As the hype surrounding iPads, e-readers and newfangled apps clatters on with cacophonous glee throughout the blogosphere, Simon Bratt digs into the Apple App Store to check out the best Hong Kong guides.

Last month, local upscale guide publisher LUXE released an iPhone app version of its popular Hong Kong and Macau city guide. In addition to making the guide more portable, the decision to go mobile has enabled LUXE to incorporate some of the iPhone's groundbreaking capabilities into the guide, such as maps that show your location relative to a point of interest and on-the-go itinerary building functions. The guide also looks fantastic on the iPhone's 3.5-inch colour display.

LUXE's mobile city guide joins a growing pool of mobile apps specific to our city, and a current search of Apple's App Store under "Hong Kong travel" yields over 100 results.

The growth in mobile apps has been phenomenal, yet it's easy to forget that we're not even two years into the era of mobile app stores. Apple leads the charge with its App Store, which launched in July 2008, followed closely by Google’s Android Market, which launched in October 2008. Last year a further three mobile app markets entered the game: BlackBerry App World from Research In Motion, the Ovi Store from Nokia and the App Catalog from Palm for the Pre handset.

Whether the development of these markets and apps such as LUXE's mobile city guide will result in the death of the trusty dog-eared guidebook remains to be seen. At the very least, your mobile phone is becoming an increasingly viable alternative. We road tested some of the frontrunners.
 

PAID GUIDES

LUXE City Guides Mobile – Hong Kong and Macau
Description: Packs all the content from LUXE's Hong Kong and Macau City Guide into a mobile application. The guide covers dining, sights, entertainment, shopping, places to stay and general travel advice about Hong Kong.
Platforms: iPhone, BlackBerry, HTC, Nokia, Acer, Samsung, Sony Ericsson
Price: US$9.99 (includes one year of updates)

Pros:
• Clear and easy to navigate menus and well cross-referenced entries make it a breeze to browse.
• LUXE's short, snappy entries work well on a mobile phone.
• Excellent map integration, which includes offline maps (needs to be downloaded in advance), and the ability to use Google map function such as “show my location”.
• Entries can be tagged as favourites and then structured into daily itineraries, which can be displayed as a list or a map.

Cons:
• As with all LUXE guides, the focus here is on premium accommodation and shopping, so it’s really not suitable if you're looking to enjoy Hong Kong on the cheap.

Verdict:
Great if you're looking to discover the ritzy side of Hong Kong. The map integration, particularly for the walking tours and the itinerary builder, is excellent.

Lonely Planet Hong Kong City Guide
Description: A conversion of Lonely Planet's well-known City Guide for Hong Kong. The guide covers accommodation, dining, spa and beauty, things to do, shopping and general advice about Hong Kong.
Platforms: iPhone
Price: US$15.99

Pros:
• Broad coverage of topics and plenty of useful information for people unfamiliar with Hong Kong, including a good overview of the major areas of the city.
• A handy feature called 'Nearby', which brings up a list of the places nearest to you, ordered by distance (must be online), that can be filtered by category.
• The 'Map' section includes a map with all the guide's points of interest overlaid (category filters can be applied). The map works offline.
• Great search function, which picks up all the content in the guide.

Cons:
• The main table of contents is too long to be useful and the map does not include MTR exits or the names of smaller streets.

Verdict:
A broad guide to exploring Hong Kong, with plenty of helpful information for people new to the city. The mobile specific features – Nearby, Map and Search – are good additions.

Art Guide Hong Kong
Description: An inside guide to Hong Kong's art scene, written by Time Out art columnist “The Collectionist”, covering: galleries, museums, art spaces, hot spots and art-related events.
Platforms: iPhone
Price: US$2.99 (lite version available for free, which has limited listings)

Pros:
• Clear, well-presented menus, which make the guide easy to use.
• Great overview of the art scene and art spaces of Hong Kong, including basic maps.
• Entries contain practical information such as opening hours, contact details and place names in Chinese (for showing to your taxi driver).
• Contains a short list of recommended galleries and 1-day and 2-day art tour itineraries for those on a time-line.
• The hot-spots section supplies a fun list of creative corners (e.g. bars and record shops) to explore.

Cons:
• The focus is on art so it’s not suitable as a general purpose guide.

Verdict:
Easy-to-use guide, which is excellent for anyone looking for an introduction to Hong Kong's art scene.

FREE GUIDES

Hong Kong 720
Description: The Hong Kong Tourism Board's guide to Hong Kong's major attractions. The guide has five categories: Must See, Great Outdoors, Family Fun, Culture & Heritage and Hong Kong Experience.
Platforms: iPhone, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson

Pros:
• Provides an overview and photos of Hong Kong's major tourist attractions, such as the Avenue of Stars, Stanley and The Peak.
• Includes information about how to get to each attraction and a translation of the name into Chinese.
• Each location can be brought up in Google maps (although this forces you to exit the app).
• Useful 'About Hong Kong' section, which includes the locations of visitor centres, practical fast facts about Hong Kong (e.g. tipping info and smoking ban rules), and phone numbers for emergency and government services.

