TripIt - travel organizer

Summary

Don’t worry, "TripIt" doesn’t refer to some obscure disease contracted abroad whilst you’re out and about perusing the world, but rather a tool that’s meant to help you with planning your travels.

Travelling in itself is quite a complex topic, and there are a lot of factors that need to be taken in to account. You have to consider arrival and departure; what kind of clothes you need to bring along; planning the journey once you’ve arrived at your destination; weather conditions; etc.

And TripIt wants to help simplify things, as well as provide a few more features along the way.

What those features are, as well as if TripIt is worth your while, and for what kind of traveler TripIt is geared towards is what you’ll find out in today’s test review.
 

TripIt is made up of two components: the web interface and the app. The web interface is really the component via which you can control all the different functions. The app itself displays the trip scheduling you composed on the web. Aside from this the app doesn’t have any other functions.

So, even though it might seem a bit abrupt I’ll get straight to the bottom line, as there’s really not much to say about the app.

Bottom line:

As previously mentioned, it's unfortunate that all the functions are hosted on the web interface. This means that the app is little more than a calendar or notepad, but seeing as my review is restricted to the app itself I have to say that the selection of functions is quite sparse. The app itself really only deserves one star. You can’t do anything with it, be it planning a journey, remembering GPS data, etc.

That being said, as a whole product I find TripIt quite interesting. It really has a lot to offer. Not only can you plan your travel schedule, but you can ad excursions, meetings, activites, tickers, travel and flight details, etc. to your travel schedule. That way you never lose sight of the bigger picture, even if you’re embarking on a complex journey. TripIt will provide you with maps, details about local weather conditions, as well as any other data you entered.

Furthermore, TripIt allows you to incorporate others into your travel planning. That way everyone is always on top of things. Another advantage is that your loved ones can also easily see what you’re up to and pull information if ever they’re worrying about you. Thus TripIt is destined to be a big hit with moms.

But back to the problem of fairly evaluating TripIt: the app deserves only one star. There are quite simply not enough options to interact with planning my journey via my phone. That being said, the web tool is very effective, and I would recommend it anyone who likes travelling and planning ahead.

I am therefore awarding a total of three stars for features & use. The tool probably deserves four or five stars, but the app only gets one, so I’m deciding on the golden mean. Also, I’m appealing to the developers to make some of the functions useable on the phone, because the truth of the matter is, when you’re on holiday using your phone is much more convenient than travelling with your laptop.
 

Well, it’s the same story as with functions & use all over again. The app basically has no controls, though to be fair it has to be said that you can very easily access the tickets and phone numbers you’ve previously entered… but that’s about as far as it goes.

Again, everything else happens on the web interface. So it makes sense that controlling the app itself is child’s play: there’s really not much to it.

Another thing I should mention is that you have to register for TripIt, although they get props for deciding to use “Facebook Connect” for that. That means that you don’t necessarily have to register via TripIt, but can also quite simply enter your Facebook login data. But, again, you can only do this via web interface, which is a bit of a shame.

You’ll find three buttons under the menu button in the main menu:

Refresh
About
Settings: You can set up how the trips will be displayed. All in all this is also quite a flimsy option.

Bottom line:

Why was this app even developed? It strikes me as being some sort of quick management decision. there doesn't seem to be much thought behind  the app’s use, function, and how customers would feel about use it. The main thing is to get an app out there really fast, right? Sure, you can do that… but is anyone going to benefit from that kind of app?

Then again, the app did make me aware of the services offered by TripIt, which are, in all fairness, quite brilliant.
 

TripIt is fast and efficient, no crashes. But then again, there’s really not that much to do ;-)

TripIt is free of charge, both the web and the application. And the web interface doesn’t offer a pro version, either.