Created by Janni Kovacs.

Ever been in a foreign country and wonder how much something will really cost you? Then the Currency Converter app for the Palm Pre® is for you. The app converts over 40 of the most used currencies from one to another by simply tapping a button. It even uses a respected financial service, Yahoo!®, to get the live exchange rates.

Using the app is easy. Simply choose the currency you wish to convert from – US Dollars, for example – and then choose the currency you wish to choose to – Euros, for example. Type in the amount in the box provided, tap the ‘Convert’ icon and immediately get the latest exchange rate right on your phone. You don’t even have to hold down the orange button on your phone, as the app is preset already to numbers. The currencies you have to choose from range from dollars – US, Australia, Canada – to Japanese Yen, the Euro, Swiss Franc, Chilean peso, Chinese Yuan, etc. There are many choices to choose from.

For the world traveler, the Currency Converter app for the Palm Pre is perfect. There are so many choices to choose from, that I’d be surprised if you couldn’t find the currency you are looking to check.

Created by: Janni Kovacs.

Translator for the Palm Pre® is a simple language translation program, which is great when you are traveling or in a restaurant with a non-translated menu.

After launching the app, you immediately can begin translating text. The top box allows you to type in the text you want translated and pick the original language. There are over 50 different original language choices available, with the usual suspects (German, French, Spanish, Italian, etc.) appearing along with some very interesting and not so popular choices, such as Galician, Lithuanian, Afrikaans, Filipino, Irish, Maltese and Swahili, to name but a few.

After typing in the phrase or word you wish to translate, you then pick the language you wish to translate the word or phrase into. So, for example, you’re looking to find the word in German for toilet. Typing in toilet at the top, picking English (default languge), and then choosing German in the second box, before tapping the ‘Translate’ button at the button. If you want to swap and instead have it translated from German to English, all you need to do is tap the ‘Swap’ button in the middle of the screen. You can also send, via email or text, the translated word or phrase.

Translator is pretty simple to use, although I did find that certain words did not get translated properly and should have, as they were simple and straightforward words (e.g., street). It did work properly when I translated it from the German version to English, however, so perhaps there are a few glitches to the app. Translator also works well with the symbol menu on the Palm Pre, especially if you are attempting to translate, for example, a German sign into English and there are umlauts in one of the words. Simply hit the ‘Sym’ key on your Palm Pre, pick the appropriate character to insert, and then hit translate.

All in all, it is a nice program for translation of short phrases, questions every traveler would ask, or a strange and unknown word on a menu. And it’s free.

Created by: Yelp.

Social networking fans are probably well aware of Yelp.com®, the website where you can post reviews of your favorite—and not so favorite—retailers, restaurants, bars and other establishments. While the website is a great place to look up what people have to say about your local coffee shop, how is that going to do you any good if you’re already heading out for coffee? That’s where Yelp’s iPhone® application kicks in.

The main screen offers five options for finding businesses:

• Nearby—Nearby uses your location data to show you what’s close by. It’s broken down into six popular categories, including restaurants, bars, coffee & tea, and banks. At the bottom of the screen you can see what’s hot on Yelp that is within your area.
• Feed—Yelp breaks down the live feed into three main categories as shown at the top of the main screen. Nearby shows reviews for businesses near you; Friends pulls up reviews written by people in your friends list; and Me shows only reviews that you have written.
• Search—The Search feature lets you get more specific about what you’re looking for. From the Search page, you can choose price range and specific neighborhoods.
• Recents—The Recents page shows you the last 10 businesses you looked up on Yelp.
• Bookmarks—Businesses that you want to investigate further can be saved to your bookmarks. Once you’ve opened up the review page for the business, tap Add Bookmark. Bookmarks are synced between your online and mobile applications.

Once you’ve found a business you want to check out, you can do several things using Yelp’s iPhone application. Don’t feel like typing a long review? Give a short synopsis by pulling up the business, then select Add Quick Tip to enter a 140-character critique. Add a photo by tapping the Add Business Photo. You can even start writing your review by pressing Draft a Review, then entering your text. Once you’re back at the computer, you can pull up the draft, make any modifications, and post it to Yelp. As an avid Yelp reviewer, I really like this feature because I can start writing while the experience is still fresh in my mind.

Pros: Can add quick reviews and photos; can draft longer critiques on latest version of Yelp. Allows users to bookmark favorite spots for quick recall. Pulls up the most popular searches.
Cons: Cannot access Yelp’s messaging or events calendar via mobile application. May not work in all cities.

Are you traveling a lot and often to a country where they don’t speak your native language very well? Then you should definitely bring iLingo on your next trip.

iLingo is a talking language phrase book, which is stocked with over four hundred essential words and phrases of each language. Just by a simple tap of your finger, you can hear the perfect pronunciation by a native speaker.

