Reviews

My Vacation iPhone App Review

Just in time for the summer, My Vacation is a great app to help you organize and plan your vacation. Billed as a ‘complete travelogue in your hands’ we thought we would check it out. Read this comprehensive review now.

Introduction

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The latest version of My Vacation has been updated and approved today, it is Version 2.0 and now includes the following features:

– Postcard sending via email.
– Send trip details via Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth
– Improved travel destination information
– Improved Playback screen
– Improved interface and film roll display
– Video uploaded to Facebook function
– Photo captions and map links included in email and Facebook Note text
– Auto slide show feature

It is priced at: $0.99 – Link here

Adding Your Vacation

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The first thing to do with this app is add your impending travel trip. To do this from the main screen just select the + symbol next to ‘Add a new holiday’. Although this app is called ‘My Vacation’ to obviously appeal to the US market, it was written by an Englishman, so you will have to translate the ‘holiday’ terminology to ‘vacation’ but that’s not a real problem.

Theme

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The next step is to add a Title for your vacation and a theme, be it snow/ski, beach etc.

Information

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In the above example I have added a Skiing trip. You will notice the keyboard pop up when you select the white text box.

Location, location, location

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The next step is to add the location of your trip. In this case I have added Mont Blanc.

Dates

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Add the dates of your trip and they will be highlighted in red within the calendar menu. What would be nice at this stage would be to try to link this to iCal within Mac OS X – this feature could easily be added in a future update.

Summary

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A summary page allows you to add information for each day. For example, if you need to do something specifically on a certain day you can select the day/date here to do so, as a reminder.

Day List

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If you wish to add day information as mentioned in the earlier step, this is the menu you will see. From there you can add the title and location and add further information to the Journal. The facility to add photos or a Movie, if you have an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4, is a brilliant addition and one that the iPhone 4 is going to facilitate perfectly and wonderfully.

Journal

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Of course, you don’t have to include the day information prior to your trip, you may prefer to add it at the time on the day, by way of a reminder of where you went, what you saw and what you did. Within the Journal section you can fill in more of this type of information and if you prefer do an audio recording.

Lists

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This is a very useful section. I tend to carry around lists in my head, not recommended. This menu gives you three choices, To Do, Pack and Notes.

To Do

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Within the To Do section there are presets of the most common things you may want to do prior to your trip. Or you can create your own within the text box.

To Do Summary

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In the above menu you can see the items I have selected To Do. A great feature from this menu is the facility to forward this information by email, by clicking on the arrow key at the bottom. Useful if you have a husband like mine, that needs reminding about certain things.

Lists – Pack

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Within the Lists/Pack menu there are presets again of the most common items you will need and you can create your own as well if necessary. The Notes section allows you to add any reminder Notes to yourself that you may need to do.

Select Dates

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Once you have created your completed vacation details, by clicking on the bottom right arrow you can then forward select dates and photos of your journey to an email address, Facebook, Flickr or even view it on your desktop. Again this does not have to be prior to your trip it could be following it when you may want to share your itinerary and experiences with friends.

Conclusion

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One of the many great features of this app is the Support section Help menu. It features a Quick Start menu which is great to get you going as well as listing specific Features and Advanced functions.

Well, I have to say that this is a great app and one that I will be using a lot of. It is hard to comprehend that all these features are available for 99 cents. This is without question well worth the money and an app that will appeal to many.

Buy It – 4/5 **** Download Link

Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: joanne@theappwhisperer.com