Must Have Apps for your Car

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Apps are in the front seat when it comes to making the most of your four wheels, writes Max Halden.

Forget kicking tyres: the car buyer of the future is more likely to be browsing apps on the dealership forecourt. With the advent of the smartphone, the daily drive is no longer simply a way to get from A to B but a chance to be entertained, clear a backlog of calls and plan the evening ahead.

With a raft of car companies including Ford, Audi and BMW all releasing new smartphone apps, it is becoming easier than ever to organise your life from inside your car and maintain your car from the comfort of your home.

For smartphone users, there are apps for everything from checking emails to finding where the car is parked in a crowded shopping centre. Here are some must-haves:


Trapster

Cost: Free

Billed as the world's largest social driving network, this program gathers data from users across the globe to create an up-to-date "trap map" for your iPhone. Trapster covers everything from red light and speed cameras to school zones and toll points. It even allows you to upload photos, report accidents and flag active police radar traps. A version is now available for Android-compatible phones.

Livio Car Internet Radio

Cost: Free, $5.99 for premium upgrade

Sick of the same old stuff on your car radio? Livio gives you access to hundreds of free internet stations worldwide. Upgrade to the premium version and you get more than 42,000 stations at your fingertips, from BBC World to California's XSite Radio. You can search by genre, location or name and save your favourites for one-touch access. It can even recommend stations you might like based on your previous listening tastes.

When&Where

Cost: $1.19

If you've ever spent time wandering around looking for your car at a shopping centre or after a concert or sports event, this app is for you. Not only does it allow you to mark your parking spot on a live GPS map, you can also take a photo of your park, write notes or even leave an audio message with navigation details to ensure you don't lose your car in a sea of roof-racks and spoilers. If you are in a metered area you can even put on an alarm to warn you 10 minutes before your paid parking expires.

GasBag Australia

Cost: Free, $2.49 GasBag Pro

With the collapse of the government's Fuel Watch service in every state except Western Australia, it's harder than ever to get information about the cheapest petrol across the country. GasBag Australia addresses this problem by using pricing information entered by users. It shows the best-value petrol in your area and around the city daily, and plots locations on a map. Although far from complete, this system will improve as more people use it.

TripAliyzer

Cost: $7.99

TripAlyizer uses phone tower and Wi-Fi triangulation to track your driving habits and help you drive more efficiently. Once you've entered the details of your car, you can set goals for fuel consumption and mileage and track your progress against them. For those budget-conscious drivers, the program can calculate individual spending on fuel, while those more ecologically minded can get a graphic of their car's carbon footprint. If you have more than one car, you can compare the costs of each.

Waze

Cost: Free

Similar to the popular social mapping application Foursquare, Waze is a traffic map with a difference. Created to compete with expensive GPS systems, the app provides free turn-by-turn navigation based on information provided by users. Once activated, Waze collects live data on your location, your speed and travel time to create a dynamic map that suggests congested areas to avoid. You can also add pictures and comments to existing posts. Budding explorers can record previously uncharted roads on the map in real time and the popular "Road Goodies" mode converts your car into a real life Pacman, scoring you points for logging new route data.

Text'nDrive

Cost: Lite version free, pro version $12.99

With the dangers of texting and driving becoming increasingly apparent, this app aims to satisfy both hyper-busy executives and the constantly curious Gen Y by reading aloud newly received emails. Available for Blackberrys and iPhones, Text'nDrive is activated by voice commands to allow users to listen to and (in the pro version) respond to their emails without taking their eyes off the road or hands off the wheel. It plugs into existing hands-free kits and developers are hoping to add a text-message reading feature soon.

Car Minder Plus

Cost: $3.99

Anyone who maintains their car knows how difficult it can be to remember when they last changed the oil - this is where Car Minder Plus comes in. Acting as an electronic car diary, the app allows you to store complete servicing information on all of your cars, record your last fill-up and log any repairs. It can then generate fuel economy tables, estimates on wheel rotations and average daily mileage. You can also set reminders for your next service appointment and warning levels for tyre and oil changes based on previous data.