The application is organized into categories such as: Greetings, Shopping, and Emergency, so you can find a post office in Paris or a bookstore in Berlin.

What I think is great about this app is the opportunity to hear the pronunciation and if it’s too difficult for me to pronounce, I just let the app speak for me.

So get ready to travel and learn new languages. Traveling has never been easier!

Trips is a great application for the iPhone®. This app helps you to organize your trips and to keep track of important information.

If you’re traveling different routes, you can specify each route and, if you wish, you can add more details like departure and arrival date, how you are traveling, booking code, seat number, etc.

You can also write notes on different trips to remind you of things you might want to do when you are traveling.

Keep all of the necessary information about your trips in one place, without the fear of losing your tickets or other important documents.

With this app, you now can enjoy traveling!

This application for iPhone® is great when you wish to book a hotel room when you’re not near your computer. You can find over 100,000 hotels worldwide and you can also see photos, their location, a map and detailed information.

If you need to find a hotel for the night you can use the ”Hotels near me” feature and it will show you all of the hotels near you.

If you find a hotel, you can book it quick and easily through your iPhone, and if you’re out on the road and need a place to sleep, you can, without a problem, book your hotel in the last minute.

Most hotels don’t even need prepayment—your credit card details are only taken to secure your booking and you actually pay at the hotel.

Hotel Booker works in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish and Russian.

I just had to laugh when I read about this iPhone® app and I wanted to share this unbelievable and extraordinary application with you. This application helps you to find the closest bathroom. It has a GPS function that localizes the registered bathrooms nearby. The bathrooms are registered by the users of the app, so you won’t always be lucky to find a place to do what you have to do when you need to.

You can get information about what kind of bathroom it is, for example, “sit” or “squat” indicates whether it’s comfortable and clean enough to use freely or whether it’s a destination to visit only in emergencies. You will also get a list of additional features, such as handicap access, hand dryers, condom dispenser, changing tables, and other amenities. It will also let you know if you have to pay to use the bathroom. If you use one of the bathrooms found with the SitOrSquat application, you can rate your visit from 1-5 stars and upload a picture.

The application is quick and reliable and your search for the closest bathroom only takes about 10-15 seconds. Once you decide which toilet you want to use, you will get a map on your iPhone showing you where to go. If you don’t have a big bladder, this can definitely be a perfect iPhone application for you!

This is a great app that helps you track your flights, check flight status around the world, check airport weather, and much more.

What I think is great about this app is that you can check the real-time status for flights from all around the world. I am constantly worried about flight schedules, delays, cancellations, and gate changes. I don’t know how many times I have wondered if my flight is leaving as planned or how the weather is at the location I’m going to. The FlightTrack Pro application has saved me many times when my flight has been delayed. So, for all the people who are traveling a lot, you should definitely have this iPhone® app.

Some of the features that FlightTrack Pro offers are:

• Possibility to watch live international flight maps with weather radar.
• Check gate numbers, delays and cancellations.
• Look up aircraft type, speed and altitude.
• The possibility to share detailed status emails.
• Save future flight itineraries.

Use this great app to find out about flight delays and cancellations as they happen. You can also view real-time gate changes, baggage claim info, and aircraft type. FlightTrack Pro automatically updates flights with the latest flight info, three days in advance.
I think this app is excellent and simple to use. The graphics are great and so is the database.

This application really gives you all of the information you’ll ever need. You can also save the flights you are tracking so that you won’t have to enter the information again, and this subsequently means that you can track as many flights as you like. And if you’re a little bored—you can shake the iPhone and it’ll track a random flight for you! Enjoy!

You can say that this application has saved me from some fights with friends and dates from time to time. For that I’m very grateful! A few weeks ago when I was meeting up with a friend, we argued about where to eat lunch and we could not decide if we were going to eat at restaurant A or B. After discussing it for quite a while, my mind fell to UrbanSpoon, which I downloaded a few days before meting up with my friend. I mentioned this to my friend and we decided that UrbanSpoon was going to decide for us.

We filled in our location and area and decided on a price range. We could not agree on a food type, so we left that one blank. Then we hit the search button. Since UrbanSpoon kind of works like a slot machine, we waited in excitement and the UrbanSpoon app randomly selected a restaurant for us. Since we agreed on going to the random selection, there was no more arguing. We also read the restaurant reviews because we had not been there before. The review sounded good so we looked up the restaurant’s location on Google Maps and met there to eat. After lunch, we decided to share our opinions on the restaurant with friends.

Just one thing to keep in mind: I have heard that UrbanSpoon tends to work best in metropolitan areas, so in smaller towns it may be a little tricky to make the app make a selection for you.

Avoid arguments with friends and dates and get UrbanSpoon. After all, it’s free!