10 apps that will make your life infinitely easier

BY Karissa Bell

We get by with a little help from our apps.

From smartphone apps that help get you places to those that remind you about morning meetings to those that give you life updates from friends, many basic tasks have become much easier.

But, as a simple scroll through Google Play or the App Store will prove, the app space is crowded; there's a lot to choose from. So we saved you the work and rounded up 10 of our favorites — from maps to news to restaurants — that will help you get things done faster and more efficiently.

Take a look through our list, and then let us know in the comments below which apps help to supercharge your productivity.

• 

  Citymapper

  Citymapper will help you navigate some of the biggest cities in the United States and Europe. The app pulls in data from local public transit and puts maps and directions at your fingertips.

  It also works offline, so you can get around even without data connection. Citymapper connects with Uber and Hailo to help you get rides around town, too.

  Available for: iOS and Android

  IMAGE: CITYMAPPER LIMITED

• 

  Flipboard

  Whether you're a news junkie or simply want to browse headlines on your way to work, Flipboard has you covered. After you select the topics you’re most interested in, the app creates themed magazines that are personalized to your tastes. You can also connect Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to quickly flip through updates from all your social networks in one place.

  Available for: iOS, Android, Windows Phone

  Also try... If you fall into the "less is more” camp, check out Yahoo’s News Digest, which offers a handful of carefully curated stories twice daily.

  IMAGE: FLIPBOARD INC.

• 

  Flush toilet finder

  When you have to go, you have to go. Flush will prevent the frantic rush to find a suitable place to do your business.

  The app has listings for more than 100,000 public restrooms around the world, including information on disability access, key requirements and user reviews.

  Available for: iOS and Android

  IMAGE: JRUSTON

• 

  Google Now

  Turn on voice searches to find everything from directions home and weather conditions to recipes, simply by saying, “OK, Google.” The app also acts a personal assistant with Google Now cards that show reminders and other information you need to know about your day.

  Available for:: iOS and Android

  Android users, step it up a notch with the Google Now Launcher, which puts Google Now’s superpowers directly on your home screen.

  IMAGE: GOOGLE

• 

  Pocket

  The simplest way to save things you want to find or read later. If you’re browsing in an app or on the web, save articles, videos, recipes and other items to your Pocket account for easy access later. Your account syncs across all devices and on the web; offline capabilities ensure you can always find that #longread when you want it.

  Available for: iOS and Android

  IMAGE: READ IT LATER, INC.

• 

  Shazam

  One of the first apps that made the iPhone seem magical, Shazam can identify that song you hear but just can't place -- in seconds -- even with background noise or voices. Music charts show you the latest trending tracks around the world, and its discovery features recommend new music based on your music tastes.

  Available for: iOS and Android

  Also try… Have a song stuck in your head but no clue what it is? Try SoundHound, which can identify songs based on singing or humming.

  IMAGE: SHAZAM ENTERTAINMENT

• 

  Sunrise

  There are a lot of great smart calendar apps on the market, but Sunrise's balance of features and its dead-simple user interface make it a winner. The app syncs with Google, Microsoft Exchange and iCloud accounts to put all your appointments and reminders in one place.

  The app also pulls in weather and Google Maps data to add relevant info to your calendar events and connects with Facebook and LinkedIn so you can see the faces of people you’re meeting right in your calendar.

  Available for: iOS and Android

  Also try… If you’re a calendar power user and want even more features, try Fantastical 2, which helps you manage nearly every aspect of your day and has an almost endless range of customization options.

  IMAGE: SUNRISE ATELIER

• 

  Venmo

  Hands-down the easiest way to pay friends, Venmo makes it simple to send money to people you know. You can also use the app to request payments, and money sent through app is easily transferred back to your bank account. Check out our beginners' guide here.

  Available for: iOS and Android

  IMAGE: VENMO

• 

  Waze

  If you spend a lot of time in the car, this is a must. The app crowdsources traffic data, road conditions and other information like speed traps and camera lights. If you're sitting in traffic, the app will automatically reroute to bring you to your destination more quickly. It also displays nearby gas stations (and prices), along with other nearby businesses.

  Available for: iOS and Android

  IMAGE: WAZE INC.

• 

  Yelp

  Regardless of whether you’re looking for a new restaurant to try or just want to double-check a menu, Yelp remains one of the best ways to check out most businesses in town. If you’re searching late at night or an otherwise odd hour, be sure switch on the “open now” filter.

