image via gothamist.com
Happy New Year! The planet has somehow managed to survive another 365 days, and you think that sort of miracle is something worth celebrating. Finding folks to party with on December 31st is easy--there are parties, events and libations every which way you turn. After the ball has dropped and the confetti has hit the ground, you’ve got to be on your toes if you want to get home safe and sound.
Fortunately, we here at Mac|Life are old hands at navigating the perils that come along with the aftermath of New Years Eve. To make sure that our valued readers get back home so they can keep on reading, we’ve put together a list of some of our favourite After Party iOS applications to give you an edge as you edge your way back home to bed.
It doesn’t matter if you own a vehicle or not: as the soul sober member of your peer group, you stand the chance of being declared the designated driver for everyone else. Since a collection of drunken pals are hard to ferry home on the handlebars of your bike, you might want to consider hooking up with Zipcar as a viable alternative.
For those unfamiliar with the service, Zipcar is a members-only car sharing service that, for a very reasonable fee, allows you to reserve a wide variety of vehicles for your personal use. Zipcar’s iOS application is just as easy to use as the company’s services. By allowing those who download it to locate a Zipcar in hundreds of locations across North America, reserve it, and even unlock the vehicle via their iPhone, Zipcar has made getting on the road a pleasure—even if your only reason for doing so is to safely deliver a load of drunken goofs.
Oh, and if you’re not already a Zipcar member, the application has you covered there as well, providing users with a link to the company’s website to get the membership ball rolling.
Do we need to mention that drinking and driving is a terrible idea? No? Good. If none of your friends are sober enough to make snagging a Zipcar a viable option, you can always grab a cab. That’s the good news. The bad news is that seemingly everyone else on the planet will be too drunk to drive as well on New Years Eve, making the quest for a cab a knockdown, drag-out nightmare.
Fortunately, TaxiPal’s on your side. Similar in function to Rocket Taxi, TaxiPal can suggest the number of a nearby cab company based upon your current GPS location. Once you’ve found a cab company that works for you, the application can save the name of the company as a favourite, making it possible over time for TaxiPal users to build up an at-a-glance directory of cab companies to call upon no matter where they may roam.
In the thick of the party, you might not have realized that you spent your last few bucks on drinks. While you might not have enough pocket change left to cab it home, public transportation is always an option—especially with more and more municipalities offering free rides home on New Years Eve.
If you need to hunt down a bus route and aren’t familiar with the area you’re partying in, Metro Maps by Maplets is an awesome way to go. A decisively simply program, Metro Maps lets you download the route maps for a multitude of public transit services from around the globe, making it easy to locate a bus stop.
If maps aren’t enough for you, Maplets also features the contact information for many of the transit services featured in the application, making it possible to call and ask for directions and bus times should you need them.
Let’s say that someone who most certainly isn’t a writer for Mac|Life, but just some random guy, started off December 31st partying in France, and thanks to some less than hilarious friends and a Eurorail pass--discovered that he’s woken up in Spain. This unnamed guy, freaked out, as he needed to get back to France so that he could travel home, but never learned how to speak or read Spanish. As a result, he missed his train, missed his flight and deeply entertained the people who claiming to be his friends, still laugh at him over the ordeal a full decade later. If that unnamed individual had possessed an iPhone equipped with Word Lens, things could have turned out much differently.
Combining a number of translation dictionaries and some compelling augmented reality magic, Word Lens lets users point their iPhone or iPod touch camera at any just about any text source and watch as the application instantly translates it into a language you understand. While the application currently offers only translations from English to Spanish and back again, for those of our readers partying it up way down south or on the European continent where Spanish is king, Word Lens will no doubt be seen as an invaluable tool.
For the hardcore New Years Eve party-hound, getting home is only the first step down the long, dim path into the New Year. After crashing, no doubt, you’ll be waking up on the afternoon of January 1st with a head full of broken glass and a spot in your left pinkie toe that doesn’t hurt. Traditionalists might try to duke it out with their hangover by spending a quiet day cuddled up with the hair of the dog that bit them and a bottle or Tylenol. Mac|Life readers, on the other hand, tend to be a forward-looking lot.
For you, we suggest giving Brainwave Hangover Relief a whirl. An intriguing application for either your iPhone or iPod touch promises to alter your brainwaves in such a way as to quell your hangover’s worst symptoms. While we’re not too sure about the science behind such a lofty claim, we can get behind the application’s inclusion of a noise generator, which allows people who have partied far too hearty to block out the world with the sounds of the oceans, thunderstorms, rain or pink noise.
For those of you looking for a low tech solution to to your after-booze woes, Hangover Cures for iPhone fits the bill nicely. Chockfull of handy home remedies to get you over that hurtful next-day hump, the application may very well be the your best friend on New Years Day. We do feel the need to mention that not all of the remedies suggested by the application are appropriate for younger or more sensitive iOS device users. Then again, if you were young and sensitive, you most likely wouldn’t be hungover in the first place.
No matter whether you’re trying to get over a hangover or just want to enjoy the first day of the 2011 by sharing a meal with your family and friends, you can rely on Urbanspoon to bring you the goods on what’s good to eat. With a number of ways to interact with its substantial and constantly growing list of eateries, downloading this free application for your iPhone or iPad will ensure that you’re never at a loss for where to grab a bit to nosh again.
No matter how, where or who you choose to celebrate New Years, we here at Mac|Life wish you a safe, happy New Years Eve and all the best in the year to come!
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