Travel Tips for Your Phone
Best Navigation Apps: Google Maps vs. Apple Maps vs. Waze vs. MapQuest
You don't have to be a frequent flyer to know how indispensable navigation apps have become. Many of us rely on these apps for traveling from state to state and getting around in foreign cities, but even more of us count on these apps to beat rush hour traffic and find the quickest routes to school or work. So naturally, we all have our favorite mapping apps, but which one is truly the best?
How To: Use Google Maps to Measure the Distance Between 2 or More Points
If you want to find out the linear distance between your hotel and a landmark or restaurant you want to visit, Google Maps has a great feature that lets you quickly measure the distance between two or more points. It's perfect for getting an idea of how far places are in relation to each other, which can help you plan trips more efficiently.
How To: Check In to Businesses on Yelp to Get Discounts, Freebies & Other Coupon-Like Deals
On Yelp, you have the option to check in to a business you're visiting. For you, broadcasting who you're with and where you're at is fun for social purposes, but for business owners, you're basically giving them free publicity. Well, almost free publicity. Since there's incentive to get you to check in, some businesses reward customers with special deals, such as 20% off your first visit.
How To: The Worst 'Feature' Every iPhone 14 Series Model Has
Apple finally unveiled the iPhone 14, 14 Plus, 14 Pro, and 14 Pro Max, and there are a lot of improvements that'll make you want to trade in your current iPhone stat. But I wouldn't be so quick to upgrade because there's one "feature" that will make many of you rethink getting a new iPhone 14 series model.
How To: Catch a Ride with Lyft or Uber Straight from Apple Maps in iOS 11
There's no denying the impact ride sharing apps like Uber and Lyft have made on our lives. With fares that undercut traditional yellow cabs, combined with the fact that your ride is just a tap away, these services have become the primary mode of transportation for many folks in urban areas. Thanks to iOS 11, booking an Uber or Lyft has just become a lot more convenient.
How To: Add Your Home, Work & Favorite Places to Uber to Get Rides Faster
Uber is one of the best ride sharing services out there, allowing you to travel without needing to be tethered to a car of your own. Still, if you're a frequent flyer, you may get tired of entering the same few locations into your app every time you use it. Fortunately, Uber lets you streamline this process.
How To: Report to Yelp Wrong Hours, Addresses, Numbers & Other Incorrect Business Listing Information
Business hours and addresses change, but they're not always updated on Yelp by business owners for the rest of us to see. Showing up when a business is closed or going to the incorrect address is a major annoyance, which is why the company allows us, the customers, to help update business information through the Yelp mobile app on iOS and Android. If owners won't do it, somebody has to.
How To: Use Different Voices in Waze to Personalize Navigation & Direction
If you've been looking for an alternative to Google Maps, look no further than Waze. In addition to benefits like crowd-sourced traffic data, police trap locations, and road work avoidance, the app even lets you personalize the voices used for navigation and directions.
How To: Add Your Toll Passes & Use HOV Lanes in Waze to Get Where You're Going Faster
Your best chance of getting to a destination on time during rush hour is to drive through relatively empty HOV lanes. Thankfully, if you're using Waze to navigate through traffic, you can easily locate HOV or HOT routes to optimize travel times by adding your toll passes in the app's settings.
How To: Customize Navigation Prompts on Apple Maps for Clearer Spoken Directions
When it comes to traveling from one location to another with the aide of your iPhone, ensuring your navigation app works as it should keeps you one step ahead of potential hassles. One feature often overlooked is audio settings, and while having no voice prompts is easy enough to ignore while walking or commuting, having no sound to guide you while driving can spell disaster.
How To: View & Manage Your Location History on Google Maps to Track Where You've Been & What You Were Doing
With so much stimuli in today's world, it can be hard to keep track of all the places we've visited and the events we've attended. Thankfully, a great feature in Google Maps lets you view a detailed log of your phone's location history to help you remember where you were at almost any given point in time.
News: How to See Live & Average Wait Times for Your Favorite Restaurants in Google Maps
Going out to dinner on a Saturday night can be more trouble than it's worth when you find yourself waiting for hours on end just to be seated. Thankfully, Google Maps has some very useful data that can save you from a headache the next time you head out to your favorite restaurant.
How To: Finding Parking Just Got Easier with Apple Maps on Your iPhone
When you need to drive somewhere unfamiliar, you probably use Apple Maps to get there if you're an iPhone user. But just getting there isn't enough sometimes. If you pull up to the location, and there's nowhere to park, it doesn't matter that you arrived on time since you'll be late trying to find somewhere to leave your car. That's where Apple's new Maps tool comes in handy.
How To: View Air Quality in Apple Maps to See How Polluted Cities & Destinations Are
While the United States, in general, doesn't have the worst overall pollution, the air quality can drastically change from one day to the next. If you're particularly sensitive to pollutants in the air, there are apps that show how clean or polluted the air is in your area, as well as in cities you plan on traveling to, but Apple's making those apps less relevant with a new feature in Apple Maps.
How To: Add Playback Controls for Apple Music, Spotify & Other Music Services to Google Maps for Quick Access During Navigation
Staying alert to directions and changing the music you're listening to on your smartphone at the same time can be cumbersome, but Google Maps wants to fix that. One of the mapping service's features allows you to control music playing on Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music from inside of Google Maps — while you're navigating in the car, on public transport, or even on your bike.
How To: 16 New Apple Maps Features for iPhone in iOS 14, Including Cycling Routes, New Widgets & City Guides
Once the laughing-stock of the navigation app market, Apple Maps is now a powerful, reliable travel companion. Apple rebuilt the platform from the ground up, placing the app in league with Google Maps. That said, there's always room for improvement, as demonstrated by its impressive new features set in iOS 14.
How To: Use Apple's Translate Tool in iOS 14 to Convert Text, Speech & Full-Blown Conversations Between Two Languages
There have been third-party iOS apps for live conversation translations, and Google Assistant pushed out its own feature for iPhone last year. Still, iOS 14 now has a default translator for real-time multi-language talks in person. So you can finally chat with people who use a different language without missing anything or having to install any complicated apps on your device.
How To: Use Your iPhone's Camera App for Real-Time Translations and Unit Conversions
When you see foreign words on a sign, unfamiliar currencies on a dinner menu, or a recipe using a different measurement system, there's a good chance you google it for a translation or conversion. Your iPhone's Translate app comes in handy for real-world language translations, and Siri's pretty good at converting measurements, but there's an app on everyone's lock screen that can do both: Camera.
How To: Create Lists of Locations Using Collections in Apple Maps for iOS 13
Apple Maps has had a rocky history since its introduction, which included limited features and questionable data, earning it a reputation as a lesser alternative to Google Maps. Since then, Apple has worked to close the gap, and in iOS 13, they're introducing Collections, which allow you to create groups of locations on your iPhone that you can then quickly access and share with others.
How To: Use Yelp Collections to Find New Places & Keep Your Bookmarked Locations More Organized
In the past, if you stumbled upon a Yelp listing you liked, you could bookmark it and check it out later on your profile. You can still take advantage of this feature in the mobile apps, but it's more refined now than it ever was thanks to Collections, a feature Yelp first added back in May 2018. You get more power over organizing, accessing, sharing, and discovering favorite businesses.