15 Android widgets that will make iPhone users jealous

By Jason Hiner

One of the biggest advantages of Android over iPhone is widgets. Android has them, iPhone does not.

Widgets are valuable because they give you an at-a-glance look at lots of different kinds of information and quick access to valuable apps and configuration settings.

I carry both an Android phone (for work) and an iPhone (my private phone), but there are some things where I always reach to whip out the Android phone because I can access the information more quickly via a widget. If I was a normal person that only used one phone and I was limited to an iPhone, widgets are the biggest thing I’d miss about Android.

To help you find some of the most useful widgets, I’ve put together my list of the top 15. I first published this list of my favorite widgets in August 2010. In this latest update, I’ve replaced 12 out of the 15 widgets on the list and I’ve updated the screenshots for Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich.”

The best way to view this list is in the screenshot gallery so that you can see each of the widgets. But, you can also view it in list form below, with links to the Android Market for each of the widgets. I’ve tried to find widgets that will generally work on almost all versions of Android and aren’t limited to specific flavors, but obviously that’s a tall order.

A couple things to keep in mind with widgets:

1. They can hog resources, bandwidth, and battery life so you should make sure you’re using a task monitor to keep an eye on them; I wouldn’t necessarily recommend running all 15 at once, just pick the ones that are most important and that you’ll use the most often
2. Widgets can take up a lot of screen real estate and so you may need to use an alternate home screen launcher, such as Launcher Pro, to give yourself some extra space

Screenshot gallery

The 15 most useful Android smartphone widgets

1. Beautiful Widgets

Arguably, the most well-known widget on Android is the Clock & Weather widget from HTC, but that’s obviously limited to HTC devices. The best universal Android widget that does the same thing is the one from Beautiful Widgets, which also offers the same functionality in a variety of differences sizes and configurations and tosses in a few bonus widgets such as a battery monitor and some configuration toggles.

2. Extended Controls

Android comes with a “Power Control” widget that I’ve always liked because it lets you quickly toggle Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Brightness, and more. However, the “Extended Controls” widget allows you to create a customized version of Power Control with a lot more toggle options.

3. Business Calendar

If you need to quickly scan your calendar to check on your next meeting or see what your day looks like tomorrow, you can’t beat the Business Calendar widget. It offers virtually every size and configuration option imaginable. I prefer the 4×4 (full screen) widget in agenda mode with the simple list of all upcoming calendar appointments.

4. Analytics Widget

If you use Google Analytics to track web site traffic, this little widget makes it easy to get a get quick glance at your traffic metrics. It takes up the same amount of space as an app icon and you can set up multiple widgets to track multiple metrics.

5. Google Reader ticker

To keep an eye on the latest news, it’s hard to beat Google Reader, since it’s completely customizable based on RSS feeds. You can follow national politics or world news or you can follow the smallest trade publication that covers your industry. As long as it has an RSS feed, you can put it in Google Reader and then you can follow it at a glance with the ticker widget that is automatically added when you install the Google Reader app.

6. Pulse

Pulse is another news reader that has a great widget. Pulse is a visual newsreader that represents stories with images that it finds within those stories. It has a nice default news feeds to choose from, but you can also search for lots of others from across the web. The widget only allows you to select on feed to use on its ticker.

7. Tripit

I’ve recommended Tripit on my favorite iPhone and Android apps lists because it’s a great little service for tracking all of your travel itineraries. It also happens to have a useful Android widget that comes in two sizes.

8. Google Finance

The simple mission of Google Finance is to track stocks. The app also comes with a widget that allows you to quickly glance at the performance of a single stock or index in a little 2×1 widget. You can have use multiple instances of the widget to track multiple stocks.

9. Direct Dial & Direct Message

In addition to quick-glance information, Android widgets can also provide quick functions (kind of like macros or keyboard shortcuts on a PC). The Direct Dial and Direct Message widgets allow you to pick someone’s phone number in your contacts and create an icon that allows you to immediately call or text that person. If you have a photo for the person then it shows their photo in a 1×1 icon. These two widgets come with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (that’s why there’s no download link), but if you don’t have a phone with ICS then you can use a widget like Picture Dial.

10. The Weather Channel

The weather update in Beautiful Widgets (above) is usually enough for me, but if I’m going on a trip or worried about the extended forecast and I want to track the weather a little more closely than The Weather Channel’s has a great set of widgets. My favorite is the 4×1 widget.

