mTrip Blog » applications

mTrip Travel Guide allows you to share postcards Offline while you travel

Sabrina — Wed, 04 May 2011 14:11:25 +0000

Are you nervous to use apps on your iPhone or Android while traveling abroad? Do you fear that you will incur roaming fees or eat up your data plan? This is an understandable fear and in the case of mTrip, it isn’t a problem! I’m no different than you in that I would never use an app while abroad if I thought it would charge me extra fees.

Most of you who use mTrip though already know that everything is offline, including:

The mTrip Genius trip planner
Maps & Directions
Augmented Reality
Travel Guide directory
Creating postcards & reviews

To share a postcard, here’s how:

Go to the ‘Guide’ tab > go to any place in the guide (attraction, hotel, bar, etc…) > tap on the ‘Postcard’ icon in the bottom right corner and voila!

Once you have a WIFI connection, you can go to the ‘Share’ tab to send your postcards via Facebook or email (or send it right away if you like)

To share a review, here’s how:

We’ve just made updates to mTrip, allowing you to send your reviews & ratings via Facebook and share with your friends. You can save them as pending & just wait for WIFI to avoid fees from your data plan. As before, you can share your reviews with other travelers inside the mTrip app.

As an app developer, especially in travel we try to be creative in offering our users an experience that is Offline yet still allows travelers to do the interesting things that are only available online. This is where syncing updates and sharing on social networks and email come into play.

To send the postcards or share reviews/tips, you just want to wait for a WIFI connection to sync the updates. In other words, if I create a postcard, I will wait until I arrive back at my hotel, a cafe with free WIFI or home to send the postcards by Facebook or email. They will be waiting for me in the mTrip share tab. Using mTrip’s postcard sharing feature saves me the task of finding postcards and stamps and sending them by snail mail. Instead, I can share the pictures along my journey so my friends and family can see what I’m doing at that moment, as opposed to much later when I have already left that location.

We hope you enjoy the sharing features! If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments.

Roam large with no roaming charge!

Download the iPhone & Android travel apps here!

mTrip Travel Guides unveils its application on Android devices

Sabrina — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 20:24:54 +0000

Today we are excited to announce the launch of mTrip Travel Guides on Android! The app is offering Android users a new way to plan their itineraries, navigate their trips and share their travel experiences with others. The mTrip Travel Guide apps deliver information on thousands of attractions, restaurants, bars, hotels and shopping destinations, with offline mapping, directions, trip planning, augmented reality and trip sharing. The Android versions of the mTrip apps are available for download from Google’s Android Market.

mTrip’s offering on Android is similar to its application on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, with easy to navigate buttons and an intelligent trip planning and guiding experience.

Features include:

The ‘mTrip Genius‘, which automatically creates personalized trip itineraries, taking into account travel interests, trip dates, accommodation, pace preference, and traveler ratings
Full travel guide directory with attractions, monuments, restaurants, hotels, bars, shopping and other destinations
Ratings, reviews and image galleries contributed by experts and travelers
Augmented Reality with points of interest super-imposed onto ones phone
Offline map and location-based navigation by foot or subway
Sharing e-postcards via Facebook and email
Free daily updates
No Internet required (except sharing and updates done through WiFi)

We are really excited to extend our commitment to travelers by offering mTrip on more mobile devices. We can’t wait to get our app in the hands and footsteps of more travelers!

If you have any questions or comments about the new Android app, leave them here or get in touch with the Support team at support@mtrip.com

City destinations available: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Munich, London, Madrid, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Venice, Vienna, Istanbul, Dublin, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Washington, Tokyo, Singapore and Shanghai.

Grab your brand new mTrip travel app for Android!

Weekend Venice: See and be seen…

Sabrina — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 14:55:50 +0000

Italy’s lagoon city is a magical land of ancient palaces, belltowers and bridges with myriad delights tucked away in a labyrinth of secret passageways. If you only have 48 hours to criss-cross the canals of this fair city, here are the must-see star attractions and coolest places to hang out.

