Ten Essential... iOS Travel Apps

Mobile Streetmaps

They could be a bit more detailed, but the Mobile Streetmaps series from Dubbele can come in handy if you want to avoid roaming charges on your iPhone when you’re abroad - Google Maps uses bandwidth, don't forget - or if you don’t have 3G mobile broadband on your iPad. The maps are downloaded and stored on the iPhone/iPad itself so the data is available even when you’re offline. You can locate individual streets, or set the map to display the locations of museums, banks and other services. You can also create markers to help you find your way back to parking spots or other locations that you need to remember.

TomTom GPS

The TomTom map apps are a bit on the pricey side, but they’re well designed and TomTom has wasted no time in updating them to take advantage of iOS4 multi-tasking. If you receive a phone call while you’re driving, the app will temporarily mute its spoken instructions but continue to display the map on the iPhone screen so that you don’t take a wrong turn while you’re taking the call. The map data is stored on the iPhone, so you don’t need to pay for 3G roaming when you’re using it abroad. It takes up a lot of space, though – almost 2GB for the £53 Western Europe map that we tested.