11. Google Docs bar

The Google Docs app comes with a widget bar that provides one-tap access to your list of docs and your favorites and also let’s you start a new document or add a photo to your docs with a single tap.

12. Evernote bar

Evernote is a great note-taking service that has multiple mobile apps as well as desktop apps and web access. The great thing is that you can make notes in any of these places and it gets synced to all of the other instances. The Evernote app for Android comes with a widget bar (similar to Google Docs) that gives you one-tap access to your notes, lets you search your notes, and lets you quickly create a new note.

13. Twitter

As I’ve said before, Twitter is a terrific real-time intelligence engine. Now that there’s an official Twitter Android app, there are also a couple Twitter widgets (large and small) for scanning your Twitter stream. You can even configure the Twitter widget to display “Mentions” so that you can quickly see who’s talking to you (or about you) and respond.

14. ESPN ScoreCenter

This ESPN widget that lets you keep track of the scores from your favorite sports teams. It shows the last game and the next game (or current game). You can quickly tap it to get more details in the ESPN app.

15. Dictionary.com

For my fellow wordsmiths out there, Dictionary.com has a terrific widget that allows you to type or speak a word and quickly get the definition. As a bonus, the widget also displays a word of the day.

10 things you should know before buying a Galaxy S III smartphone

By Debra Littlejohn Shinder

When it was time to upgrade from my Galaxy Nexus (in part because my husband was anxious to get my hand-me-down), the choice seemed obvious. I liked the Nexus a lot, but there were a couple of things I didn’t like about it. One biggie was the lack of a microSD card slot for expanding storage. I also longed for even more screen real estate than I got with the Nexus’s 4.65 inch screen (which includes the onscreen buttons). Finally, the camera quality on the Nexus, although much better than many phones, wasn’t up to what I had come to expect from my previous (HTC) Androids.

The Galaxy S III seemed to fulfill my wish list, and more. With a gorgeous 4.8 inch Super AMOLED screen (and the buttons beneath the display so they don’t take up any of that space), microSD support, and a reportedly excellent camera, it was my dream come true. Or was it? I got my S III more than a week ago, and I’ve played with it enough to discover both some pleasant surprises and a few gotchas. If you’re thinking about getting an S III, and especially if you’re trading up from a Nexus, here are a few things you might want to know to help you make the decision.

The good

First, let’s look at a few things you might not know about the S III that will come as pleasant surprises.

1: MicroSD on steroids

You probably know that the S III, unlike the Nexus, has a microSD slot so you can add storage space. What you might not know is that it isn’t limited to the 32 GB maximum card capacity like most phones. Not only does it support microSD and SDHC, it also supports SDXC, which have a theoretical capacity of up to 2 TB. Transfer speed is also faster.

The Galaxy S III specs say it supports up to a 64 GB card, but it’s unclear whether that’s because that is currently the largest size available or there is a software limitation. In practical usage right now, you can add a whopping 64 GB of storage to the S III for around $55.

2: Motion controls

The Nintendo Wii popularized the concept of interacting with an interface via motion on a gaming device, and Microsoft’s Kinect took it to the next level and expanded it from the game console to the PC. Now Samsung has brought motion control to the phone, in a big way.

There’s a whole set of gestures you can use with the S III that you won’t find on the Nexus or most other phones. You can double tap the top of the device to go to the beginning of a list. You can tilt the phone forward or back to zoom in or out of a picture or Web page. Simply by placing the phone to your ear, you can call the currently displayed contact. You can shake the phone to update (refresh a Web page, rescan for Wi-Fi devices, etc.). You can pan (move the phone left or right or up or down) to move around a large onscreen image. You can briefly pause a video or mute sound by placing your hand over the screen.

If you don’t want your phone doing things because of the way you hold it, don’t worry. You have to activate the motion feature in Settings before you can use these and other built-in gestures.

3: Pop-up Play

This was another pleasant surprise. It works like the picture-in-a-picture feature on TVs. A limitation of smartphone screens has been the inability to display more than one app at a time. With the tiny screens of the past, it just wasn’t practical. With a screen this big, it starts to make sense. The Galaxy S III doesn’t go as far as I’d like in this department (side-by-side display of any running apps would be awesome) but the Pop-up Play feature does let you play an HD video in a small window while you use another app (email, Web, etc.) on your phone.