See…

The Art: Venice is renowned for its modern art and most notably for playing host to the prestigious Art Biennale which showcases works by the biggest names in the art world and launches the careers of the up-and-coming. The 2011 Biennale (the event is staged every other year and this year is the 54^th International Art Exhibition) showcases exhibitions, installations and events held in the historic Arsenale, in national pavilions, and public gardens across the city. Whatever time of year you visit, the Peggy Guggenheim Museum (Dorsoduro 701, Fondamenta Venier dei Leoni), which houses a stunning collection of 20^th-century art, is a must-see.

The Landmarks: Run through Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square), with thousands of pigeon wings flapping above your head, then take a seat at one of the cafés for the perfect people watching opportunity and caffeine fix. Take a tour of the interior of the stunning St. Mark’s Basilica, and the Campanile (the belltower of St Mark’s), visit the Doge’s Palace, and if you’re here on a romantic break, steal a kiss on the famous Rialto Bridge. By all means treat yourselves to one gondolier ride to glide past the palaces and churches of Grand Canal but for general sightseeing, travel like the locals and go by vaporetti – small ferry boats that plough up and down the main canals with numerous stops across the city.

The Islands: Tear yourself away from Grand Canal and explore the islands that dot the lagoons around Venice. For picture-perfect photo opportunities, take the ferry for a trip to Burano, a pretty island famous for its brightly-coloured fishermen’s houses and lace making. Take a stroll around the harbour and visit the lace-making museum (Museo del Merletto). Or visit Murano, an island town close to Venice’s northern shore, famous for glassmaking. Here, you can visit the many glassmaking factories, watch the artisans at work and buy beautiful glasswares and jewellery direct from the factory shops and showrooms that line the main canalsides. To learn more about the island’s history of glass-making, visit the Glass Museum (Museo del Vetro).

Be seen at…

The Carnival: While Carnevale celebrations in all other towns across Italy are made for kids, in Venice this annual shindig is very much an adult affair with lavish costume parades, mulled wine and cocktails and the famous masked balls. Hotels encourage their guests to join in by at least wearing a mask – readily available in stores throughout the city – and you can enjoy free entertainment and public shows around St. Mark’s Square and watch costumed characters parade through the streets. The 2011 Carnival runs from February 26 – March 8 and if you want to go to one of the masked balls, book your tickets well in advance – they sell out fast.

The beach: The Lido, an 11 km long sandbar, which separates the central part of the Venetian lagoon from the Adriatic Sea, is Venice’s beach and home to swanky hotels including the Excelsior and Hotel Des Bains, the setting for Thomas Mann’s classic novel Death in Venice. Most of the beaches are private, but you’ll find two public beaches situated in the northern and southern ends of the island. The gritty sands aren’t particularly pretty by usual Med holiday standards but the Lido is the place to be in summer and it’s always packed in high season.

The bar: Of all the bars in Venice, it has to be Harry’s Bar (Calle Vallaresso, San Marco). Synonymous with the city, this up market watering hole across from the famous Cipriani Hotel was graced by the likes of Proust and Byron and today is no stranger to celebrities. Soak up the atmosphere but steel yourself for the bill, which will back a bigger punch than its signature Bellini cocktail – a cheeky blend of fresh peach juice and prosecco.

This post was written by Natalie Walsh, travel expert at Specialist Italy Holidays website www.citalia.com

Gifting an App from iTunes

Sabrina — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:41:54 +0000

Shopping for holiday gifts can be very stressful – the shops are packed to the gills and lets face it, it’s difficult to shop for almost everyone these days.

A great idea this holiday season is gifting an app from iTunes. They are easy to purchase, you don’t have to fight the crazy shopping crowds and with so many apps in the App Store, you can easily tailor the gift to just about anyone.

