10 apps for adventure - The iphone apps that could save your life!

Have a look at these 10 iphone apps that could get you out of trouble when the going gets tough!

In the old days preparing for adventure often meant a tour around the expedition emporiums of London, filling enormous trunks with everything from blunderbusses to snuff. Carrying them was the porter’s job leaving you free to point your sextant at the stars or write final, enigmatic entries into leather-bound journals before succumbing to the local tropical disease. These days, despite the disappointing dearth of porters (and indeed blunderbusses and snuff), it’s still possible to carry everything you could ever need with you on your travels, but thankfully it can now all be neatly packed into a sleek and shiny little gadget. Apps have revolutionised the smartphone into a true digital adventure multi-tool and the iphone is leading the charge. With that in mind here’s our list of the ten best apps for adventure:

Best for: Not dying in a tricky situation
App: Army Survival
Price: £1.19

You may have watched a few episodes of Ray Mears in your time, but stuck in the middle of nowhere, can you really remember which berries aren’t poisonous or how to build a shelter that will get you through the night? Well fear not, the US Army’s Field Survival Manual, the military authority on all things not-dying, has been condensed into a weightless collection of ones and zeros that you can flick through, search and bookmark. Complete with 1400 pages of detailed guidance, diagrams and photos, on everything from how to light a fire, to ropes and knots this app could, quite literally, save your life.

Best for: Finding things in the dark
App: Flashlite.
Price: Free

The trouble with torches is that they’re never, ever around when you need them. The ‘Flashlite.’ App aims to sort all that out through the simple expedient of filling the iphones screen with bright, white light, allowing you to wave your arm around like some sort of cybernetic tentacle and see what on earth is going on. It has a red mode to maintain night vision and even an emergency strobe, which one user on the App store claims helped him guide in a rescue helicopter when injured out on the Moors. Handy.


Best for: Making yourself understood
App: Lonely Planet Phrasebooks
Price: £5.99

Remember those devices from Star-trek that instantly translated other languages so that Captain Kirk didn’t have to resort to pointing and talking louder? Well we’re not quite there yet, but the Lonely Planet Phrasebook Apps are certainly a start. Simply download the language that you’re after from a choice of seventeen, including Mandarin and Swahili, select the phrase you want by flicking through the menus and your iphone will read out the phrase for you. Whilst holding an iphone to a foreigner’s ear to get yourself understood may not be the most elegant way to interact, it could end up preventing any unfortunate misunderstandings caused by your complete inability to pay attention during double French.

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http://www.wideworldmag.co.uk/features/10-apps-for-adventure