Advertisement

5 useful Singapore iPhone apps

Summon Auntie.
Summon Auntie.

By Raymond Lau

What's the first thing you should do when you buy a new iPhone? Pack it with applications, of course! According to Apple's website, there are currently more than 425,000 apps in the iTunes Store, all ready to take your smartphone experience to the next level.

Out of the 425,000, some well-known ones need no introduction. For example, there's a particular fruit slicing game or one where you fling brightly coloured birds at little green pigs.

Singapore, too, has also produced some great local apps to entertain and simplify our lives on this red dot. However, these apps sometimes have a hard time standing out. Yahoo! Singapore takes you through five iPhone apps that we found quite useful.

Summon Auntie (free)

Imagine this: you want to pop out of your car to grab a cup of kopi-O. You figure there's no reason to display a parking coupon, since you're going to be gone for only five, maybe ten minutes if the kopi uncle is moving particularly slow.

But when you get back to your car, you find a dreaded slip of paper wedged under your windshield wiper. A quick check reveals that it's not a flyer, and you suddenly realise you're now holding on to a $30 cup of coffee.

It's a situation familiar to many Singapore drivers, but instead of languishing under piles of summon tickets, a bunch of app developers have come up with an iPhone app to let drivers help each other out. Called "Summon Auntie", the app bets on our altruistic nature to spread the word on the locations of parking wardens.

Here's how it works: when you park your car, fire up the app and tap on the "Park" button. The app will lock in your vehicle's location through your iPhone's GPS.

When you see a parking warden in an area, quickly tap on the "Alert" button. Your phone will then send an alert to all the drivers who have "Parked" their vehicles within 200m of your current location.

Still received a summon ticket? Well, too bad, but at least you can use the app to share your pain with your Facebook friends! Tap the "Kena" button", specify what you "kena-ed", and let your friends laugh at your misfortune!

Hosay!
Hosay!

Hosay! (free)

Singlish isn't just about adding lah or loh behind every sentence. If you find yourself having the need to bulk up your Singlish vocabulary, this free iPhone app is a must-have. Featuring more than 80 Singlish phrases under eight neat categories, there's a right Singlish phrase for every occasion.

Failed to escape parking tickets even with the Summon Auntie app installed? Express yourself in Hokkien: Jialat lah… What about treating your foreign friends to a nice cold cup of iced tea on a hot day? Let them order the teh ping themselves!

There is even an "Insult" category, but rest assured that the insults are family-safe, with timeless classics like "ya ya papaya" and "swa koo". Maybe the makers of Hosay! can consider an M18 version for us in need of more colourful expressions.

For those who are Singlish-challenged, all words and phrases come with definitions. For instance, the definition for "don't shy" is, "- slang, informal way to tell someone not to be shy. Here's one example: 'Come and take the free food, don't shy!'"

If you're unsure about the pronunciation of a certain expression, the app plays it out loud for you in thick Singlish accent. That's bound to draw a few giggles or weird looks, depending on whether you're with your friends or on a crowded public bus.

The only downside of the app is that the catalogue is an exhaustive one. Hopefully, future updates will bring more uniquely Singaporean phrases. For now, Hosay! is packed with enough features to make you "happy like bird", and it's free of charge, so you sure won't "vomit blood" one.

iChangi.
iChangi.

iChangi (free)

The perfect companion to our award-winning airport, iChangi makes looking up flight-related information a breeze.

Enter a flight number once, and the app will push live updates to your phone automatically. There's also a handy search function for those forgetful folks who can never remember their flight number. Whether your flight has been delayed or your loved-one's flight has just landed, iChangi will make sure you're the first to know about it.

The app also contains important airport information, such as transportation, transfers and hotlines. Maps of the various terminals are also accessible with a swipe.

What's more, the app is more than just a flight reference. It lets you browse a catalogue of Changi Airport's shopping, dining, and services, including any latest promotions and events. This should be useful to frequent non-flying visitors to the airport.

After all, our airport is a great place to hang out; just ask the dozens of students crowding the arrival halls revising with their textbooks!

Wheretosg.
Wheretosg.

WhereTo.sg (free)

Small as Singapore may be, there are still times when we get confounded by the blocks of identical HDB flats while looking for one tiny ATM. The Google Maps app which comes with every iPhone isn't localised to the extent of providing that sort of information.

This is where the incredibly useful mapping app WhereTo.sg steps in. The app contains a complete listing of all kinds of amenities that a user might search for, such as bus stops with bus services, convenience stores, supermarkets, ATMs, cinemas, and even wet markets!

WhereTo.sg automatically detects your location when you fire up the app and shows you nearby amenities. What's more, you can simply tap on almost any feature on the map — say, a building — and a pop-up window displays information on that building.

The entire app's information is drawn from the Singapore Land Authority's database, so it is as complete and error-free as it can get. However, errors do sometimes occur, and we would like to see a feature where users can report an error to the developers to rectify, thus making the app as accurate as possible.

Chordica.
Chordica.

Chordica (US$2.99)

There's no shortage of apps simulating musical instruments in the iTunes App Store, but Chordica stands out for several reasons. The app was the winner of the Asia-Pacific ICT Alliance Award 2010 (New Media & Entertainment) and the Singapore infocomm Technology Federation 2010 (Mobile App). And it's completely developed in Singapore.

The story began when music teacher Joash Chee developed a pattern-based method to teach music to his students, and translated it into an iPhone app. Press a few buttons on the screen and the app will pump out full-bodies tones. It's also versatile enough to handle a variety of different sounds, including piano and percussion.

Chordica makes a pretty bold claim of letting users learn to play music in a matter of hours despite having no prior musical knowledge. While the app is indeed simple to use, it's not as easy as the developers make it out to be.

But put in some effort and you could be the next big thing in music — all without having to learn to read a single note!

So there's our list, and we want to hear from you! What are some of your favourite local iPhone apps?