Jaunted

1. Priceline's Hotel Negotiator
Just about every hotel chain has an iPhone app these days, and they are without exception totally useless. Most people just don't purchase hotel rooms from the road. When they do need a room in a pinch the critical factor is price not brand. We've long insisted that people are more inclined to use Priceline or Hotwire in those situations than they are to use a hotel chain's website. That makes this app a very welcome addition to the App Store catalog. You can bid on hotels by neighborhood just like on regular Priceline, all the way up to 11pm EST.

2. Cheap Gas!
Like a dozen other apps, Cheap Gas! uses geolocation to find cheap gas as close to you as possible. What differentiates this app from its competitors is that it builds in a layer of augmented reality, overlaying regular old reality with digital tagging. Data is fed into the phone through a combination of the camera and the iPhone 3GS's compass. Cheap Gas! then reproduces the camera image on your screen and overlays it with hovering images of prices down the road. Clicking on one of the images brings up information about the station and directions for how to get there. The next wave is here:

3. Disneyland MouseWait SocialWait Times
This app from app316.com is half social networking and half theme park navigation. The social networking part allows you to access Disney related blogs, Twitter feeds, and Facebook friends. The Twitter feeds are particularly useful since Disneyland fans are enthusiastic about posting live updates throughout the day. Naturally you can also add your own updates, contributing to the hive mind. The other half of the app tries to gauge the wait times for various rides. The MouseWait predictions are calculated based on a proprietary formula so we're presuming it uses a bunch of historical and layout data that's Disneyland specific. Users who need a free Disney World wait times app should go to the $0.99 Disney World Wait Times app.

4. GUCCI
We were a little hesitant to put this on the list because it's Gucci and you know. But the ratings are currently running about 50/50 1-star and 5-star, which if nothing else is interesting. Gucci America seems to have built in a bunch of genuinely useful features, from a store locater to a restaurant guide to a music stream. The app accesses Gucci's Little Black Book, spitting out a list of tres classe restaurants, clubs, bars, and hotels. Geolocation allows you to access a list of nearby Frida's Favorites, so named because they're ostensibly picked by Gucci Creative Director Frida Giannini. If you indulge in the Gucci lifestyle, buying Gucci things and going to Gucci places, this is probably worth a download.

5. The Snow Report
Switching gears away from the Gucci lifestyle, The North Face's Snow Report just got bumped up to ver. 2.0. It gives users access to snow conditions, weather forecasts, avalanche advisories, and a bunch more information, all tied to a gigantic list of international resorts. Once users decide on and get to their destinations there are trail and terrain maps to help them plan their courses. In between all of that the app even offers access to resort Twitter and news feeds.

[Photo: Adrian Ilie / Wiki Commons]

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