Here’s how:

Click the screenshot to enlarge

In iTunes go to iTunes store in source list
Search mTrip (or whatever app it is) in the top right corner search box
Choose the specific app you would like to give
Click on the arrow to the right of the Buy button
Select ‘Gift this App’
You will either be asked to sign into your iTunes account with your name and password or you will be navigated to the ‘Give a Gift’ page. Once here, you will have to fill in your details, and gift recipients details as well as a personal message. You will also be asked if you would like to send the gift via email or if you would like to print the gift yourself
Once you’ve signed in and completed the ‘Give a Gift’ form, you wil be brought to a page where you can review and confirm your purchase

It’s just that easy to gift an app. From business to travel, music to medical and more there really is an app for that person who has everything.

What kinds of gifts are you giving this holiday season? Are you planning on gifting any apps?

iTunes Rewind – Hot Trends for apps in 2010

Sabrina — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 20:13:39 +0000

The iTunes Store went live with its year-in-review, Rewind 2010. Among the list, they included the top App Store selections for iOS software, broken down by iPhone and iPad. iTunes chose to feature the hot trends that struck a chord with consumers this year, along with the top paid, top free and top grossing apps.

iTunes broke down the top apps by individual categories. For the city guides category we are honoured to say we were rewarded #1 in Germany for our Paris city guide and #3 in France for our Amsterdam city guide!

Hot Trends for 2010

For iPhone, the hot trends categories featured were Augmented Reality, Fun for Foodies, New News, Generative Art & Sound, Tech for Tots, The Cloud, Quick Fix Games, Hardcore Games, Retro Revival Games, Multiplayer Games, On the Grid, Personal Training, Band in your Head, Zombies and Shoot, edit, share.

One of the hottest trends for 2010 was Augmented Reality (AR) and we are happy to say we made the iTune’s Rewind list for 2010! Another app that made the AR list was Star Wars Arcade: Falcon Gunner, which claims to turn ones surroundings into epic space battles. Other AR apps featured include Style.com, ARDefender, and Hidden Sky.

iTunes Rewind: 2010 Hot Trends Augmented Reality

For iPad, there was much overlap in the categories chosen. They didn’t include photo and video apps due to the iPad’s lack of camera but they did include new categories like Pen & Brush and Mobile Office, which are much more relevant for iPad users.

If you regularly go on the App Store, their top paid and free apps won’t come as a big surprise. The top overall paid iPhone apps include Angry Birds, Doodle Jump, Skee-Ball, Bejeweled 2, Fruit Ninja, Cut the Rope, GAMEBOX 1, Plants vs. Zombies, and Pocket God. Top overall free iPhone apps include iBooks, Pandora Radio, Netflix, Google Mobile App, Solitaire, Movies by Flixster, IMDb Movies & TV, Kindle, Google Earth and Virtuoso.

To see all the top iPhone and iPad apps as well as the top TV shows, music, movies, audiobooks and podcasts for 2010, visit the iTunes Rewind microsite

Three New iPhone Travel Guides – Dublin, Istanbul & Munich

Sabrina — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:09:08 +0000

mTrip has three new city guides available – you can now travel with mTrip to Dublin, Istanbul and Munich.

All guides are available for download in the App Store – Get more information at mTrip

All travel guides currently available include: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, London, Madrid, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Venice, Vienna, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Washington, Dublin, Istanbul and Munich, with new guides being added monthly.

If you have any questions about the guides please don’t hesitate to get in touch – support @ mtrip dot com

Don’t forget to leave a rating in the App Store!

Thanks for your support,

The mTrip Team

New Features & Updates on mTrip!

Sabrina — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:57:58 +0000

As a new and growing company, mTrip is constantly evolving with new technology and features so travelers will always have the most intelligent and animated trip experiences. At mTrip’s launch we put much focus on two of our most unique and technologically advanced features – Augmented Reality (AR) and the brilliant mTrip Genius.

As you may already know, Augmented Reality is one of the newest and most exciting features on iPhone apps, especially in the travel industry. AR allows travelers to not only gain a greater perspective of their surroundings, but also to get a quick snapshot of all the tourist attractions, restaurants, hotels etc in any given area. While more and more developers are starting to add AR to their apps, mTrip was one of the first in the travel industry to launch this feature, even ahead of Lonely Planet.