4: Camera bonuses

I care about the camera quality in my smartphone, because I take a lot of impromptu photos. Sure, if I know I’m going to be taking pictures, I’ll load up one of the high-end Nikon DSLRs — but often, I’m out and about with no intention of playing photographer and I want a phone cam that can give me a decent shot of that once-in-a-lifetime photo op.

The Nexus was a big step forward, with its quick shutter, but the pictures weren’t always as sharp as I wanted. Part of that was “operator error” — it’s hard to hold a little phone steady as you tap the onscreen button. That’s why I prefer hardware buttons. Well, the S III doesn’t have that, but it does have the next best thing. You can delay the shot after you tap, giving you time to steady the phone/camera, or you can use S Voice to take the picture (just say “cheese”), so you don’t even have to tap at all.

There’s more to it than stability, though. The S III provides an 8 MP camera in contrast to the Nexus’s 5 MP, and noise levels are lower, too. Photos simply look better, especially those taken in low light. And videos are sharper and more fluid.

There are some interesting shooting modes. In addition to the (now fairly standard) smile detection and panorama, there’s a “beauty” mode that automatically smoothes facial features, a “cartoon” mode (that I’ve not found very useful) and “buddy photo share” that will use facial recognition to match up people in your photos to the pictures of your contacts and automatically send people pictures of themselves. A nice bonus is that you can edit the shortcuts to make it more convenient to get to the controls you use often.

Another photo feature might not matter a lot to the average phone user, but for those of us who write about phones, or to a lesser extent IT pros who support phones and may need to remotely demonstrate to a user how to configure something, the ability to take screenshots of the phone’s display is important.

Once upon a time, getting a screenshot on an Android device was surprisingly difficult. Some phones had to be rooted before you could install screen capture software. Some of us even resorted to taking pictures of the screen with a camera (which presented the challenge of dealing with the glare on the glass).

Samsung made it a lot easier with the Nexus: You could do it by pressing and holding the volume down button and the power button simultaneously. You had to do it just right, though, or you might end up turning the phone off. With the S III, taking a screenshot is as simple as swiping your palm across the screen. Amazing. If you want to illustrate how Android and its apps work, this is the phone for you.

5: Great phone

A problem with some smartphones is that they’re heavier on the “smart” than on the “phone.” That’s okay if you want to use your device primarily as a miniature computer, but if you plan to talk on it a lot (or even a little), it’s nice if it also functions as a better-than-average phone.

The S III does. Call quality is crystal clear, and you can customize it with personalized equalization settings. This feature actually tests your ears with different frequencies and tones, measuring how well each ear hears them, and creates an equalization curve for each ear.

But that’s not all. The whole calling experience has been improved. Lots of phones let you set custom ringtones for different contacts, but that doesn’t help if you have the ringer turned off. The S III lets you set customized vibrations for different contacts. How cool is that? You can also answer (or reject) a call by voice command, and you can set up a rejection list to automatically reject those numbers you never want to hear from.

If you leave the phone app to go back to the home screen to check mail, look up a contact, or whatever, the status bar turns green so you won’t forget you’re in a call. Can’t hear the caller? There’s an Extra Volume button on the screen during a call, that lets you increase it beyond the maximum you get from pressing the up/down volume hardware key. There’s even a key to let you create a memo from within a call.

The not-so-good

These are some cool features, and there are more (such as the Siri-like S Voice application that goes way beyond Google’s voice search) But the S III still isn’t quite the perfect phone. Here are some of the not-so-good things I’ve encountered in making the transition from the Nexus.

6: Speaking of that microSD card

It’s great to have the extra storage space of a massive 64 GB card, but what exactly did you want to do with that space? If you only wanted to put your pictures, videos, music, etc., on it, no problem. But if you thought you’d be installing apps on it, think again. The S III doesn’t support moving apps to the external microSD card, as you could do with most previous Android phones.

It can be done — by rooting the phone and using a third-party app, such as links2sd or Directory Bind. But many folks don’t want to root their phones because it voids the warranty. The 16 GB version of the S III has about 11 GB available on its internal storage disk (sd). That’s probably enough app space for most people, but some are going to run out of room.