  Available for: iTunes, Android, Windows Phone
  
  Also try… If you’re after a reservation, try OpenTable, which will help you snag a table.

Google completes Waze acquisition for $1.3 billion

AP | Jun 12, 2013, 10.21 AM IST

Google is buying Waze in a $1.03 billion deal that keeps a potentially valuable tool away from its rivals.

SAN FRANCISCO: Google is buying online mapping service Waze in a $1.03 billion deal that keeps a potentially valuable tool away from its rivals while allowing it to gain technology that could improve the accuracy and usefulness of its own popular navigation system. 

The acquisition announced on Tuesday ends several months of speculation as Waze flirted with potential buyers interested in its rapidly growing service. Waze blends elements of a social network into its maps to produce more precise directions and more reliable information about local traffic conditions. 

Google is believed to have trumped two of its fiercest foes, Facebook and Apple, in the bidding for Waze, which is based in Israel but also maintains a Palo Alto, California, office near all three of the Silicon Valley giants. 

"We evaluated many options and believe Google is the best partner," Waze CEO Noam Bardin wrote in a Tuesday blog post. 

Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but Associated Press confirmed the sale price with a person familiar with the negotiations. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was not authorized to discuss the matter. Google isn't expected to disclose the price until it discusses the transaction in a formal regulatory filing. 

Waze ranks as the fourth most expensive acquisition among the more than 240 deals that Google has completed in its nearly 15-year history. The only bigger purchases are Motorola Mobility Holdings for $12.4 billion last year, DoubleClick for $3.2 billion in 2008 and YouTube for $1.76 billion in 2006. 

The price underscores the increasing importance of digital maps as people frequently check navigation services on their smartphones and tablet computers to help steer them in the right direction. The reliance on mobile maps creates more opportunities to show money-making ads, particularly those from local merchants. Google can also link the navigation systems to other applications to help generate more revenue. 

Forrester Research analyst Julie Ask expects maps to become a main gateway on mobile devices, much like internet search engines have been on personal computers for the past decade. "A growing percentage of time will be spent discovering, accessing and engaging content within maps," Ask predicted. 

Google is the leader in the field, but both Apple and Facebook would like a bigger piece of the market. 

Those ambitions are likely a key reason Google scooped up Waze, said University of Notre Dame management professor Brian Proffitt, who specializes in technology issues. "If Facebook had gotten Waze, they clearly would do something in the mobile market with it," Proffitt said. "Getting Waze is like a billion-dollar remedy to a potential headache for Google." 

Apple also has been trying to improve the quality of its maps since the debut of its own navigation system last year. The maps, which replaced Google's technology as the built-in app to get directions on the iPhone and iPad, misplaced landmarks and misguided users, prompting a public apology from Apple CEO Tim Cook, along with vow to get better. 

In a blog post, Google said the Waze deal had already closed. The deal didn't require government approval before it could be completed because of Waze's relatively small size. Although Waze doesn't disclose revenue, it only has about 100 employees. 

But Waze has been gaining a foothold in the digital mapping market. Waze says nearly 50 million drivers in 190 countries use its mapping app to avoid traffic jams and find the fastest way to their jobs and other destinations. The service figures out the most efficient routes by drawing upon real-time information shared by about 70,000 members who help edit the maps and even provide other helpful tips, such as where to find the best gasoline prices. 

In an interview during an April technology conference presented by All Things D, Waze's Bardin described his service as "the only reasonable competition" to Google in mobile maps. 

Even though Google already has assumed ownership of Waze, government regulators could still review the deal to assess its effects on the mapping market. 

None of Google's previous acquisitions have been blocked by regulators, although a few underwent reviews that lasted nine to 12 months. 

Most of the previous regulatory inquiries have centered on Google's dominance in internet search - a service closely linked to maps - and online advertising. 

For now, Google will allow Waze to operate independently and maintain its main offices in Israel. Google, which is based in Mountain View, California, is taking the same tack with Motorola Mobility, which operates autonomously in Illinois. 

"We're excited about the prospect of enhancing Google Maps with some of the traffic update features provided by Waze and enhancing Waze with Google's search capabilities," Brian McClendon, a Google vice president who oversees maps, wrote in the company's blog post. 

Waze's sharing tools also could help Google improve its own 2-year-old social networking service, called Plus, as it tries to lure traffic away from Facebook. 

In his blog post, Bardin said Waze decided it made more sense to tap into Google's vast resources instead staying on its own and eventually facing the distractions of an initial public offering. 