Last week we talked about the mTrip Genius, a travel itinerary planner like no other. It generates your trip itinerary based on all the important factors you would normally take into account before planning a travel itinerary – trip dates, accommodation, travel interests, pace preference, traveler ratings and so on.

The Genius looks simple but what’s really going on behind the scenes only the intelligent algorithm knows! Leave that to us!

The mTrip Genius technology is exclusive to mTrip!

So what’s new on mTrip, you ask?

Search Function

Whereas before the mTrip search function allowed you to find a point of interest within a specific category, you can now search much more broadly.

Once you are in the app, just go into the ‘More’ tab and tap on ‘Search’ – start entering the point of interest name or even street name and mTrip’s travel directory will pull up the matching queries. Each search query that is populated will indicate what type of point of interest it is – restaurant, hotel, attraction, etc…

Multi-Tasking on iOS 4

If you have the iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 and you have updated your system to iOS 4, multi-tasking will be one of your greatest tools. Lets say you want to add a new hotel to the travel guide but you don’t know the address and therefore need to access the Internet. Instead of quitting the app and starting over, you simply double tap the home screen button; this will bring you to more options for choosing what you want to do next. When you are done, double tap it again to return to mTrip.

Currency Converter

Go into the ‘More’ tab in the mTrip app to access the new currency converter and get exchange rates for the city you are visiting. Do note that the currency converter will give you the exchange rate for the city associated with the travel guide you purchased (if you purchased mTrip Paris it will give you the Є exchange rate). It will use your home currency automatically for the exchange rate but if you want to change that, go into ‘Settings’ in the ‘More’ tab and simply change your home currency. Don’t forget – within each point of interest in the travel guide directory, mTrip already lists out prices in your home currency. The work there is already done for you!

New Design for Directions

mTrip has simplified its design within the Map, for getting directions to and from points of interest. Now you simply tap on either the walking symbol or the subway symbol to get where you need to go, fast.

Edit/Delete Points of Interest

For those mTrip users that are creating their own updates to the travel guide, this will be a helpful update. If you add a point of interest to the travel guide and later decide you want to edit or delete it, no problem – the option is now given to you. Simply go into your Favorites and edit or delete the point of interest from there.

Additional Travel Guides Added

This month mTrip added five new city guides to its repertoire – Madrid, Moscow, Vienna and Washington, D.C. We are frequently adding new city guides monthly so check back soon for the latest travel guides!

Download an mTrip Travel Guide for iPhone and iPod Touch!

Image source: Augmented Planet – http://www.augmentedplanet.com/2010/09/mtrip-augmented-reality-city-guides/

mTrip Genius is no lightweight trip planner!

Sabrina — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 20:54:29 +0000

mTrip Travel Guides launched just two months ago with some of the best technology for travel apps out there. One of mTrip’s most unique trip planning features is the all mighty MTRIP GENIUS!!!

This feature is exclusive technology, in other words, mTrip is the only travel application offering this complex feature. The mTrip Genius is like your personal tour guide because not only does it plan your trip itinerary, it also guides you around the city to each point of interest you plan to visit. Let me explain…

For the traveler, its simple because the mTrip Genius does the thinking for you; however, what may look like a simple trip itinerary planner is really the work of a genius algorithm calculating your trip itinerary to absolute perfection. Visiting a new city? Don’t know what neighborhoods to visit? What attractions to see? How to order your trip?

So what elements are packed into the mTrip Genius’ algorithm to create your most customized trip itinerary?

* Trip Dates * When you launch the app, a screen pops up that asks you to indicate your trip dates on a calendar – the day you arrive at your destination and the day you return. Further, you are asked to specify what period of the day you are leaving.

