.Parking Review

If you've ever gotten stuck somewhere, unable to locate your car in a crowded, nondescript parking lot, then you know $0.99 is a small price to pay for peace of mind. .Parking (yes, the "." before the title is intentional) is a simple, but elegant and effective way of tracking your parking place so you won't wind up in a bind again.

The basic interface of .Parking is incredibly easy to navigate. Once you've parked, just tap on the app's icon and you are immediately located via the GPS in the iPhone. From there, you simply have to save your location. You can even take a photo (if you need some visual cue as to your location) or make a note (say, "Goofy 75") so you can remember exactly where you left your vehicle. When you are ready to find your car again, just open the app and choose from two options. The first option pulls up a map with directions highlighted (a la the built-in Google Maps function) that adjusts based on your body's position. The second option is more interesting, however, as it turns on your iPhone's camera and uses enhanced reality to superimpose an arrow on your screen that will direct you straight to your car. It was a little difficult to figure out how to turn on the enhanced reality mode (tapping the compass icon twice did the trick, but I only figured that out through trial and error) but once it was on it worked quite well.

There are certain situations .Parking cannot help you with, such as parking in a parking deck (where, I will admit, I am far more likely to get lost like in that famous Seinfeld episode). .Parking does not know what to do with a multi-level parking lot, so you might want to use the app's notes function to help you remember where you parked.

That said, .Parking is a comprehensive parking solution for most situations. It even includes a timer so you can know if your parking meter is about to run out. If you are given to losing your way in today's parking monstrosities, .Parking can help you.