TaEM Contributor

If your Android, iPhone, iPad or tablet is loaded with apps for music, travel, note-taking, tip calculating, game-playing and book reading you just might be an app-oholic. I am. One Sunday evening, when an East Coast storm grounded all flights and JFK’s American Airlines terminal was crowded with irate, weary passengers, my addiction paid off. Thanks to an American Airlines app, I found departure times for myself and the frustrated Peruvian traveler beside me. While many of our fellow travelers languished in a long line, we both were off to our respective gates.

Try these apps; they’ll make your travels easier. As you’ve no doubt discovered, there’s an app for every occasion. That’s why we’ve added a few Olympics 2012 apps. If you can’t be there in person, they’ll help you enjoy the games from afar.

1. Official  London Olympics  2012 offers three free apps to optimize the  Olympics 2012 experience: Join In  is a scheduler that helps to plan what, when and where to watch both  Olympic and Paralympic events, to share information with friends and to  locate celebrations all around the city of London. The Official Results App displays live results, updates, and  allows you to filter results according to country. The Official Games App allows you to play the Olympic sports  of archery, swimming, hurdles, along with six additional choices. Train,  play and challenge yourself! Free for Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7.         
2. London  2012 Spogger Free is dedicated to all things London Olympics  2012 – the latest news, event schedules, venue maps, a search tool for specific days and times of events, trivia challenges, a link to  OlympiMania and the official London 2012 YouTube Channels. Available for      Android only.
3. Hipmunk displays categories (price, departure, duration and arrival times) in a convenient, streamlined timeline.  Click on the aptly-named Agony category to find out if an all-day layover is the real price you’ll pay for that cheap ticket.  Free for Android, iPhone, iPad. (Upgrades available)
4. TripIt creates a  complete travel itinerary.  No more searching through separate emails to locate flight, hotel, dinner reservations, tour times, etc. Email each confirmation to TripIt and  receive an itinerary with all your plans in one place. Free for Android, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Windows      Phone 7
5. Flighttrack lives up to its name in a big way. For 4.99, using real time maps, this app covers 5,000 airports  and 1400 airlines. It tracks arrivals and departures, gate changes, delays,  seat availability and baggage claim locations.  For 10.00 add terminal maps, receive  alerts for gate changes and flight delays and a sync capability to TripIt.  Available for iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone.
6. Googletranslate translates text in 64 languages, enables voice  translation in 17 languages, has a dictionary and the capability of  storing your most often used foreign language phrases. Free for Android, iPhone and iPad.
7. Google Goggles  is worth a trip just to play with  this visual search engine. Want more information on the landmark in front  of you? Snap a picture and search results appear. Take a picture of a  business card and the information is automatically added to your contacts.  It works for books, logos, artwork, wines, and barcodes. It translates into  English, French, Italian, German, Spanish,  Portuguese & Russian. and according  to Google, even solves Sudoku puzzles! Free for Android,  iPhone, iPad  and iPod Touch.

Download these apps, travel and enjoy!