7: No USB mass storage mode

If you’re upgrading from an older (pre-ICS) Android phone or you got your start with Windows Mobile, you’re probably used to being able to plug your phone into a PC via USB and seeing it pop up in Windows Explorer as a hard drive. Unfortunately, the UMS (Universal Mass Storage) mode that enabled that isn’t supported in the Galaxy S III.

Apparently, you’re supposed to use the Samsung Kies app instead. That’s going to make a lot of people unhappy; it requires installing software on your computer (like syncing an iPhone via iTunes or a Windows Phone 7 via Zune — ugh), and it’s slow as molasses. Sure, it has an “easier” interface that those moving from an iPhone might like. But many Android users prefer power and more control over “simple.”

The alternative to installing Kies is to use MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) or PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) mode. This has advantages (you can still use the phone while it’s connected to the computer), but it’s not as easy to use. If you’re willing to root your phone, you can use an app like Easy UMS to enable USB Mass Storage. It would have been nice if the S III just supported both UMS and MTP/PTP.

8: S Voice tries hard, but…

Samsung’s answer to Apple’s Siri suffers from some of the same problems I’ve heard iPhone users complain about. It works fine for simple things (and I do love that ability to use voice to trip the camera shutter), but it gets easily confused if you ask it to do something complex. Making a call by voice takes me three times as long as doing it the old fashioned way, since you go through the “found more than one match” business. Trying to search the Web with it proved to be a bit of a pain. And it seems to get frustrated with you when you don’t like its results and keep trying — it froze up on me a few times and I had to kill the process.

Voice recognition is getting better, but in my opinion it’s not ready for prime time yet for most uses. I’m sure my Texas accent doesn’t help. If you’re getting the phone primarily for this voice feature, prepare to be disappointed (or maybe not, if you have a perfect Midwestern non-accent that it can understand).

9: Missing photo options

Even though there’s a lot to love about the S III’s camera, there are also some things I miss about my Nexus camera. Mostly, I miss the great editing tools that were built in. You could adjust the brightness and contrast, add a vignette, and achieve all sorts of additional effects right there in the camera.

With the S III, unless I’m just not finding it (in which case they should make it a lot more obvious), the only editing options are to crop and rotate. Sure, I can download a photo editing app, but that involves extra steps. I really liked the simple but comprehensive set of editing tools in the Nexus. This isn’t a deal breaker, but it’s something that’s good to know when you’re considering the switch.

10: Wi-Fi connectivity problem

Overall, despite the small complaints above, I was immediately impressed with my Galaxy S III and loved using it — except for one very big problem. It was blazing fast and reliable on 4G, but I soon noticed that Wi-Fi was just plain wacky. It would load a page quickly, and then the next page would take forever and/or time out completely. S Voice would give me “Network error. Try again.” messages. The Facebook app would give me “Connection Lost” errors. Often.

My old Galaxy Nexus (now my husband’s) sitting right beside it, connected to the same wireless network, had no such problems. I started researching and found out this is a fairly common problem with the S III. There is a fix that works for some, which involves going into service mode and turning off power saving in the Wi-Fi settings. It doesn’t work for everybody, though, and if you discover the problem during the return period, I’d recommend taking the phone back to the carrier and telling them it has a defective Wi-Fi radio. Although a number of people are reporting this problem, it seems to be a small percentage, so your chances of getting another one with the problem are low. Still, the possibility that you’ll encounter this is something to be aware of if you’re thinking about getting an S III.

Top 10 iPhone Apps for Your Car

by Josh Briggs and Christopher Lampton

It seems like it was only a few years ago when cell phonesbegan to find their way into the pockets and purses of the mainstream population. In reality, it's been more like a decade and a half. Who can ever forget the Motorola's StarTAC clamshell flip phone which debuted in 1996 and set the world into a frenzy over flip phones? It was small, sleek and resembled something out of a James Bond flick.

Times have obviously changed. Cell phones have gradually become smaller, loaded with more features and even more colorful -- the StarTAC and rival phones were often black or gray. With the advent of the MP3 player (around the same time in 1996), the two technologies seemed destined to collide.

These days, technology has evolved to the point where imagination is the only thing slowing the gadget world down. Yet it seems like even our imaginations are running more and more rampant. The result: smartphones.

