Smartphone Applications for India

In this post we will discuss about few very useful and interesting smart phone applications for India. Even though I will mostly talk about iPhone apps, similar apps are available in Android phones too. But from my experience I found that, iPhone apps always score better in their layout and overall experience. More over any iOS apps gives the same experience in any iPhones which is far from the truth when you look at the Android phones, even the OS versions differ between the latest phones in the market. Android market is fragmented and the effect is showing. In short the experience may differ between the two application platforms. There are far few apps available in the Windows Market place for India.

In this article we will give pointers and over view of apps without getting into detail. If you like the app, download it and play with it. It is the best way to learn.

MyCityWay

MyCityWay is an essential iPhone app for every Indian who is residing in any of the metros in India. In fact it is a global application and is not specific to India at all. It enables you to explore and navigate urban Cities like never before. Use MyCityWay to find a Chinese restaurant in your neighborhood, locate the nearest petrol bunk, or buy tickets for a movie in your City. It has 38 widgets to choose from each loaded with the latest information about your city. Some of the screen shots are given below gives you a very good idea what it can do for you. This is available for Android users too.

 

Indian Train

All of us travel by train and keep visiting railway site to know about current PNR status, or to find out a train schedule or book a ticket. There are plenty of smart phone apps which enable to do all of these tasks. It is tough to pick one. I thought India Train is one of the best among them. It satisfies almost all of your needs for train journey except booking a seat which is still reserved to the web based portal launched by Indian Railways. The following screen gives some of the screen shots which give you an idea what these apps can do.

 

Namma Metro

This is one of the beautifully designed free iPhone apps. The Namma Metro app, developed by private firm O Clock Software, gives information about the city’s latest mass transportation system, making it easy for users to navigate through the latest attractions on Namma Metro, its routes, stops and BMRCL’s other expansion works. Following screen shots give you an idea but you really need to fiddle with the application to know how good it is. Excellent!

 

Bookmyshow

We all want to book movie tickets the easiest way. Bookmyshow is an excellent application which enables us to do it, now it is available across all smart phones. It gives the movie listing in your town, you can read the reviews, see the trailers, choose the seat you like and then decide and book the ticket, all these in your mobile phone.

 

Bangalore Airport

This application gives a snap shot of arrival and departure in Bangalore Airport. For booking use Kayak apps which are available universally.

Traffic Tickets

You know that today morning while coming to office you got a call from your boss while waiting for the traffic junction. The moment you picked up the call the traffic light turned green and you could see the traffic police was staring at you. Do you want to know whether you are really caught by him for using the cellphone? The following iPhone app helps call Traffic Tickets Bangalore, you need to just enter your registration number and press go. No need to open the laptop and visit the RTO website and go through many pages to find out the answer.

Warning: Please do not attend to phone calls while driving; you are inviting danger not alone for yourself but also for others on the road. If you really cannot avoid attending phone calls while driving use Bluetooth speaker phones designed for cars ex: Jabra Freeway.

Bangalore Transit

Bangalore City Transit application is your guide to Bangalore public bus system. Plan your trip; find out BMTC bus routes between any two bus stops and much more. No internet connection required for trip planning or bus route search. This is not a great application but still very useful and is designed by Vinaya Shenoy.

Key features

1. Search all bus routes between any two bus stops in Bangalore
2. Provides direct bus routes or with connecting stops
3. Route information is shown in list view or map view
4. Route maps for all bus routes. Locate a bus stop in map (internet connection required)
5. Store bus route results, routes or bus stops as favorite item for easy access
6. Find nearby bus stops from any given bus stop

Similar apps you may find for other metros in India.

MyTax India

MyTax is an interesting app for computing Tax for Indians. It is very easy to use and rich in graphics. It allows you in advance planning for investment.

Visit http://www.mytaxindia.com/ for details.

Citi Mobile

If you have a Citi Bank Suvidha account, you can access your account and do any transaction using the iPhone Citi Mobile apps. It is easier to use compared to iMobile app for ICICI bank. I do not want to include more pictures due to privacy reasons.

NDTV

NDTV has one of first in the media to launch iPhone apps which provides all in-depth news and more.

 

NavFree GPS Application

There are many online maps and GPS application for iPhone and Android phones. But you may need an offline GPS application while driving. Sygic and MapmyIndia cost $50/- but navfree GPS apps is available for free and it gives a reasonably good offline map for navigation. It has 3D features too and 170MB to download.

 

Other Apps Worth Mentioning

1. TimesofIndia
2. Saavn - Hollywood Songs
3. TuneIn Radio – 30,000 radio stations
4. RadioTaxi – for your Taxi needs
5. Zomato
6. iMobile – ICICI mobile banking apps
7. DesiRadio – Radio in Indian languages
8. Translate – English to (Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati and many more )