Cons:
• Content is limited to major attractions and the 720 virtual tours and videos are largely a gimmick.

Verdict:
A useful guide to Hong Kong's major tourist attractions.
 

Hong Kong "At a Glance" City Guide
Description: BeeLoop's Hong Kong "At a Glance" City Guide is intended to be a quick reference tool for exploring Hong Kong. The guide covers history and culture, things to see, eating, shopping, lodging and nightlife. It contains Google ads or you can pay US$4.99 for the ad-free version.
Platforms: iPhone (Android version to be released shortly)

Pros:
• A recommendation and cost rating is provided for each point of interest in the guide (unfortunately, an explanation of the ratings is not included). These ratings can be used to filter the content.
• A handy 'near by' feature, which brings up a list of points of interest, ordered by distance from you (must be online). The results can be filtered by category and displayed as a map.
• Individual points of interest can be displayed on a Google map, and the route from your location shown (must be online).
• An export button allows information about a specific point of interest to be sent to an email (or Facebook / Twitter) account.

Cons:
• Apart from category and sub-category descriptions, there is no descriptive information about each point of interest.

Verdict:
A broad guide to points of interest in Hong Kong. However, the descriptive information is too brief to allow you to rely on this as a primary guide book.
 

FT LBBT
Description: The Financial Time's Little Book of Business Travel (LBBT) is a pithy guide for business travellers to China, Hong Kong and Macau.
Platforms: iPhone, BlackBerry

Pros:
• Clear, easy to navigate menus.
• Provides practical information about local business etiquette and business relevant services (e.g. visa and translation services).
• Includes a short list of business friendly hotels, dinning, site seeing and nightlife recommendations.
• Interesting background section on politics and the economy in China.

Cons:
• Limited dinning, nightlife and activity sections, and no maps.

Verdict:
A good guide for business travellers who want a concise introduction to China and Hong Kong, including information about site seeing and shopping.
 

THINGS TO KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR

Recommendation aggregators
Websites that provide travel recommendations, such as TripAdvisor, have become important holiday planning tools. There is a growing number of apps that draw on the recommendations from these websites, such as the recently launched What's Next (developed by NileGuide). What's Next provides recommendations about things close to you, which are drawn from NileGuide's own experts and around 30 partners, including review sites TripAdvisor and Citysearch and specialty publishers like Wine Travel Guide.

Virtual tour guides
Existing mobile guides largely follow the guide book mould. There is a new breed of mobile guides becoming available, which take advantage of the interactive nature of the mobile interface, and use other features, such a video and audio content. Ask Ting Ting, a virtual tour guide for Hong Kong, combines video and a more interactive question and answer style menu option, to create an entertaining way to explore the city. The guide, which is expected to be released in mid 2010, will come pre-loaded on mobile phones available for rent at selected premium hotels in Hong Kong.

Guides for locals
As the mobile app market grows, it is becoming increasingly viable for developers to make city guide apps targeted for locals. An early (and still somewhat rough) example of this is YiYi, which is a guide to places and events in Hong Kong. YiYi includes information about hot deals available in the city and its restaurant listings are linked to Open Rice's recommendations.

Growth in apps across all mobile platforms
Apple's App Store may have stolen much of the limelight about the growth in mobile apps, but an increasing number of apps are being developed for other platforms. The most promising non-Apple platform is Google's Android market. You're next phone, regardless of its brand, is likely to have access to some sort of app market.

MOBILE GUIDES AREN'T YOUR THING?

Just because you prefer to stick with a guide book doesn't mean your mobile can't still assist you to get around town.

Want to explore a particular part of town, but the map in your guide book lacks detail?
If you have an internet connection on your mobile, Google Maps is a godsend. If you don't have an internet connection, you can also look-up the area in Google Maps before you go out and save a screen-shot of the map as a picture to your phone.

You've come up with your own list of sites to see, but you don't want to fill your guide book with post-its?
You can create a custom map in Google Maps with the spots that you want to visit and your notes about the locations. If you have an internet connection on your mobile, you can access the map using websites such as mymapsmobile.com. Alternatively, you can use a web tool such as Gliider to import your notes to your phone (requires the Gliider app to be installed).

Want to come back to a particular street?
Take a clear photo of the street name with your phone's camera. You can use this to ask for directions or to show to a taxi driver.

How can I avoid data charges when I use my mobile?
Free wifi is available at a number of public buildings and parks in Hong Kong (see GovWiFi Premises and GovWiFi Locator), and at a number of coffee shops, such as Starbucks.