Top 10 Must-Have iPhone Apps for Summer Travel

Creator: MLB.com

Price: $9.99

MLB.com At Bat 2009 is a must-have iPhone application for all baseball fanatics. Real-time dashboards for every Major League Baseball game played during the 2009 season, including live pitch counts, game stats, individual at-bat breakdowns, and "home and away audio" (broadcasts from the local markets of both the home team and the visiting teams) let you stay on top of what's happening. The app's crown jewel is its ability to display select games on your iPhone--live.

(image: Al Sacco)

Creator: Amazon.com

Price: Free

The Amazon Kindle for iPhone lets iPhone and iPod Touch users purchase and read digital books, magazines, Web content and more, right on their Apple devices. If you haven't joined the e-reader craze yet, there's no better way than with Kindle for iPhone because it doesn't require a separate--and often expensive--reader. Users can buy and instantly download books from Amazon via iPhone and then sync the content over to the Kindle so that it's available almost immediately.

(image: Al Sacco, Amazon.com)

Creator: Atebits LLC

Price: $2.99

One of the best things about social networking service Twitter is being able to share interesting experiences with all of your "followers" while you're on the move. Tweetie, one of the many Twitter apps for iPhone and iPod Touch, lets you do just that, offering all of the basic Twitter features plus such extras as yFrog and TwitPic image support and location sharing. But Tweetie's real strength is its clean and intuitive user interface.

(image: Al Sacco, Atebits LLC)

Creator: Fandango

Price: Free

Like its desktop counterpart, the free Fandango for iPhone app is a movie-goer's theater and ticketing companion. Fandango offers instant access to local movie and theater listings, trailers, user ratings, and coming attractions, along with a location-based theater-finder function and much more. Best of all, you can easily purchase tickets for shows by using a payment card.

(image: Fandango)

Creator: Matt Coneybeare

Price: $4.99

If you've ever needed to drown out some annoying racket on a plane or elsewhere--from bratty kids, say, or inebriated adults--Ambiance, dubbed an "environment enhancer," is the app for you. Simply pop in your earbuds, download one of Ambiance's 500+ soothing sounds, which range from thunderstorms to rolling rivers to French cafés to farm sounds, and let yourself drift away. You can set a timer, too, so that you don't drain battery life unduly.

(image: Matt Coneybeare)

Creator: WorldMate Inc.

Price: $24.99 (full version)/Free (lite version)

WorldMate Gold is an excellent all-around travel companion. It organizes and stores itineraries, including flight and airline information, hotel reservations, car rentals, and meeting locales. You can find hotels directly from WorldMate, convert foreign currencies, view world clocks and weather forecasts, and even get one-click access to maps and navigation apps, where available.

If you'd like to see how WorldMate performs before you commit to buying it, pick up the free lite version of the app.

(image: WorldMate Inc.)

Creator: uLocate Communications Inc.

Price: Free

Where for iPhone is a full-featured local search application that uses your physical location to identify nearby restaurants (with Yelp reviews), local businesses (such as Starbucks), movie and theater information, gas stations, the lowest nearby gas prices, and much more. You can also keep tabs on friends who also use Were via the app's Buddy Beacon feature. And it integrates with the iPhone's native map apps, so you can find places of interest easily.

(image: uLocate Communications Inc.)

Creator: Concept Cache LCC

Price: Free

The Flickr Sendr app for iPhone and iPod Touch lets users of Yahoo's Flickr photo-sharing service snap and post pictures to the site while on the go. After logging into your Flickr account, simply choose whether to snap a new image or use one already stored on your phone; then upload the file, and you're ready to share.

(image: Al Sacco, Concept Cache LCC)

Creator: Youniversal Ideas

Price: Free

The Free Wi-Fi application doesn't really provide free Internet access, but it does offer the next best thing: a way to locate the nearest free Internet hotspot--which can be invaluable when you're traveling. The app finds your location based on GPS (if permitted to do so) or by zip code, but you can instead search for Wi-Fi by city, if you prefer. And you can tap any search result for location information and directions via the native iPhone/iPod Maps app. (Note: This app only works in the United States.)

(image: Al Sacco)

Creator: FDG Entertainment

Price: $0.99

Not actually skydiving this summer? Check out a simple strategy game for the iPhone, Parachute Panic, which challenges players to ensure that parachuting stick figures land safely on passing ships instead of in the ocean (where, tragically, they become shark food). You simply guide falling parachutists with a finger or two, open up their chutes when necessary, and avoid or destroy obstacles. The goal is to save as many stick figures as possible, racking up points in the mix.

Other iPhone apps can keep you challenged, entertained, and on top of your business day. For more, see the slide shows below. And to read descriptions and reviews of thousands of iPhone apps, be sure to visit PC World's brand-new App Guide.

• Top 10 Must-Have iPhone Apps for Multimedia Junkies

• Top 10 Must-Have iPhone Business Apps

• Top 10 Must-Have iPhone Apps for Gamers

(image: Al Sacco)