"Choosing the path of an IPO often shifts attention to bankers, lawyers and the happiness of Wall Street, and we decided we'd rather spend our time with you, the Waze community," Bardin wrote.

Google's stock shed $10.41, or about 1 percent, to closed Tuesday at $879.81. That decline was roughly in line with the broader markets. 

Waze, which started five years ago, is the latest mobile startup to blossom into a billion-dollar baby. Last month, Yahoo agreed to buy Tumblr, a blogging service started in 2008, for $1.1 billion. 

The acquisition also could help Israel's efforts to stamp the country as a wellspring of innovation. 

Faced with limited natural resources, Israel has excelled in technology and fostered a vibranthigh-tech culture. The country is a popular destination for global venture capital funds seeking to capitalize on Israel's entrepreneurial spirit, as well as expertise honed in universities and advanced technology units of the Israeli army. 

Technology is now viewed as Israel's main economic engine, accounting for roughly half the country's exports. Israel is even promoting itself as "startup nation." 

The Waze buyout ranks among the largest company sales in Israeli history. Chromatis Networks was sold to Lucent Technologies for $4.5 billion at the height of the dot-com bubble in 2000. Lucent wound up closing Chromatis a year later. Last year, computer networking gear maker Cisco Systems snapped up Israeli video software company NDS Group for $5 billion
.

Why Facebook would buy Waze: To fight Google for mobile search

The navigation app would give the social network a way to insert itself into the lucrative mobile search business owned by Google.

by Jennifer Van Grove

 May 9, 2013 12:34 PM PDT

Rumors that Facebook is in late-stage talks to buy Waze for as much as $1 billion have many wondering if the social network's next great ambition is to tackle the maps and navigation market. Maybe -- but only because maps would be Facebook's best way to route around Google and make money from mobile search.

Founded in 2007, Waze makes a navigation application for iPhone and Android used by roughly 45 million people. The app's mapping service is powered by the people who use it. Waze ingests all types of location data as shared, either implicitly or explicitly, by drivers. The app also connects to Facebook and incorporates social-networking functions so drivers can see their friends' whereabouts on the map, share their location, and even send private messages.

Should Facebook buy Waze, the social network will send a clear message to Google: "Watch out! We're on your tail."

Facebook would like to be a formidable force on mobile and not just capture attention, but ad dollars. If it has to get into the maps business to do so, so be it.

Waze Chief Executive Noam Bardin inadvertently said as much when he spoke at AllThingsD's D: Dive Into Mobile conference last month. The full interview is embedded below.

"What search is for the Web, maps are for mobile," he said. "The searches you do on mobile that actually are monetizable, and are different from the Web, are searches that have to do with location."

The search mechanism on mobile devices is the map, he said.

(Credit: eMarketer)

In Bardin's view of the mobile search land-grab, which revolves around great maps, there are just two players: Google and Waze.

"Google is out there creating a new standard in terms of quality, and we feel that we're the only reasonable competition to them in this market of creating maps that are really geared for mobile, for real-time, for consumers -- for the new world that we're moving into."

Enter Facebook, a company that surely doesn't want to be left behind in the race to own mobile search.

By eMarketer's estimates, Facebook is the No. 2 mobile ad publisher in the U.S -- second only to Google. The social network accounted for 9.5 percent of mobile ad revenue in 2012 and will eat up 13.2 percent of the U.S. mobile ad market this year, thanks to its strength in the display category. Google, however, will take home more than half of all mobile ad revenue in 2013, according to the market research firm.

(Credit: eMarketer)

But when it comes to making money from mobile search, the real cash cow on mobile, Google is the uncontested leader.

The search giant netted 93.3 percent of all U.S. mobile search ad dollars last year, and it will continue to maintain a suffocating hold over this particular mobile ad market through 2015, according to estimates from eMarketer. The firm anticipates that U.S. mobile Internet search ad revenue will total $7.85 billion in 2015; it pegs Google's share at around $7.1 billion, or 90 percent of the market.

Should Facebook buy Waze, the social network will have a way to insert itself into this lucrative business and help its 751 million mobile users better find what they're searching for on their smartphones.

Waze would also make for an attractive addition to what Bardin called Facebook's "meta operating system" for mobile, or the growing collection of Facebook mobile applications that ensure that no matter the phone or operating system, people will find themselves inside a Facebook environment.

It's a strategy the social network has actively pushed forward with its nascent Android Home software suite, as well with single app releases like Facebook Camera, Messenger, and Poke.