SOURCE: Xavier Lur
Apple’s iPhone is one of the most popular smartphones in Singapore.
iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) penetration in Singapore is the highest in the world at 9.64 per cent, according to Nelso, which took data from AdMob.
The report also noted that Singaporeans had 402,000 iPhones in April 2010 but the number is now estimated to be over 600,000 after the launch of the iPhone 4 in July, which took the smartphone market by storm here.
In this post, Yahoo! Singapore presents to iPhone users 10 most useful homegrown iPhone apps that range from travel, food guides to taxi booking.
GoThere.sg — US$2.99
No idea which bus service takes you from East Coast Park to 313@Somerset?
This is when GoThere.sg comes in handy. The homegrown mapping iPhone app provides users public transport and driving directions anywhere in Singapore, making traveling around the island a breeze.
Once you input in your current location and desired destination, the app will present you four modes of transport — bus, train, taxi, and car. For each of them, useful details such as the fare, duration, distance, ERP charges and number of transfers are listed. Drivers can pick and choose a carpark around their destination and the app will display the rates and guide them there.
Moreover, users can search or browse amenities and businesses around their location.
WeatherLah — FREE
Looking for a convenient way to know what’s the weather like in Pasir Ris Park? Give this sleek app a try. The WeatherLah app tells you today’s PSI level, temperature range and a short summary of the weather forecast in certain locations of the island.
Informing users when there is a heavy downpour, when the PSI level gets too high, or even when it rains in specific locations around Singapore through alerts is one the key features of this app.
The app also streams live Twitter updates from National Environment Agency’s Twitter feed.
buUuk — FREE
Similar to HungryGoWhere, local start-up buUuk has created an iPhone app that helps users find restaurants, café, hawker stalls, bars, wine bars and pubs quickly and easily based on user-generated reviews and ratings.
Let’s say you live in Ang Mo Kio and would like to grab a bite for supper. Simply fire up the buUuk app on your iPhone, and it will then harness location-based navigation to locate food and drink outlets in the vicinity.
In addition, users can search by cuisine, location or rating. It supports a large variety of cuisines — Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Peranakan, Italian or even Brazilian — you name it all.
Besides Singapore, you can even locate over 75,000 restaurants from 30+ countries across Asia and Oceania such as Hong Kong, Thailand and Australia.
ShowNearby — FREE
ShowNearby is one of the highest rated local iPhone apps on Apple’s App Store. What makes this location-based app stand out is that it is capable of showing the nearest amenities and places of interests such as shopping malls, ATMs, bus stops, car parks, petrol kiosks or even AXS machines. For example, if you urgently need to withdraw cash from an ATM, this app will become your saviour.
Another interesting feature worth looking into is the app’s capability of showing bus arrival timings at bus stops near your current location.
This is particularly useful as not all bus stops are equipped with the digital bus arrival time board. While using SBS’s iris-NextBus might be an alternative to check bus arrival timings via SMS, it’s useless if you do not know the bus stop number.
My Movies by M1 — FREE
This app, which gives users the latest scoop of cast and release dates of blockbusters shown here and even allows them to watch trailers of upcoming movies, is pretty handy for movie zealots.
Movies are categorised by “Showing”, “Opening Soon” or “Top 10″, and you can search for cinemas in your vicinity too. Cinema details, show times, booking telephone numbers, how to get there by public transport and even parking charges are provided too.
If you are a M1 mobile user, you can take up their Movie Sunday 1 for 1 Promotion at all Cathay Cineplexes.
SG Petrol Prices Lite — FREE
The title says it all. SG Petrol Prices Lite is a simple yet useful iPhone app that gives drivers a comparison chart of the different prices of grades of petrol offered by the four petrol companies.
VSS Food Guide — US$1.99
Are you a vegetarian who’s looking for a restaurant that serves delectable vegetarian food? Vegetarian Society Singapore (VSS) partnered with MobyFab to develop a handy VSS Food Guide for iPhone users.
Vegetarian lovers can search for eateries by district, price, serving vegan or organic vegetarian food.
Comfort-DelGro Taxi Booking — FREE
If you are looking for a hassle-free way to book a Comfort-DelGro taxi, then give the company’s taxi booking iPhone app a try. It allows you to book a Comfort or City Cab taxi using your current or new location directly from your iPhone — no phone calls needed. For frequent web booking users, they can book using one of their last three pick-up points.
Gone are the days you need to wait for the booking status as a confirmation SMS with the taxi vehicle number and estimated time of arrival will be sent to you.
MeRadio — FREE
Mediacorp’s MeRadio provides live radio streaming from all 13 radio stations, and allows iPhone users to listen to their preferred stations through their phone at anytime, anywhere, even whilst indulging in a game or sending a text message.
There are also “Call” and “Email” buttons which enable listeners to contact with the radio station directly. Lyrics display and “What’s Playing” information including Album art are some of the enthralling features offered by MeRadio.
If you find a particular track that sounds nice, you can share it with your friends via Twitter or email.
The only downside is that you are not able to surf mobile Safari while listening to the radio on your iPhone because MeRadio uses the iOS browser to deliver the audio feed.
ILoveDeals SG — FREE
When you patronise a restaurant, sometimes the cashier will prompt you for a UOB or OCBC credit card to enjoy a 10 per cent discount off your bill.
SingTel’s ILoveDeals SG iPhone app brings forward a plethora of up-to-date Food & Beverage deals information from various banks such as Citibank, DBS, HSBC, OCBC, POSB, Standard Chartered and UOB — all on one single app.
Users can search for F&B deals by location or cuisines, and even browse through reviews of restaurants before deciding on the most suitable deal.