In the give-it-to-me-now world of communications, smartphones have replaced cell phones, MP3 players, global positioning systems (GPS), personal data assistants (PDA) and in some cases, even computers. That's because phones like the Apple iPhone can do it all.

The iPhone truly is the essence of a smartphone. Good looks, user-friendly interface and capabilities beyond the imagination of most who wield one on a daily basis are many of the attractive attributes that have made Apple's new little gem so popular. Full Internet capabilities, e-mail, GPS, and of course an integrated iPod are just some of the features packed into each iPhone. And for the last several years, independent companies have been able to develop applications (apps) that take full advantage of these features and more.

In this article we will look at iPhone applications available for your car. We know that you're probably thinking, "What's the big deal? Any app on an iPhone is accessible in the car." However, these 10 apps are specifically designed around motor vehicle operation. They cover a wide range of features and functions. Some are practical while others are just downright fun. So here are, in no particular order, the top 10 car-related iPhone apps.

Carticipate is an iPhone app that can be used to share a ride with someone headed in the same direction.

©iStockphoto.com/Lise Gagne

10: Carticipate

Let's face it: Right now, the world's economy is in the proverbial toilet and the need for penny pinching has risen to new heights. That, coupled with the world population's ever-increasing carbon footprint, has given way to increasing efforts in alternate transportation. iPhone users can now do their part by using Carticipate, a free rideshare application downloadable from iTunes.

Carticipate brings fellow commuters together into a large social network of individuals looking to save money on fuel while also contributing to the environment by emitting less CO2 into the air in the form of emissions.

Carticipate users can search for ride locations near their cities of residence or business travel, and the sites aren't limited to the United States. International users have the same capabilities as their U.S. counterparts, and since the iPhone works all around the world, the application can be configured in English, German, French, Dutch, Italian and Spanish.

As the Carticipate network grows, the utility of the application is sure to have long-term benefits. Carticipate doubles as a social network as users are most likely to have similar concerns including environmental interests.

Up next, find out how your iPhone can save you money at the pump.

9: iGasUp

Fuel prices have become a point of contention among the world's commuters. As recently as November 2011, the price of crude oil topped $100 and analysts were predicting that the price of gas would soon be back to $4 per gallon. But no matter how bad gas prices get, you can always find the lowest prices, no matter where you are, with iGasUp.

For just $2.99, iPhone users can download the iGasUp application and have updated gas station locations and fuel prices at their fingertips. The app gives users the 10 closest gas stations based on the phone's current location. iGasUp uses information derived from Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) -- the same entity that provides price data for AAA, Sirius Satellite Radio and GPS companies such as Garmin.

iGasUp boasts a network of more than 110,000 filling stations across the U.S. Once a driver uses his or her iPhone to pull up the closest 10 gas stations, the information can be sorted by cheapest or closest. The prices are updated frequently and each has a time stamp that indicates the freshness of the price. Users can then plot their course to the filling station of their choice by using the interactive Maps found on the iPhone.

Can your iPhone really prevent you from getting a speeding ticket? Find out on the next page.

Apple iPhone users with the Trapster app are hoping to avoid a scene like this one.

©iStockphoto.com/Bill Grove

8: Trapster

Have you ever driven down the road only to have an oncoming vehicle flashing its lights as you approach? Chances are someone is trying to warn you of a speed trap. If you have an iPhone, you won't have to rely on these visual signals from other drivers. With Trapster, you can scan your area for any known speed traps, police hang outs, speed cameras or even stop-light cameras.

Trapster displays your location on a map using the iPhone's WiFi location capabilities. Reported speed traps, which users enter into the Trapster's network database, pop up along your route. Trapster's settings allow users to setup their iPhones to give voice alerts of approaching speed traps and the dynamic radar feature compensates for a driver's speed and direction in radar to relay accurate warnings. Signal cameras and police traps show up on the display as icons for easy recognition. Although not required, users are encouraged to join the Trapster network. Registered users can then receive text messages for real time police reporting and enter new speed trap locations. Over time, the Trapster software recognizes credible reports and dismisses ones that may have been entered falsely.

With a network of more than 330,000 users worldwide, nearly two-thirds of those being iPhone owners, the Trapster network has reported more than 5 million speed traps worldwide as of November 2011. It seems that Trapster has replaced the CB radio as the best method of radar detection -- with the exception of illegal radar detection devices. And it's free, too.

