The first full weekend of the autumn is upon us, bringing plenty of apps to enjoy the new season. Whether you are making a quick getaway, feasting on football or wondering about what new TV shows are worth watching, Appolicious has recommendations for you.
Harvesting seasonal apps
Many of life’s experiences, such as observing the leaves change in autumn, can be enhanced with the iPhone. Appolicious writer Steve Yaccino surveyed the best Autumn apps and offers a number of ways to observe the fall foliage, including the 99-cent Park Maps app. Perhaps you are interesting in taking a trip to the wine country. If so, Winery Quest ($4.99) is “a must-have for any California road trip.” If you are looking for a cheaper vintage of wine-related of apps, Wine Trip (99 cents) will get you where you need to go in California and throughout the Pacific northwest.
If your tastes are more urban and you live or are planning an East Coast adventure, check out Central Park NYC – Classic. The $2.99 app provides maps and historical information via Wikipedia on the greatest city landscape known to man.
Apps for the sport of it
Late September is when the pennant races of Major League Baseball coincide with the early and interesting stages of the college and pro football season. While there are literally thousands of apps available that dissect everything you want to know about sports, there is only one from Sports Illustrated. Call me old school, but Sports Illustrated – SI.com is the first place I go for national sports coverage. It combines the quality writing and commentary with easy-to-use navigation. Any app can give scores and fantasy stats, but Sports Illustrated – more than apps from ESPN and Yahoo! – brings the romance and spectacle of sports to a mobile platform. And it’s free.
If you prefer the NFL reporting of Chad “Ocho Cinco” Johnson to Peter King, than the free NFL Pro Tweets is worth a download. You better do it quick, as Appolicious sports guru David Lister suggests, because “there is no telling when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will try to eradicate social networking from the face of the earth.”
Apps for entertainment
While the iPhone competes for our attention with the TV, it offers a number of apps to keep you in tune with a new season of shows. Appolicious entertainment correspondent Kathryn Swartz offers her take of best apps for the boob tube as well as which celebrity-driven apps are worth downloading.
With the iPhone, just as in TV, commercial advertising is required to deliver great content for free or a reduced price. But applications seen only as ads will never work, as was learned this week at the Apps for Brands conference co-hosted by Appolicious and Advertising Age. Kristen Nicole, who reports on social media affairs for Appolicious, gives her breakdown of the ten brand apps that get the customer experience right.
