Planning a trip or vacation can be an exciting but daunting task. After budgeting, getting the proper time off and making room and board arrangements, you are still left with the undertaking of figuring out where to go, what to see and what to do. It isn’t as simple as choosing destination sites. You have to take into account the distance and time it takes to get from point A and B. What if we told you that there is an app on the market that promises to do all of that and more while making the process simple? Well, there is an App for that! MapItOut promises to help you quickly build an itinerary that you can share with your friends with just a few taps.
X Marks The Spot
The default screen of MapItOut asks for you to enter a city or address to help you build your itinerary step by step. While this is easy, we found it even easier to tap on the second item on the main menu titled “Map It Out”. This screen, by way of push notifications will figure out where you are and allow you to start setting up your destination points by simply pointing at places on a map. Pressing your fingers down on a location for a few seconds will attach a green pin to it marking your first destination. From there, you can continue to pinch and zoom all over the map and place as many pins as you would like.
As we are in New York City, where there are tons of things to do, we enjoyed that via Apple Maps, by zooming in, you would see the names of all kinds of establishments - Eateries, Museums, Cafes, Bars, Concert Venues and the like. If you are looking over unfamiliar territory, tapping on the arrow on the top right of the screen will reveal a menu of choice destination types including Hotels, Bars, Cafes and Museums. Tapping on any one of those choices will literally list all known locations of that type in your vicinity using red pins. This is a nice touch. It means you need not know anything about a given area and get information, thus helping you with your plans!
Getting There
Once you have everything figured out and set, pressing the icon “Itinerary” generates your travel plans. You can save them or share them on Facebook and Twitter by tapping on the appropriate menu options. You can also open up Swift Chat and further plan and share information. Swift chat requires Wifi or Bluetooth, and will pick up people in your vicinity.
You can get more information about your destinations by tapping on the green pins you set up. This will bring up street views of the places in question, as well as other important information such as address and phone number. When “Itinerary” is pressed, travel information will appear. You will see the distances between points, Apple Map links to give you directions between points, plus approximate travel times. As mentioned before, you can share and save this information. The ability to save and name allows you to recall as many itineraries as you would like at a future date.
Verdict
MapItOut will be a useful tool to anyone planning a trip. It is very easy to use, and the app gives a lot of information that you would have to otherwise search for on your own. The only criticism we have is the text icons. We’d like to see graphic icons, even if text is on those icons, it would make the interface more pleasing to the eye. Even without these modifications, the app works very well as it should. The app is on its seventh version. This install is $1.99 and is ad free. MapItOut has Travel and Productivity written all over it. For the price of $1.99, you are getting your money’s worth.
GMA.