* Accommodation * Next, you are asked to tell the guide where you are staying for the duration of your trip. The point is to tell the guide your start point for your trip so mTrip can create an itinerary that makes geographical sense. You have multiple options – you can find your hotel in mTrip’s travel directory, add a place to the guide (if the hotel is for some reason not in the directory or if you are staying with a family member, for example), OR you can simply choose ‘City Center’ if for example you don’t know where you are staying. You can always change your start point later and re-order your trip.

* mTrip Genius * Here’s where you get to tell the guide your preferences. Whereas you can choose to create your own trip itinerary from scratch (adding points of interest one by one), I’m going to explain how the Genius does all the work for you.

When you click on the mTrip Genius, you are taken to a screen that asks you to specify your sightseeing preferences. The four main categories are museums, monuments, parks and religious. You can choose the intensity (or lack thereof) for each of these and then you can also choose the intensity of your trip overall. Do you prefer a fast-paced, non-stop globe-trotting experience or do you prefer to slow it down to a strolling pace?

Next, you indicate whether you want the guide to suggest Top Attractions or Alternative Attractions. The way the Genius calculates this is based on traveler ratings and number of ratings. Higher ratings from more people indicates a top attraction whereas high ratings from fewer people indicates an alternative, off-the-beaten path and possibly hidden gem type of attraction! Lastly, tell the guide whether you want to include your favourites in the itinerary. When perusing the guide, you can save a point of interest as a favorite, which will add it to your trip itinerary.

Now you are ready to launch the mTrip Genius! Now that it knows the facts, it can work its magic to create your ultimate trip! This will only take a few seconds and voila! You can view each day of your trip in list or map view. In list view, you will notice that you can get distances and directions to each point of interest. You simply indicate if you want the guide to calculate the route from the previous point of interest in your trip itinerary (this is very helpful when you are actually traveling to and from each place in the order your itinerary suggest) or if you want to choose your current location on the map and get routed from there. You can then view your route step-by-step by either Subway or foot. It’s magical!

What else can you do from your trip itinerary? You can view each point of interest from the travel guide directory so you can get the details and make sure this trip suggestion is of interest to you. If not, you can edit your trip itinerary, remove points of interest, move them around to suit your schedule or even add your own places from the travel guide directory or your own personal ones. You can also change or regenerate your trip itinerary at any time if the weather or your plans change, etc…

Don’t forget to check out the Smart Order tool, another one of mTrip’s Genius functions. This tool will take your entire itinerary and ‘smart order’ it so that it makes sense based on the geographical locations of each point of interest and your starting point (your accommodation or the city centre). Once your trip is Smart Ordered, check out your itinerary in map view. You will notice the logical order of your trip – no more running around the city and wasting valuable time on your awesome vacation!

Did I mention that there are no roaming fees and no Internet connection required for this? What a GENIUS!!!

Any questions about the mTrip Genius? Leave a comment and let us know how we can help!

Get an mTrip Travel Guide! Current travel guides (as of August 20, 2010) include:

Paris Guide
London Guide
Berlin Guide
Rome Guide
Venice Guide

Amsterdam Guide
Barcelona Guide
Madrid Guide
Moscow Guide
Vienna Guide

New York Guide
Chicago Guide
San Francisco Guide
Washington Guide

5 new destinations for iPhone & iPod Touch: Madrid, Vienna, Moscow, Washington and Venice

Frederic — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:37:04 +0000

Madrid Download >
Moscow Download >
Venice Download >
Vienna Download >
Washington DC Download >

“[...] it looks like mTrip will blow them away with its unique spin on the traditional tour guide app.”

“Don’t travel without them… I came away impressed.”

“Actually knowing what I’m doing and where I’m going in a world otherwise new to me… priceless”

“…will create a personalized itinerary, with walking or mass transit directions… offline”

Unique Features:

Automated itinerary planner – With its exclusive technology mTrip offers an automated trip planner. Using an advanced algorithm, the guide suggests the most personalized trip to reflect the travelers interests, trip dates, pace preference, opening hours, geographical locations of tourist attractions as well as traveler ratings.

