Appropros Mobile has released a Pro version of its popular FlightTrack iPhone application that can automatically pull in your flight itineraries through TripIt’s recently released API.
The original FlightTrack application, which costs $4.99 and is currently ranked third among the iPhone App Store’s top paid travel applications, asks for you to enter an airline, a flight number, and a date. It then displays a travel map with route and weather information, and it tells you whether the flight’s gate has changed or if there’s been a delay.
The new Pro version essentially saves you from having to remember flight numbers by giving you a list of the itineraries you have already emailed to TripIt. You can still look up flights manually (perhaps when you want to retrieve the status of a flight for a friend or family member), but you’ll always have your own travel information ready for quick access.
By releasing an API and deciding not to develop its own iPhone application, TripIt has essentially offloaded its mobile users to Appropros Mobile (TripIt does have a mobile iPhone site but it’s not nearly as functional). Unfortunately, this means TripIt will miss out on the revenue that Appropros gets to generate with its data, not an insignificant amount at $9.99 a pop for FlightTrack Pro.
This could be a strategic mistake for TripIt since travel is by definition a mobile activity. However, travel social network competitor Dopplr hasn’t released an iPhone app of its own either, so perhaps neither company has felt enough competitive pressure in the mobile space yet.
See our previous coverage of TripIt here.
I rally like TripIt, so I’ll definitely try this.
If I had an iPhone and I was doing any traveling I would absolutely pick this app up. I talked about TripIt in a travel planning episode of my show The Web Mix and I this app using their api looks like a really nice tool to have on the iPhone.
I talked about TripIt in a travel planning episode of my show The Web Mix and I this app using their api looks like a really nice tool to have on the iPhone.
This is off topic but does anyone know why TripIt has an application for LinkedIn but not for Facebook and Dopplr has an application for Facebook but not for LinkedIn? It would seem that they would both want to have applications for both social networks.
tripit for facebook would really be a nice thing I could then let (personal) people know where I am traveling !
they could quite easily have privacy i.e. by default show on facebook…
since the linkedin app is opensocial they could easily do myspace as well…
facebook is the one I would like though…
regards
John Jones
I just got the app – it is great. I have been using TripIt for some time now. Work together seamlessly. Very cool