ScubaRadar

Version: 2.1
Price: FREE
Platform: iPhone, iPod, iPad

Description: ScubaRadar, by a lone developer (Armis Suss) is an international dive store and site locator. This app helps you find anything from a shop to fill your tank to a dive site near your current location.

Pros: The app is designed to work in seven languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian and Polish. It has both imperial and metric options for distance, more dive sites, dive shops, and other dive-related locations than any other app I’ve tested to date.

Cons: Not all of the dive-site descriptions are in the language you choose. Also, the main focus of this app is Europe, Asia, and the Red Sea.

Bottom Line: This app isn’t too bad, and being free makes it even better. I was able to find every dive site and shop I tried to locate, and the app provided a website, email, phone number, map, directions, and hours of operations of every link. For example, it found Jupiter Dive Center and Divers Direct, the dive site Blue Grotto, and ocean sites like Joe’s Tug, Spiegel Grove, and Big Pine Reef. The biggest problem was the description of dive store or location wasn’t in English for almost all of the dive sites. Although this was a pain, it wasn’t a total loss: Because of the links to the contact information of the dive shop or site, I was able to instantly pull up the rest of the information on the web. ScubaRadar also has a feedback option, which will hopefully make the app better over time (with feedback from you the user). With some tweaking, especially more English descriptions, this app has great potential.

To download this app, go to ScubaRadar.

PADI Rescue Diver Michael Dombrowski, President of DomCo Electronics, Inc., is an Electrical and Software Engineer with over 10 years of experience specializing in iOS applications and rapid prototyping. He has created apps for the educational industry, including The Organwise Guys, and for the dive industry with RB Planner, as well as prototypes for the Arduino Community. To see more, visit his website at www.DomCoElectronics.com.