Expert, quality content – The guide contains tons of tourist attractions, restaurants, shopping, nightlife and hotels with ratings, recommendations, pictures and additional information. All expert content is provided by Falk CIS, one of Europe’s leading travel content providers. The user-generated content is provided by travelers, updated daily for free and available directly on iPhone and iPod Touch.

Navigation – The guide locates the traveler on the map automatically and displays the most optimal route by subway or foot to any point of interest. This feature is even available on iPod Touch! The user can also view any point of interest in the area. This is all done offline with no roaming fees.

Augmented Reality – The traveler can look through the iPhone 4 or 3GS to display the city and all the tourist attractions in the area at a heightened, surreal view. No Internet connection is required.

Trip Sharing – The traveler can send postcards via Facebook and email to be sent to friends and family. mTrip users can add ratings and reviews to each point of interest, to be shared with other travelers using the application. Unlimited sharing is free and no roaming is required.

Other Available City Guides:
London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Barcelona,
New York, San Francisco and Chicago

Available languages:
English, French, German, Spanish and Italian

Download links to App Store:
http://www.mtrip.com/travel-guide/iphone/

What do Apple iPhone apps have to offer Travelers?

Sabrina — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:44:48 +0000

The iPhone has opened the door to a world of opportunity not only in the tech world, but also in our personal lives. More and more developers are jumping on board daily to create the most interesting, useful and unique apps for every type of user you can possibly imagine.

From books and music, to travel and weather (and a whole lot more), iPhone apps are appealing to every interest, every daily dilemma and every person.

I could write for hours on how the different categories of iPhone apps benefit users but I want to focus in on the category of Travel.

So, how do iPhone apps help travelers?

From pre-trip planning, to sightseeing and post-trip sharing, there is a vast amount of apps that cover one, some or all of these activities.

Pre-Trip Planning

There are some iPhone travel apps that help you book your flight and then send you your flight itinerary so you have a record on file. Others focus on recommendations for hotels and tourist attractions to visit. Before you even leave for your trip, you can have your entire trip itinerary planned out, day by day, activity by activity. Some travel apps even take into account ones personal travel interests, trip dates and geographical locations to determine the most personalized trip for the user.

Sightseeing

This is obviously the big one. It’s not unusual for a traveler to stop by a bookstore before a trip and pick up a travel guide to take along on a trip. While paperback travel guides are the tried and tested solution for those seeking more info on tourist destinations, they don’t necessarily offer the traveler the most advanced and unique trip experience, nor do they offer much more value beyond some trip recommendations.

For travelers seeking a more heightened experience, they can opt for many different types of iPhone apps.

Types of apps include advanced travel guides that might be user-generated and/or produced by travel pro’s, traveler-generated ratings, reviews and comments for tourist attractions, map functions, directions to and from destinations, sharing features like postcards and updates sent through email and social networks, and even Augmented Reality tools which overlay helpful travel info onto one’s phone, allowing the person to experience and learn a city in a way they have never been able to before.

Users have to be careful though as some apps might require Internet and they could incur roaming fees. This is always important to check out before going ahead and buying the app.

Post-Trip Sharing

After a trip, many travelers like to have a place they can store all their memories. More and more developers are taking into consideration this very important need and are adding a new platform to their apps, the Internet. Developers are creating social network sites where travelers can share their trips, photos, memories, ratings, reviews and more with other travelers and always have a place where they can refer back to their trip and remember the good times they had.

Here are a few travel app recommendations we will leave you with:

FlightTrack – Track all your flights worldwide with zoomable maps and real-time departure info

Wi-Fi Finder – The largest directory of paid and free Wi-Fi Internet access in 140 countries

iLanguage – Quick, accurate and easy two-way translations

The Currency Convertor – Updated currency conversion info for all commonly used currencies

For other interesting iPhone apps visit: iPhoneLife Magazine

For more on planning a trip with the iPhone, visit mTrip Travel Guides

Image source by Okinawa Steve at http://www.flickr.com/photos/15427016@N02/