Do you have any idea how "green" you drive? Confused by this question? Maybe you should read the next page.

7: TripAlyzer

More and more vehicles are coming equipped with onboard data centers that measure everything from thevehicle's fuel efficiency to average speed. If you don't happen to have these features in your vehicle, fear not. TripAlyzer, developed by Surich Technologies Inc., is for iPhone owners that want to get from point A to point B as quickly (and efficiently) as possible.

At just $5.99, TripAlyzer is more expensive than some of the other iPhone apps. However, once downloaded, iPhone users can enter and save all vehicle information and begin tracking their driving habits. TripAlyzer users the same technology as the GPS systems for the iPhone -- cell tower or WiFi triangulation -- and is designed to analyze your driving habits to calculate how efficiently you use your fuel. For those of you already hypermiling, TripAlyzer will let you know how well you're doing with your eco-friendly driving skills. After each trip, TripAlyzer can also give you a bottom line cost of how much you spent.

By simply entering your odometer reading, TripAlyzer will track the distance of your trip and provide you with valuable information that you can store for future use. Since the intent of TripAlyzer is to help users drive more efficiently and cut down on CO2 emissions at the same time, the app also reminds you of service intervals and can even let you know what your carbon footprint looks like.

Any driver who's been caught in traffic appreciates advance warnings about where the bottlenecks are. Our next app will give you just that.

The INRIX Traffic app can provide you a wealth of traffic information for your daily commute or even just a short trip across town.

Nycretoucher/Riser/Getty Images

6: INRIX Traffic

Even if your car has a GPS with built-in traffic information, you might find that the INRIX Traffic app can help you plan your route in ways that your GPS can't. Of course, to access the more advanced route-planning services that the INRIX Traffic app offers, you'll need to pay $24.99 to upgrade to INRIX Traffic premium, but even the basic free app gives you a wealth of traffic information for your daily commute or just for a trip across town.

Here are some of the things that INRIX Traffic can do even without the upgrade:

• Incidents: A list of traffic events, updated via the Internet, which may affect the route you plan to take. These include accidents, crowds at major sporting events, convention traffic and other tie-ups reported by members of the INRIX Traffic community.
• Comparative Traffic: A map of the local area with traffic density marked out in color-coded lines that tell you which routes have light traffic and which routes are bumper to bumper.
• Predictions: A timeline that allows you to project traffic for the 15-minute interval during which you plan to be traveling.

There are several other traffic apps available for the iPhone, but INRIX Traffic has a solid community of users reporting conditions and, if you use the app, you join that community too. If what you see on the road doesn't agree with what you see on the app, you can report the mistake with the click of a single on-screen button.

Once INRIX Traffic gets you where you're going, you'll need a place to park. The next app will help you find one.

5: Parker for iPhone

This app hangs from the tops of high buildings swinging on spider webs to help you find a parking place ... oh, wait. That's Peter Parker, the Amazing Spiderman. Parker for iPhone doesn't wear a spider suit, but it does pretty much the same things that Peter Parker would do if Peter Parker helped you park -- namely, it gives you a rooftop view of the local street situation and tells you where the parking places are.

With the cooperation of the Departments of Transportation in several major cities, including New York, Dallas, Los Angeles and Boston, the San Francisco company Streetline has installed electronic sensors in selected neighborhoods to detect whether parking places are occupied or empty. This data is broadcast to a central location and can be accessed via the Parker app.

Parker for iPhone has a wealth of features, as well as a built-in tutorial to show you what they are and how to use them. They include the ability to choose a city and an area within that city that has parking sensors, a map showing a numeric count of the number of open spaces within a specific area, color coded icons on that map to point you to blocks with the largest number of open spaces, and a special display showing the fee charged by meters or commercial parking garages at the place where you want to park. In some instances, you can even pay for parking directly from the app. And once you've started a meter ticking, Parker will not only time it for you and remind you when it's about to run out, but will use your iPhone's built-in GPS to predict whether you have enough time to walk back to your car before the meter expires. If you drive much in major metropolitan areas, Parker can make your life easier and save you from a lot of frustration when you need to get out of your car and walk.

But for even larger scale travel plans, the next app can help you find your way around much of the United States -- and Canada too.

