iPhone App of the week for Business Travelers: Earthcomber

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 06, 2009

This week, I asked my summer intern, Shalini Ramachandran, to research the best iPhone apps for travelers to find nearby conveniences, from gas stations to hospitals. Here’s her report:

With all the travel apps on the market right now, app makers are either trying to super-specialize (“free-Wifi finders,” anyone?) or they’re creating Swiss Army Knife-style applications that satisfy your every travel need. This week, I took a look at Earthcomber and AroundMe, two apps designed to help users locate nearest restaurant, bank, travel agent—well, anything. Without further ado, the top pick:


Earthcomber 5 airplanes
Starting with the negatives, Earthcomber does not use the native iPhone maps application—which means there’s no moving blue dot showing your current location. There are also no “info” pages for cities and nearby attractions, as found on AroundMe. However, the other features of Earthcomber more than compensate for these small minuses.

Firstly, there’s a “business mode” that shows places for printing, shipping, free Wifi, office supplies, hotels and even public notaries in the vicinity. So far, I haven’t seen a similar app with this feature. In addition, for each office supply store or bank or travel agent, there’s a link to a page with phone numbers, addresses and even which credit cards it accepts.

Best of all, any place that can be reviewed has a comprehensive review on its home page—hotels, restaurants and more. There’s also a “set my location here” button on every location’s home page so that from there, you can plan the next stop in your day.

And after your business trip ends, Earthcomber can be useful for planning road trips or outdoor activities with your family. The “Outdoors” and “Roadtrip” features display nearby attractions, parks and trails.

In my opinion, Earthcomber is the closest you can get to a one-stop-shop for finding anything, from gas stations to shopping malls. And with its detailed reviews, you’ll even know if the Shell Gas Station down the street accepts MasterCard. Earthcomber may set the trend for all-in-one locator apps—it’s certainly the best out there now, and a little better than the other site I reviewed, AroundMe…

AroundMe 3.5 airplanes
First, one of the things I liked most about AroundMe is that it displays search results on iPhone’s built-in maps application—rather than linking to the Google Maps website as many other apps do. The benefit is that the iPhone’s maps app has a native GPS that will show your location (with a blue dot on the map) as you move about, even if you’re driving. Thus, AroundMe constantly updates your location and displays results accordingly. By contrast, Google Maps shows your location at the time you access the site, but it can’t update your location unless you reload the page.

Another nice feature of AroundMe is the “Nearby” link, which provides information about the history and demographics of the place you’re visiting. At first, I was amazed that AroundMe had such a comprehensive database…until I realized that it was a replica of the Wikipedia page (slight bummer). Still, it’s a nice feature, and since the information pages are preloaded into the app, it’s not like you have to wait for a Wikipedia page to load. With the “Nearby” feature, I found out that Dominique Wilkins, the Atlanta Hawks hall-of-famer, lives in my hometown of Lilburn, Ga.

Like Earthcomber, AroundMe allows you to search for stores, restaurants, theaters and parking in the city. However, apart from showing your location relative to your destination, AroundMe does not provide any further information. For example, it shows available parking places around you, but it doesn’t display comparative prices. Nor does it have restaurant or hotel reviews, contact numbers or other details. While AroundMe sports sophisticated maps and a comprehensive database of nearby attractions, it’s not useful for showing much more than simply what’s around you.