The Top Free Outdoors iPhone and iPad Apps

What do you use your iPhone or iPad for?

It’s not a trick question. Given the vast number of apps available, many people use their iOS devices to do more than check their email or make a phone call.

In fact, you can use your iPhone and iPad to play outdoors, go stargazing, teach your kids about nature, and more.

Whether you already have an iPhone or iPad, plan on getting one, or have simply entered our sweepstake (where you could win a free iPad among other prizes), the following list of apps is sure to come in handy.

  Project Noah (free)

Do you enjoy hiking or walking in nature? Treetops provides a perfect setting within a 45-acre natural preservation area, and this app provides an excellent tool to help share your wildlife encounters and document our planet's biodiversity. Snap a picture of a plant or animal that you find interesting or want to learn more about, select the appropriate category, confirm your location, add descriptive tags, and submit it. And if you need help identifying a species, just select the “check box” and the Project Noah community will suggest species IDs.

 Google Earth (free) 

Google calls this app the “world in the palm of your hand.” It’s easy to see why — it allows you to “fly” anywhere in the world with the swipe of a finger, viewing high-resolution imagery for over half of the planet's population and a third of its land mass.

 Trimble Outdoors Navigator (free)

This GPS navigation and mapping app is perfect for hiking, camping, paddling, and offroading. With thousands of topographical maps as well as aerial, terrain, street and hybrid maps, it allows you to mark waypoints, capture photos and video, and store it all on a wireless service that you can access from your computer, iPhone and iPad.

 Get Out There (free)

Created by Canadian magazine Get Out There, this app makes finding local races, endurance sport events, and outdoor festivals a breeze. It also gives you access to articles of interest to you, based on the sport or outdoors category you like. 

 SkyView Free (free)

Have you ever wondered what a star is called? Or when there will be a full moon? Simply point your iPhone to the sky, tap on what you see and discover all sorts of information about these sky objects. What is so neat about this app is its ability to blend objects viewed through the camera with 3D graphics, which provides you with an impressive Augmented Reality (AR) view of the sky.  

 GolfLogix (free)

This top-rated golf app offers 4-player scoring, pro-level tracking, handicap tracking, live leaderboards, and more. It even offers video flyovers of every hole of the Nottawasaga Resort’s course and a calorie counter that tracks the time and calories burned during your rounds. 

The next two apps aren’t outdoors-related, but if you’re a parent you’ll love these.

 Pre-K Letters and Numbers (free)

Want to teach your children letters, words, numbers, and phonics with an interactive, fun, and engaging system?  Pre-K Letters and Numbers is a great learning tool for kids pre-kindergarten to grade five age and features unique characters, music, and sounds like applause for success and “oops” for mistakes.

 Tell Time LT (free)

Designed to help children learn to tell time, this app includes three different clock faces and a feature that speaks the time aloud. 

Now we turn it over to you — what are your favourite iPhone or iPad apps?