Windows Phone Apps I Used During My Last Trip

Here’s a list of apps that we used during our trip to New York City. We stayed there for a week. Our activities were the usual ones for tourists: shopping, restaurants, museums and a lot of walking!

I used mainly my Windows Phone. Since the Surface RT and the Pro don’t have a cellular connection we used the iPad. There are 2 advantages:

- First, AT&T had a promotion: 25$ gave you a 5Gb data plan (as a tourist, you have to use a credit card like an American Express that doesn’t check the card owner’s home address, because AT&T will ask for a US address)

- You can use the iPad as a hotspot. So I was able to connect my Nokia Lumia 920. Even with this solution and the Wi-Fi hotspots in NYC you will need to have apps working offline.

The list:

• Yelp and Urbanspoon, the usual suspects for restaurants. Yelp is pretty important to find good coffee shops.
• But we mainly used Foursquare lists, my favorite client is 4th and Mayor. But I still hope to see a first-class client from the start-up on Windows Phone 8. Our list had plenty of restaurants, bars, museums etc. We didn’t have a precise plan so we used the list according to the weather, etc.
• Amazing Weather HD, we checked the weather every morning and planned our day accordingly
• OneNote for all the tips found on the interweb
• NYC Subway, it’s not the ultimate MTA app but it works offline and you can have a general plan, see the lines details and find a route between 2 stations
• Here Maps and Here Transit from Nokia. Here Maps works offline if you download the map in advance (for NY it’s a 150 Mb package). First it contains the map with transit information and more importantly you can also search for a place (restaurant, bar etc.). You can get the directions between 2 addresses by car or by walking. The subway/bus directions require an Internet connection and you are redirected to the Here Transit app to find more alternatives. It’s a must-have because even if you have a data connection, you can be in a place with spotty reception.
• Photosynth et Proshot for the « souvenirs » with the very nice camera on the Lumia 920 :)