer feature of this app is the simple video editor. You can add multiple clips together with simple transitions and titles, with surprising control over effects.

Info on where you are

Motionx GPS – £0.59
There were two main ways i used this app. Firstly, you can download large areas of maps onto your iphone to browse offline (I downloaded the whole Lake district national park at 500MB) which was perfect for seeing where I was regardless of the very unreliable mobile reception. Secondly, you can plan, track and record routes, setting waypoints, measuring distance traveled, height climbed, average speed, distance to next waypoint etc. At the end of the day your activity can then be shared on facebook, twitter or a link sent by email.

Day tides – Free
If you’re near the seaside, it’s handy to know when high/low tide is. This app tells you.

Peak.ar – Free
This was particularly useful in  the Lake District. “What’s that mountain over there? Oh, it’s Helvelyn” It works impressively with hills, finding a number of “peaks” around my home in Sussex.

Info on what’s around you

AA Days Out – Free
This does nicely what you’d expect – locates where you and suggests places of interest to visit. all the information is store in the app so it doesn’t require a mobile signal which is handy.

AA Pub Guide – Free
This again does nicely what you’d expect – locates where you and suggests a good pub nearby. All the information is store in the app so it doesn’t require a mobile signal which is handy when you’re somewhere remote.

English Heritage Days Out – Free
Similar to the AA guides, this finds where you are and suggests English Heritage sites nearby.

AroundMe – Free
Lastly, AroundMe is  very useful for finding a cash machine, petrol station, supermarket or indian restaurant.  You need a mobile sinal to use it as it searches information online, but it gives you a list of results or map full of markers showing suggestions.

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