COVER STORY: Mobile Mileage

TURF MANAGEMENT

University of Georgia researchers have developed an app called Turfgrass Management, which Brown uses frequently (see page 28). "I have several small travel turfgrass books that allow me to reference diseases, weeds and insects," he says. "This app puts all that in the palm of your hand with its extensive turfgrass database." One-time download fee of 99 cents; $19.99 annual subscription. BlackBerry version due out this fall.

Toro recently released an official iPhone app, Toro NSN. "This also gives me the ability to control my entire irrigation system from the palm of my hand," Brown says. "The neatest part is that Toro has developed an iPhone app. If they have done so for irrigation, imagine the possibilities ¨C apps for equipment repair, apps for ordering at your local vendor. It's endless." Free.

A free weather app, Brown uses Who Is Hot? to track the weather for all his properties. "You open the app and click on one of your contacts and you have all the weather and radar right there," he says. "No one, in my opinion, beats the animated radar in this app." Free.

"This app mirrors the ¡®local on the 8s' feature from The Weather Channel," he says, noting he opts for the free version. "It's a better forecasting tool than Who Is Hot?" Free-$3.99. Also available for the BlackBerry.

To get the most mileage out of Quickoffice, Brown says you need to subscribe to Apple's MobileMe service, which pushes new e-mail, contacts and calendar events to all your devices, so your iPhone and computer stay in sync with no docking required. "Quickoffice allows me to create, edit and e-mail Word and Excel documents," Brown says, noting that you can't store files on an iPhone like you can a BlackBerry. "This program released an update that allows you to e-mail any document you receive directly to your MobileMe iDisk (which is like a Web-based hard drive). This is a perfect work around to not being able to store documents on your iPhone." $9.99.

This app has a friendlier user interface than Quickoffice, Brown says, but the program falls short in other areas: You're not able to access iDisk work files or edit Excel files. However, the program's developer says its working on these two updates, in which case Brown will use Documents To Go exclusively over Quickoffice. $6.99-$11.99. Also
available for the BlackBerry.

Before Toro released its NSN app, LogMeIn allowed Brown to log in to his computer with from his iPhone and control the irrigation system. "I know a lot of people who use this app to access files on their computer," he says. $29.99. In testing stages for the BlackBerry Storm.

This app allows users to "bump" iPhones together to share files and information. Though Brown primarily uses it to share family photos with his wife, he sees a use in the turf industry: "Could you imagine walking the trade show floor at the Golf Industry Show with this app? You could arrive at a vendor booth and bump iPhones to share contact information. Or the vendor could use it to send you product information." Free.

Brown used to carry a camera on his hip in case he needed to snap a photo on the golf course. "I'd find myself forgetting my camera at the moment I needed that picture," he says. "The iPhone camera takes care of this. I'm also able to send that photo immediately to the GM, members and other workers." BlackBerrys and other smartphones also typically have cameras.