The writer is a 16-year-old technology blogger who loves social media and gadgets. He is also Singapore’s No. 1 Twitter user, with 180,000 followers. He also writes a column for www.happymarketer.com
iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) penetration in Singapore is the highest in the world at 9.64 per cent, according to Nelso, which took data from AdMob.
The report also noted that Singaporeans had 402,000 iPhones in April 2010 but the number is now estimated to be over 600,000 after the launch of the iPhone 4 in July, which took the smartphone market by storm here.
In this post, Yahoo! Singapore presents to iPhone users 10 most useful homegrown iPhone apps that range from travel, food guides to taxi booking.
GoThere.sg — US$2.99
No idea which bus service takes you from East Coast Park to 313@Somerset?
This is when GoThere.sg comes in handy. The homegrown mapping iPhone app provides users public transport and driving directions anywhere in Singapore, making traveling around the island a breeze.
Once you input in your current location and desired destination, the app will present you four modes of transport — bus, train, taxi, and car. For each of them, useful details such as the fare, duration, distance, ERP charges and number of transfers are listed. Drivers can pick and choose a carpark around their destination and the app will display the rates and guide them there.
Moreover, users can search or browse amenities and businesses around their location.
WeatherLah — FREE
Looking for a convenient way to know what’s the weather like in Pasir Ris Park? Give this sleek app a try. The WeatherLah app tells you today’s PSI level, temperature range and a short summary of the weather forecast in certain locations of the island.
Informing users when there is a heavy downpour, when the PSI level gets too high, or even when it rains in specific locations around Singapore through alerts is one the key features of this app.
The app also streams live Twitter updates from National Environment Agency’s Twitter feed.
buUuk — FREE
Similar to HungryGoWhere, local start-up buUuk has created an iPhone app that helps users find restaurants, café, hawker stalls, bars, wine bars and pubs quickly and easily based on user-generated reviews and ratings.
Let’s say you live in Ang Mo Kio and would like to grab a bite for supper. Simply fire up the buUuk app on your iPhone, and it will then harness location-based navigation to locate food and drink outlets in the vicinity.
In addition, users can search by cuisine, location or rating. It supports a large variety of cuisines — Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Peranakan, Italian or even Brazilian — you name it all.
Besides Singapore, you can even locate over 75,000 restaurants from 30+ countries across Asia and Oceania such as Hong Kong, Thailand and Australia.
ShowNearby — FREE
ShowNearby is one of the highest rated local iPhone apps on Apple’s App Store. What makes this location-based app stand out is that it is capable of showing the nearest amenities and places of interests such as shopping malls, ATMs, bus stops, car parks, petrol kiosks or even AXS machines. For example, if you urgently need to withdraw cash from an ATM, this app will become your saviour.
Another interesting feature worth looking into is the app’s capability of showing bus arrival timings at bus stops near your current location.
This is particularly useful as not all bus stops are equipped with the digital bus arrival time board. While using SBS’s iris-NextBus might be an alternative to check bus arrival timings via SMS, it’s useless if you do not know the bus stop number.
My Movies by M1 — FREE
This app, which gives users the latest scoop of cast and release dates of blockbusters shown here and even allows them to watch trailers of upcoming movies, is pretty handy for movie zealots.
Movies are categorised by “Showing”, “Opening Soon” or “Top 10″, and you can search for cinemas in your vicinity too. Cinema details, show times, booking telephone numbers, how to get there by public transport and even parking charges are provided too.
If you are a M1 mobile user, you can take up their Movie Sunday 1 for 1 Promotion at all Cathay Cineplexes.
SG Petrol Prices Lite — FREE
The title says it all. SG Petrol Prices Lite is a simple yet useful iPhone app that gives drivers a comparison chart of the different prices of grades of petrol offered by the four petrol companies.
VSS Food Guide — US$1.99
Are you a vegetarian who’s looking for a restaurant that serves delectable vegetarian food? Vegetarian Society Singapore (VSS) partnered with MobyFab to develop a handy VSS Food Guide for iPhone users.
Vegetarian lovers can search for eateries by district, price, serving vegan or organic vegetarian food.
Comfort-DelGro Taxi Booking — FREE
If you are looking for a hassle-free way to book a Comfort-DelGro taxi, then give the company’s taxi booking iPhone app a try. It allows you to book a Comfort or City Cab taxi using your current or new location directly from your iPhone — no phone calls needed. For frequent web booking users, they can book using one of their last three pick-up points.
Gone are the days you need to wait for the booking status as a confirmation SMS with the taxi vehicle number and estimated time of arrival will be sent to you.
MeRadio — FREE
Mediacorp’s MeRadio provides live radio streaming from all 13 radio stations, and allows iPhone users to listen to their preferred stations through their phone at anytime, anywhere, even whilst indulging in a game or sending a text message.
There are also “Call” and “Email” buttons which enable listeners to contact with the radio station directly. Lyrics display and “What’s Playing” information including Album art are some of the enthralling features offered by MeRadio.
If you find a particular track that sounds nice, you can share it with your friends via Twitter or email.
The only downside is that you are not able to surf mobile Safari while listening to the radio on your iPhone because MeRadio uses the iOS browser to deliver the audio feed.
ILoveDeals SG — FREE
When you patronise a restaurant, sometimes the cashier will prompt you for a UOB or OCBC credit card to enjoy a 10 per cent discount off your bill.
SingTel’s ILoveDeals SG iPhone app brings forward a plethora of up-to-date Food & Beverage deals information from various banks such as Citibank, DBS, HSBC, OCBC, POSB, Standard Chartered and UOB — all on one single app.
Users can search for F&B deals by location or cuisines, and even browse through reviews of restaurants before deciding on the most suitable deal.
The writer is a 16-year-old technology blogger who loves social media and gadgets. He is also Singapore’s No. 1 Twitter user, with 180,000 followers. He also writes a column for www.happymarketer.com
