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8 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | MARCH 2017 By Steve Benoff Time to move east. I visited Philadelphia and New York last year and used my smartphone apps throughout my visit. Taking the shuttle bus from the Philadelphia airport to the hotel, I noticed a Chart House restaurant, an old favorite my wife and I enjoyed when they had a restaurant in Westwood. It seemed in walking distance, but I was unclear on directions. So I used the Google Maps on my phone. I entered "chart house" in the search bar. Since the phone, and therefore the app, knew my location, the Philadelphia Chart House was on the top of the list, and I selected it. The map pinpointed the location along with a car symbol that, when pushed, gave me driving directions. But I wanted to walk. Near the top of the screen was a ribbon of symbols and travel times. Besides a car, there were symbols for bus (for public transportation), a pedestrian, and a bicyclist. I press the pedestrian symbol and was given a direct route to the restaurant. The Barnes Foundation Museum of Art is a gem of Philadelphia and is a good example of how museums work in the digital age. Besides the general information you would expect on any website or app, there is detailed information on the collection. In the case of the Barnes app, you can "visit" every room of the permanent collection, and within each room, you can see every item. Accompanying every photo is a short audio description. This is a fabulous app. The Barnes Foundation app may not be one you want to keep on your phone permanently, but it's a fine one to have when planning a visit to Philadelphia and when visiting the museum. If you can't see the Barnes in person, install the app and enjoy the collection wherever you are. I used the Amtrak app to find a train from Philadelphia to New York City. And while we're on the subject of art museums, no city in the U.S. has more of them than New York. And many of them have apps. The Barnes has an advantage over most large museums in that it has a very stable and not very large main collection. So encompassing the museum in an app is quite a different task for, say, The Metropolitan Museum of Art that has almost half a million items in its searchable database. If you've never been to The Met, you'll need a lot of guidance in navigating the main building. The Met app is a great place to start. Like many people, I have a noisemaker in my bedroom. It helps my wife and me to sleep. But I don't want to have to carry it with me when I travel, and thanks to the myNoise app, I don't have to. There are many such apps, but I like this one because of its white noise capability. If you prefer surf, rain, thunder, or most any sound, there's likely a sleep noise app to suit you. Getting around New York is no easy feat even for the regular visitor. I use several apps to help me. I love the subway system in New York. If you don't mind walking a few long blocks, you can take a subway to anywhere in Manhattan and Brooklyn and much of the other three boroughs. But navigating them is impossible without a map. I carry mine on my phone thanks to the NYC Subway app. It has a great map with the subway lines color-coded for easy identification. It also has a route planner and a section on service status. Many cities have such apps. In Manhattan, it's easy to flag a cab. Brooklyn is different so I use an app to help me. Frankly, I have not had much success with the Uber app, but I know many people who use it regularly. Lyft has its own app. In Brooklyn, I rely on two apps. I include them as examples of the diversity of apps. The trick is to find their names. Google the city you're going to visit and include taxi or car service in your search. For Brooklyn I use Arecibo for a car service and Arro for a taxi. When I request a pickup, I'm given an estimated arrival time as well as a map showing the car's location on its way me. Arro makes payment easy by keeping my credit card on file. The whole purpose of this column is to expose the limitless variety of apps. Be bold, explore. Last month I mentioned using apps for American Airlines and JetBlue. Thanks to Bob Ferrier, I can highly recommend a great app, FlightAware, you can use with any airline. It has better info on JetBlue flights in the air than JetBlue's own app. The breadth of info is amazing. Bob points out a fabulous map feature that shows your location and all the flights in the air over your area. This app is plain fun (yes, and plane fun too). Don't wait to track a specific flight. Download it just to see where all those planes above you are going. Do you use an app you'd like to share with others, let me know at steve.benoff@verizon.net. There's An App For That

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