Top apps for car owners

With smartphone and tablet ownership continuing to boom, new apps are being created for virtually every situation. With hundreds devoted to car fans and car owners, we’re going to take a look at some of our top picks, sticking of course with those that are Canadian-user friendly as fits our role as a leading source of automotive trades training in BC.

OnStar

This is a cutting edge effort on the part of General Motors to make your car part of a seamless network that includes all your devices. With the downloadable app, now available for most mobile platforms, users can check the entire dashboard stats of their vehicle, remote start and remote lock their car, and all the other functionalities of the OnStar system. This one’s also worth paying attention to as research for your automotive careers training, because OnStar is just the beginning of an increasingly digitally wired and networked automotive industry.

Honk

The absent-minded car owner will appreciate Honk, an app designed to not only let you leave notes to help you remember where you parked, but lead you back to your car with a little help from your device’s GPS.

Text n’Drive

No, the name is not intended to be an instruction, but rather a system to help stop that perniciously dangerous habit. The app lets you keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road by letting you hear your texts and emails, as well as using cutting edge voice recognition software to let you reply back without getting into an accident. Seen one too many fender benders in your garage? This just might be the thing to recommend to a customer who doesn’t know how to unplug.

iWrecked

For those users who did get into an accident, iWrecked is on hand to help you capture all the details including unlimited photographs of the incident. It then compiles everything into an easy PDF report to send to your insurance company and keep for your records, for an accurate, on the scene documentation of events. It is the perfect gadget for automotive trades career specialists such as Collision Estimators.

MileBug

MileBug was created to help you track the exact mileage for trips. It’s a great asset or declaring your travel for business or charity and even exports your data into an easy to use spreadsheet format, or into HTML. That’s great for doing your taxes or putting together an airproof expense report.