Be careful of roaming fees with travel apps

The iPhone has opened the door to a world of opportunity for consumers’ personal lives. More and more developers are jumping on board daily to create useful apps for travellers.

However, “To the shame of many short-sighted iPhone app developers, many budget travel apps have an enormous flaw. This fatal issue could turn a 99-cent app intended to save you cash into a nightmarish drain on your cell phone bill. The problem: Many travel apps require a data connection to work,” highlighted an article from WalletPop.

One needs to be wary of the cases where apps don’t tell users how much data they are using as they use it. No matter whether you use an iPhone, a BlackBerry, or whatever, the amount you spend in data could far surpass the amount you thought you were going to save by using the app. Many data-reliant applications will gloss over this programming failure by simply neglecting to mention it, and if that happens, comb the user reviews for a customer who will deliver the truth about how it works.”

There are workarounds. You could activate a Wi-Fi network, but in most places outside of America, free Wi-Fi signals are hard to find. They're also site-specific, which defeats the purpose of being able to roam anywhere you want and have information at your fingertips.