4: TomTom USA & Canada

At $59.99 plus a $20-a-year subscription if you want real-time traffic updates, this is the most expensive app in this list, but it may also be the most powerful. TomTom USA & Canada uses the GPS in your iPhone to turn it into, well, a TomTom GPS. So if the app seems a bit pricey, consider how much more it would cost to buy the GPS device itself.

Once installed, TomTom USA & Canada does everything a good automobile GPS should do. It calculates routes for you (and lets you customize them), depicts the routes visually on your iPhone's screen as both 2D maps and 3D lane displays for the freeway, and shows useful information like when you'll arrive at your destination and how fast you're traveling. You can use the iPhone's touch-screen to set destinations and you can listen to clear voice instructions (which in many cars can be output through the radio or Bluetooth interface) that will briefly fade any music you might be playing so that you won't have any trouble hearing them. You can even get voice instructions, if desired, while making calls on the iPhone.

Be warned that TomTom USA & Canada is a memory-hungry program and will immediately zap 1.5 gigabytes of your iPhone's memory for the app itself plus additional space for data. So the extra cost of turning your phone into a GPS may be saying goodbye to a large chunk of your favorite music and to that copy of Angry Birds you were planning to play at the next roadstop.

Once you're off on that trip, you might start worrying that you left the garage door open. Wouldn't it be nice if you could check without calling a neighbor or driving all the way back home? Now you can -- with the next app.

The Craftsman Garage Door app can determine if the garage door is open or closed.

Mel/Getty Images

3: Craftsman Garage Door App

If you have a garage then you have a garage door opener, aremote control device that you can use to open and close your garage door from inside your car or even inside your house. But most garage door openers require that you be somewhere close to the garage before they'll work. Craftsman's garage door opener is different. It will work from any place you can get an iPhone signal.

Why would you want it to do that? Well, for one thing you might be worried that you left the garage door open, leaving all the random junk -- er, valuable possessions -- that you store in there vulnerable to theft. The Craftsman Garage Door app can determine if the garage door is open or closed and it can close it if it isn't. Or if someone needs to get into your garage -- a courier making an important delivery, say, or a contractor working on your house -- you can use the Craftsman app to open the door for them and close it when they're done. Special anti-burglary coding in the remote unlocking system prevents would-be robbers from emulating the remote function and opening the garage door for themselves.

So what's the catch? The catch is that you'll need the Craftsman AssureLink Internet Connected DC Chain Drive Garage Door Opener installed on your garage door, and that's going to cost you more than $200 at Sears. But the app itself is free. It's up to you to decide whether this service is worth the cost to you, but at least the AssureLink Garage Door Opener has other features, such as a keyless entry pad and a 10-year warranty on its motor, even apart from the convenience of the app. And maybe you were already planning to replace your aging garage door hardware.

Our next app also requires extra (if somewhat less expensive) hardware, but it will let you tap into the deepest computerized recesses of your car without having to pay the mechanic at your local garage to give your car a diagnosis.

2: GoPoint App

The free GoPoint app works with the GoPoint cable (which costs $100, but can be purchased online for less) to plug into your car's On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) port -- don't worry: Every car manufactured since 1995 has one -- to give you real-time information from the vehicle's built-in computer diagnostic system. This is the sort of thing that your local mechanic will do using a piece of equipment that cost thousands of dollars, but your iPhone can do it for the cost of a cable and the time you spend downloading an app. Some people would consider that a bargain.

What sort of information can the GoPoint app extract from the OBD port? Well, if you already know that your car is experiencing some kind of problem -- for instance, if the Check Engine light is flashing -- the GoPoint app can give you the Diagnostic Trouble Code (DTC) for it. These are standardized codes and the GoPoint app will define them for you in plain English. Unless you're a mechanic, you might not be able to deal with the problem itself, but you'll know what to expect when you take your car into the shop and can verify that your mechanic isn't just inventing expensive problems that will cost you a fortune to fix.

Oh, yes -- once you've purchased the GoPoint cable, there are additional apps that work with it, not just from GoPoint but from third-party developers, so that you can do things like monitor your fuel economy in real time.

The final iPhone app on our list has a funny name, but after you read about what it can do, chances are you won't be laughing.

Dynolicious provides a full range of performance data for drivers who want to test their driving skills and learn their vehicle's capabilities.

