Apps for Airports?

October 7, 2010 6:48 AM

iPad as Hitchiker's Guide: I've got a couple weeks of travel coming up and I want to carry as little as possible. To wit, I want to bring my iPad as my portable Internet Device and I was wondering what apps would make it the perfect travel companion. Which apps have saved your life enroute? What do you wish you had?

Internet access may be spotty so I'm looking at more offline apps.

posted by The Whelk to Travel & Transportation (15 answers total)

Top two apps that I use (offline) are The Kindle app, loaded up on books and GoodReader, loaded up with PDFs.

Games don't hurt to pass the time either, but since that's very subjective I won't offer up any suggestions.
posted by Mutant at 6:52 AM on October 7, 2010

My top three favorite apps: GoodReader, for better PDF management, Distant Suns, and Crosswords. I try to use mine for work, so I also picked up Keynote, Numbers and Pages early on. Also a VGA-capable browser (Expedition) for demonstrations on a projector and whatnot.

My other go-to apps require internet access (iSSH, Wolfram, Pandora, etc).

Gamewise, I also just picked up Civilization Revolution and it's pretty much got me by the throat. Perfect for long layovers. The Crosswords app above lets you download a whole raft of puzzles when you have connectivity. Otherwise, it's all offline.
posted by jquinby at 6:56 AM on October 7, 2010

I have Stanza on my iPod Touch for eBooks, and its incredible. Take it with me everywhere. I just checked and they have an iPad version.
posted by alchemist at 6:57 AM on October 7, 2010

There is a downloadable version of Wikipedia that is useful if you don't have wifi access.

Otherwise, I've pretty much just used the web browser and the videos app.
posted by smackfu at 6:58 AM on October 7, 2010

Also - if your iPad is 3G capable, consider starting a data plan once you're underway . I did during a recent bit of heavy travel and it's nice to be able to fall back to it when local wifi options are limited (or super-congested, as they sometimes tend to be when it's free).
posted by jquinby at 6:58 AM on October 7, 2010

Stanza is great; I also have the Kindle app, Goodreader, and Instapaper. (This is all on an ipod touch, btw). Before we went to England earlier this year, I also downloaded a couple of useable-wthout-being online map apps, and since Lonely Planet was offering free copies of its book apps (because of the volcano fiasco), I grabbed a few of those as well. Don't know that I would have paid for them, but the London one came in handy.
posted by rtha at 7:20 AM on October 7, 2010

A magazine reader like Zinio is a very handy thing to have for long airport waits. For work, I'm a big fan of Pages, iAnnotate (for PDF annotation, which I think GoodReader now also includes?), Evernote, and the iPad Dropbox client.
posted by Catseye at 7:24 AM on October 7, 2010

Instapaper, Instapaper, Instapaper. - read all your internet articles offline.
posted by Gori Girl at 8:08 AM on October 7, 2010

Depending on how you are travelling Hostelworld has an app - you can download cities in advance to browse offline.
posted by jontyjago at 8:14 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Opera Mini compresses webpages so if you are are using 3G and you are worried about hitting your limit, it might help.
posted by Brent Parker at 9:07 AM on October 7, 2010

I found TripIt pretty handy on my last trip. I'd explain it but the video on their homepage does a pretty good job.
posted by Tu13es at 9:30 AM on October 7, 2010

instapaper is the best app out there for this type of thing

with it, use longform and give me something to read (google for the websites) - you can also use the #longreads hash tag on twitter

OT, but angry birds is awesomeawesomeawesome (so is mega man II)

if you use google reader, reeder is (in my opinion) the greatest RSS/greader

jailbreak it and get pro switcher (multitasking) as well as other things...

you can set up air video to watch it online from anywhere through your home router...

i really cannot tell you the awesomeness of instapaper, you can find SO many things to add to it (new and old -- just read a story about phone phreaking from esquire from the 70s) -- go back through longform history and you will never be without reading again. for example, i have had my ipad since first weekend in june and although i read instapaper every day i have 150+ articles sitting in instapaper to read.

i have not done it, but you can download maps for offline use, and that may be helpful. you can also use evernote if you are going to have a lot of stuff with you and its great for tracking things...

good reader is great for PDFs, and i think you can now do them in iBooks, but i personally have not upgraded...

if you have any questions about these things, MeMail me and i will get back to you ASAP
posted by knockoutking at 4:17 PM on October 7, 2010

In order to better offer advice, it'd be good to know where you're traveling to. There are a lot of location specific apps. For example, there's an amazing app for Paris which shows you the way to the nearest Velib station and how many bikes are there etc.
posted by dougrayrankin at 6:28 AM on October 8, 2010

Response by poster: Primary around Scotland and the Netherlands - with a quick trip to San Fransisco at the end.
posted by The Whelk at 8:03 AM on October 8, 2010

I haven't tried this out yet, but this app which synchronizes your Instapaper articles with an e-reader looks handy, "Wordcycler Syncs Your Instapaper Account to Your Ebook Reader" (Lifehacker article).
posted by lucyleaf at 9:29 AM on October 8, 2010