Top 5 Outdoor iPhone Applications

Gareth    General Outdoor     android, apps, iphone, smartphone

We reckon this blog post might get a few hackles up, there has been some intense debate in the office on this subject and there still isn’t agreement on all of them! We wanted to see what apps we were all using when heading out and about, so without further ado, let’s get straight in to our Top 5 Outdoors Apps in reverse order.

5) Google Earth – FREE Has been around for a while, and it’s always been a fantastic jaw dropper to show just what that Interwebby thing can do. We love it though for the simple fact that it’s no good at route planning or tracking, but does enable us to just fly amongst the hills, dream and plan our next jaunt out and about while flying like a bird.

4)  Go Sky Watch Planetarium – £2.49 Our favourite toy when we are wild camping and looking at the night sky. We really like the fact that you don’t have to touch the screen to navigate the sky and the display automatically shows correctly whatever angle you hold it at. You can ask it to point out Stars and Planets easily, and you have a groovy red version that keeps your night vision, or enables you to pretend you are on a Romulan battlecruiser.

3)  Gridpoint GB – FREE Feels like a bit of a Ronseal advert this one but it does do exactly what it says on the tin. It simply gives you your ordnance survey grid reference for where you are. Pretty handy in a white out or if you are lost. Only useful if you have a map with you, we nonethless think it’s pretty darn handy if you do get in the schtuck and want your phone as a backup to let you know where you are.

2) Gorillacam – FREE Taking photos when you are out and about in the hills is part of the outdoors experience for a lot of us and helps preserve the memories. The best camera as a photographer will often tell you, is the one you have with you, so although I have a nice compact, my iPhone is nearly always with me and has probably recorded more journeys. Gorillacam tweaks the functionality of the default camera to add loads of useful features from an anti-shake facility, rapid fire shooting mode, autosave, grid overlay, bubble level, press anywhere to shoot & time lapse mode. Pretty handy and has now replaced the standard camera application for me on the homepage.

1) Viewranger - £1.99 – £14.99  Our numero uno by some distance. There are a fair few GPS and navigation apps out there now, including classics such as Memory Map, but the one that stood tall in our eyes was Viewranger. Many people now have smartphones, so rather than lashing out on a brand new GPS, why not make use of the power that you have in your pocket? We have already reviewd it back in May and it has without fail been our most used outdoor application. There are two main choices, a £1.99 open maps version or a £14.99 version with credits to download Ordnance Survey or other local maps. Living in the middle of nowhere we love the ability to buy and download a map instantly, plus the maps work without having any signal. They also have a buddy beacon which enables you to track your friends, and link up to either their own service or Social Hiking to show your route real time and share your journey with others. From our point of view it also adds a safety element ensuring you have two maps with you when you head out.

So there we have our top 5 outdoor iPhone apps. Highly subjective and not without some heated debate in the office! We would have included Andriod aps as well but it looks like our office is filled with iPhones only (plus an Experian and one Blackberry) so forgive us for not including them this time around. What are your favourite outdoor apps and why? If you are an Android user, are there any other apps you have on the dark side we don’t have access to?

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