It looks like the first iPhone app to bring us real-time traffic alerts, and that comes with offline maps, will be the Navigon MobileNavigator (Earlier CNET review. iTunes Store link.)
The AT&T Navigator (CNET review) also has live traffic data, but takes more time to download maps as you go, and while initially free, has a $10 monthly fee. Navigon has a steep $90 price tag, and you’ll pay $20 or $25 for the live traffic upgrade, but if you use it for more than a year, it’s already cheaper than the AT&T version.
(I’d like to take a moment to congratulate both Navigon and AT&T for sensibly choosing just one business model – monthly fee, or upfront fee – instead of both. Too many companies these days get away with a charge upfront and also making you pay monthly. I’m sure they have their reasons, but as a consumer, it just seems wrong.)
I’ve already recently cut at least 5 minutes off my daily commute by utilizing traffic data of other drivers. This is a win/win, since bad traffic throws me in a rage faster than anything else, and I’m not the most defensive driver. If I can have a tool with me that warns me of upcoming traffic problems, and helps me navigate around them, so much the better.
On the other hand, it seems I’m always driving to the same ten or twelve places. I’m not what marketers like to call a “road warrior” (isn’t this just a euphemism for salesperson?), so I don’t think I can justify the cost just yet.
Have you used the Navigon or AT&T apps? What do you think?
Håkan Djuphammar, VP of Systems Architecture for Ericsson, made a prediction recently that all new mobile phones sold after Summer 2010 would have two-way RFID chips in them that would allow them to act as a tag or a reader.
If what you just read sounds like technobabble, watch this short news excerpt to get up to speed. Even if you’re not interested in technology, you should learn about the possibilities and the dangers of RFID:
Back to the mobile phone: yes, it would be perfectly easy for all mobile phones on the planet to have an RFID tag/scanner in them. The possibilities for making use of RFID, like the numbering scheme itself, are practically endless. People in Asia use their mobile phones to buy drinks from vending machines all the time, and according to Djuphammar:
the chip might also be used by credit card companies to track the location of cardholders to cut down on fraud.
So, the myriad of privacy concerns aside, does this mean I won’t be able to use my credit card if I leave my phone at home?
RFID doesn’t inherently scare me. I already use one in the keyfob for my car when unlocking the door and starting the engine. It raises ethical concerns, and I think we should plan our next moves carefully. We don’t have a great history of moving carefully forward (people still drive without seatbelts all the time), which is one of the reasons I’m hoping you’ll educate yourself and your friends about this starting today.
If you have the means and the time, I highly recommend the book Everyware: the dawning age of ubiquitous computing, which not only details many possibilities for taking advantage of RFID, it also contains a great starting point for a positively ethical “post-PC” future (including some really neat new icons).
It’s barely been a month since the iPhone update which allows people to download applications written by 3rd-party developers, and there are already more than 1,000 to choose from. Here are a few of the more promising entries in the field of Personal Finance:
It’s unreasonable to expect that a person, when presented with a loan offer, can glance at the numbers and determine whether the salesperson is trying to rip them off. If it hadn’t happened to a friend of mine, I might’ve chalked this scenario up to simple paranoia, but it does happen. Thankfully, what with the Internet empowering us all, it happens less and less.
If all you’re looking to do is check the math on a loan offer, there are other ways to go about it. For example, you could point your mobile browser to CalcNexus’s Auto Loan Calculator and get an answer pretty quickly. The major advantage to the Loan Shark iPhone app is that it saves loan details to a Favorites screen so you can compare offers from different banks.
It also shows amortization tables and works as well for credit cards and home loans. For my money, in this case US$4.99, that’s a lot more convenient than carrying around a notepad and a pen.
At some point (for me this happens weekly), you’ve been in a store, looking at something you probably want to buy, and you thought to yourself, “I could get this cheaper somewhere else.” Save Benjis answers your doubts for you in a matter of seconds. Best of all, it’s free, so you have nothing to lose if you want to give it a try.
“Okay, I’m at Target. What was that other thing I needed to buy?” The analog lifestyle solution to this conundrum was always to keep a shopping list on the fridge and take it with you. But more often than not, I’m coming straight from work, or I forgot the list at home.
You may have noticed by now that I have a sort of contempt for paper records. Anyway…
This app has a built-in database of over 1,500 grocery items, so you barely need to type anything. In fact, I think I’m going to buy this app right now.
LeanLifeCoach: In the end how much will the IRS really get; 10% maybe 20% of all this money? And how much will we spend collectively in actual dollars and... on Enforcing Tax Laws Works. Go Figure.
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I’ve already recently cut at least 5 minutes off my daily commute by utilizing traffic data of other drivers. This is a win/win, since bad traffic throws me in a rage faster than anything else, and I’m not the most defensive driver. If I can have a tool with me that warns me of upcoming traffic problems, and helps me navigate around them, so much the better.
It’s unreasonable to expect that a person, when presented with a loan offer, can glance at the numbers and determine whether the salesperson is trying to rip them off. If it hadn’t happened to a friend of mine, I might’ve chalked this scenario up to simple paranoia, but it does happen. Thankfully, what with the Internet empowering us all, it happens less and less.
At some point (for me this happens weekly), you’ve been in a store, looking at something you probably want to buy, and you thought to yourself, “I could get this cheaper somewhere else.” Save Benjis answers your doubts for you in a matter of seconds. Best of all, it’s free, so you have nothing to lose if you want to give it a try.
“Okay, I’m at Target. What was that other thing I needed to buy?” The analog lifestyle solution to this conundrum was always to keep a shopping list on the fridge and take it with you. But more often than not, I’m coming straight from work, or I forgot the list at home.
