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HearPlanet iPhone App. Death to Tour Buses

By Zee
January 12, 2009
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HearPlanet iPhone App. Death to Tour BusesI am not a tour bus kind of guy, if I’m going to go on a tour I’ll hire a guide (and a big car) and see the place in comfort. With HearPlanet, an innovative new iPhone app I may not even need to do that.

HearPlanet will user your location to give you a good overview of items of interest around you. Similar to previously mentioned “Where to” in some respects, however HearPlanet also seems to offer information about the places rather than just links to locations. The “Hear” in HearPlanet stems from the fact that the application will actually dictate info about your location, making it possible to essentially start your own tourbus business and use this information plugged into the bus’ sound system! (That was a joke, please don’t try that.)

Most of the information dictated is grabbed from Wikipedia which, in my opinion, is pretty reliable a source (finish reading the sentence before you disagree!) when it comes to locational and cultural information.

As TUAW mention, HearPlanet has a way to go before becoming a fully featured travel companion; a map, more images, video and directions hopefully will come soon.

I almost forgot to mention, the application is free for one week so click this link (app store) and try it out (available everywhere I believe).

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  • HearPlanet iPhone App. Death to Tour Buses!! http://bit.ly/idw3
  • Oliver
    Can't imagine the data roaming charges you'll rack up with this app! Let's face it, not a lot of sights worth seeing have Wi-fi capabilities just yet and usually most of the sight seeing is done outside of your home network's coverage area.
  • very good point Oliver, you're right when you say "usually most of the sight seeing is done outside of your home network’s coverage area."
  • Max Samuels
    I don't know about you, but I have free data (roaming included) on my iPhone. This may be an issue overseas, but I'll do a few tests on their data rates first. Has got to be less than any video site out there.
  • I think it's quite useful application...especially if you travel in your mobile provider area (not roaming). It's a bit slow on my network 3G(ATT) but it's working...

    Of course, not all the places can use this application...where you don't have signal or 3G or wireless then it's useless...
  • Oliver
    I think that is something they might have overlooked or where current iPhone limitations come into play. That this application is only useful in certain situations that unfortunately usually do not coincide with the situations where you might need a tour guide on your phone.

    On the other hand, I am currently looking at this from my own perspective of being a foreigner and going to see the Golden Gate Bridge for example. I would be very much out of luck with this application and my Estonian or temp. T-Mobile SIM. But if I were from other parts of the US, then I think my situation would be better.

    And the market for traveling Americans is something that might be worth making an iPhone app for.
  • Yes, indeed. They probably did it for american market. But I'm using that application if I want to find something about a place but I am not at that place :)...for example, I found some things I didn't know about St Olaf Church or St nicholas Church from Tallin :) (which is in Estonia).
    So, this application is not location dependent actually...you can use it as portable Wikipedia (just search about Phoenix and you'll get details about the city I am living in US).
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