©iStockphoto.com/John Prescott

1: Dynolicious

If you have a hot rod, or at least you think you have what it takes to be the next John Force, Dynolicious may be the right iPhone application for you. Similar to other performance meters (some that cost hundreds of dollars) Dynolicious is the equivalent of having a radar gun, a drag strip timing mechanism and a dynamometer in the palm of your hand -- all for just $12.99.

At a touch of the screen, you can measure quarter-mile (0.4 kilometer) elapsed times and trap speeds, lateral g-forces, 0-60 mph (0-97 kilometers per hour) times and speeds, braking g-forces and even horsepower (or kilowatts). Dynolicious uses the iPhone's built-in three-axis accelerometers to calculate each parameter to surprising accuracy. Once you enter in your vehicle's information (which includes the weight after factoring in fuel and passengers), the accelerometers inside the iPhone sense vehicle movement and translate it into to real-time data. That data can then be saved for later reference. The Dynolicious application even allows users to edit vehicle settings and enter specific modifications to increase accuracy.

With an average rating of four stars at the Apple App Store, Dynolicious can be purchased for the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, the 3Gs, the iPhone 4 and 4S as well as the iPod touch.

Make no mistake about it; Dynolicious is geared toward those with a need for speed. Of course, HowStuffWorks doesn't encourage speeding or reckless behavior, but anyone curious about the performance of their vehicle will surely get a kick out of putting your skills to the test -- even if it is in the family's minivan.

So there you have it, 10 really cool iPhone applications available for your car. If you'd like more information about iPhone car apps or other automotive electronics, follow the links on the next page.

Briggs, Josh, and Christopher Lampton.  "Top 10 iPhone Apps for Your Car"  10 February 2009.  HowStuffWorks.com. <http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/automotive/5-iphone-car-apps.htm>  05 June 2012.

RIM Releases BlackBerry Torch 9860 In India Market

RIM expands the sales market of its BlackBerry Torch 9860 by releasing the device in India market. The BlackBerry Torch 9860, which has a 3.7-inch touchscreen display with resolution of 480 x 800-pixel, costs about $599.

Powered by a 1.2GHz processor, a 768MB RAM and a 4GB of internal storage, the BlackBerry Torch 9860 also features a 5MP autofocus camera with 720p HD video recording, 14.4 Mbps HSDPA, 5.76 Mbps HSUPA, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth and a microSD card slot. Running BlackBerry OS 7, it comes with a 1,230mAh battery.

The iPhone 5 Set To Boost Video Recording To 1080P

Author: Emma Rosher

There has been no confirmation about the specification that we can expect on the forthcoming iPhone 5. Rather than focus on the various rumors flying around at the moment we thought that it may be a good idea to take a look at some of the features the consumer would like to see incorporated in this new model upon its release.

With the iPhone 4 sporting 720P video capture we should expect nothing less on the iPhone 5 and perhaps even an update to the highest quality 1080P recording. The advantage of capturing footage in this quality is that it will look superb on a compatable large screen television. On the older models consumers needed to purchase a special converter from Apple to enable the device to be plugged into a television. Android handsets on the other hand come complete with a micro HDMI socket which enables the simple connection to other equipment. This is something iPhone users would love to see on the new phone and their wish may well come true as Apple are set to incorporate Airplay Mirroring into the new phone. This concept revolves around you watching material on a large screen at the same time as it is displayed on the phones own display. Given the focus Apple have placed on this feature and the benefits that a micro HDMI connection would have do not be surprised to see one added to the new models specification.

Something missing from previous iPhones was the option to add removable memory and it is something that many users would like to see on the new iPhone 5. This type of memory normally takes the form of a micro SD card slot and enables the user to insert a card up to 32GB in size to expand the phones own internal storage. The card has many advantages because being removable it can easily be plugged into another device such as a laptop in order to view material. The chances of this being implemented however are fairly slim as the phone is set to sport some of the highest internal storage currently available. There is no question that we will see a 16GB model and a 32GB model and there is talk of a premium 64GB device being released so the need for external storage is greatly reduced. It is however an aspect of previous iPhones that customers disliked so there is always a chance Apple may bow to public pressure and facilitate this feature.

The iPhone 5 is bound to be a massive success upon its release but we cannot help but feel that the inclusion of features such as we have mentioned above would further add to the handsets appeal in the marketplace.

The iPhone 5 is coming soon and the iPhone 4 is available now.