iGasUp for iPhone – Best Way to Find Cheap Gas Quick
iGasUp 1.11 is the newly revised and renamed version of iGas, which now arrives as a much more solid application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch with many of the earlier functionality and performance issues resolved. In fact, it is pretty darn handy and useful. Essentially what happens is that you fire up the app, and the 10 cheapest gas stations closest to you show up. You not only see the distance to the locations but gas prices displayed from lowest to highest. Driving directions are supplied by Google Maps. If you can hold off and are planning on getting some petrol closer to your destination, you can enter a zip code to get the same information for that particular area. You can also toggle between Closest and Cheapest depending on your urgency.
The biggest concern with these types of apps is accuracy. In this case, iGasUp relies on 3rd party Oil Price Information Service (OPIS), which is the same company that supplies information to AAA, Garmin, Sirius and MapQuest. Information from credict card swipe prices from over 110,000 stations keep things as up-to-date as possible. On the display, you can go to an individual station to get more information. The address, a driving directions button and price list per octane grade is shown along with the date and time of the last update. OPIS has pretty comprehensive coverage of participating operators, but be aware that the independent stations (these still exist?) probably won’t be included. At this point it doesn’t look like a user database is in the works, but this is actually quite okay.
iGasUp has various preferences that can be set to help minimize time fumbling around while driving. Some of the more useful options include setting a preferred octane rating, choosing a search radius in square miles and deciding if the main list should show Closest or Cheapest first by default. The application goes for $3 on iTunes, which is basically a licensing fee which allows use for a full 12 months. You can probably save the cost of purchasing the app within the first couple weeks of use. As a full-time Blackberry user, and part time iPhone user (yes, I mooch), I really hope that these types of programs make their way to the ‘crackberry’ world.
Source: iGasUp.com | OPIS