Want to explore a new city but have no idea where to start? Ask a local, or in this case, Elan Kotz and Jeffrey Dobin. Their new app, Blikkee, strives to connect locals with travelers (or even other locals) to find the hidden gems in any city, starting with Baltimore and New York.

Meaning “tin can” in Afrikaans, Blikkee is inspired by the direct, person-to-person connection of a tin can telephone. Unlike services like Yelp and TripAdvisor, which rely on crowd-sourced reviews, it cuts through the noise and sends you straight to the local source. “While there is no shortage of recommendation sites, people waste tons of time on them,” says Dobin. “On average, people are spending hours choosing restaurants or planning trips.”

As with other popular swipe-style apps, users create a personal profile including a short bio, their areas of advice expertise, and a free tip, like where to get the best bánh mì. (“Café Cito in Hampden is the way to go, especially with a fried egg,” says Kotz.) Users can also match based on demographics, common friends, and shared interests, and then message each other to give and receive personalized recommendations on everything from food and drinks to music and art. Tapping into the sharing economy, users can even opt to make extra cash by charging for advice.

Kotz, who is a Baltimore resident and previously co-founded The Food Market, and Dobin, a Towson University alum, both agree that with its up-and-coming status, Baltimore is the perfect home for an app like Blikkee, which is out next month in beta. “Baltimoreans are super passionate about our city and the things we do,” says Kotz. “We want to add to the local tech community while supporting the people and places that make this city great.”

Will Gee has fond memories of going to Baltimore Skipjacks hockey games growing up in the city. But it’s been more than two decades since the team hung up its skates, and Baltimore’s hockey allegiances have, more or less, shifted to the Washington Capitals. As the franchise begins its playoff run, it will do so with a Baltimore connection.

At a recent meeting with the Capitals, Balti Virtual, a local augmented reality company of which Gee is the CEO, presented some recent work. It’s there that Tilt The Ice, an augmented reality game based off a different demo Balti Virtual designed for developer’s conference Beta City, was born.

This past week, a few thousand drink coasters were passed around Washington, D.C. bars and restaurants. Users can download Balti Virtual’s free app, AppAR8, and scan these coasters to spring a three-dimensional game to life. The object is simple: you’re the goalie, and your job is to stop as many pucks as possible before the game ends. The goalie’s movements correspond with how players tilt the coaster.

“It’s been a big hit so far,” Gee says. “We’ve been doing a lot in marketing and entertainment, so a lot of what we do grows out of the video game industry and video game technology. [The Capitals] liked the fact that we could build something really quickly with them.”

The game doesn’t involve a lot of fuss—there’s no email required to play and you can enter whatever you want for your name. It’s also one of the first times that Balti Virtual has created a global leaderboard where top scores can be marked for posterity. Players are encouraged to screenshot and share their scores on social media. The top player scores are eligible for prizes.

This type of technology and games like it represent a flashpoint for interactivity and, as Gee notes, different ways to pull in people’s attention. As a technology, augmented reality is recognizable but still has a bit of grandfathering to do before it reaches mainstream ubiquity. Gee says that major tech companies are exploring how it can be used in the same way as mobile apps when it comes to aiding business. “Augmented reality is essentially a hidden layer that can be personalized in the physical world, and there’s a lot you can do with that,” he explains.

Balti Virtual hopes to grow Tilt The Ice during the Capitals’ postseason. There will be a bigger push across social channels as the coasters are distributed again. The Capitals begin playoff play at home on Thursday at Capital One Arena.

As for their chances— the team enters this year’s Stanley Cup as a No. 1 seed out of the Metropolitan Division—Gee is holding his tongue.

“I don’t want to jinx it, but I feel pretty good,” Gee says. “It’s exciting for us to be working with a team we’ve been cheering for.”

If your NewsFeed is suddenly filled with 19th-century portrait paintings, you likely have the Google Arts & Culture app to thank. 

While the app itself—aimed to connect users to works of art and museums around the world—has been available since 2016, its new feature to match people’s selfies with famous works of art has only been available since mid-December. This past weekend, it became the most downloaded mobile app and celebrities from Kristen Bell to William Shatner have used it, successfully or not, to try and find their portrait parallels.

The new feature culls works of art from more than 1,200 museums in 70 countries around the world, including the Walters Art Museum here in Baltimore, which has a collection of 1,408 objects in the Google database. 

“These apps are great for bringing people into the museum,” says Walters’ director of curatorial affairs Amy Landau. “While it’s been immediately very popular with user-engagement, people have come to realize that it isn’t always successful.”

While many users have joked that their doppelgängers do them a disservice, Landau says, it raises a greater issue of people not feeling like they are being represented in artifacts of history, particularly when it comes to Asian Americans and African Americans. 

“What’s most interesting is the question the app raises about who is being represented and who is not,” Landau says. “And that speaks to museums like the Walters in its presentation and also in our acquisitions.”

Landau notes that the Walters is constantly in conversation about the issue of diversity and that the museum has always made an effort to represent different populations, as in the acquisition of Pietro Calvi’s bust “Othello.” The bronze and marble sculpture bears striking resemblance to Ira Aldridge, one of the first African-American actors in the 19th-century to play the famous Shakespeare role in Europe, and was acquired by the Walters last spring.

What the app also lacks, Landau says, is more context surrounding the works of art. When a user takes a selfie, the algorithm spits back up to five works of art with the name of the piece, artist, and museum location. 

“I think Google and museums can work more closely together so then you can get the story behind the image,” she says. “This is the kind of information a museum or docent would offer if you were physically present.”

However, the use of technology to bring traditional arts and culture to a new audience is something most institutions can get behind. In fact, Google estimates that more than 20 million selfies have been uploaded using the new feature, which has hopefully created new art fans along the way.

“While this app isn’t perfect, it’s important to keep in mind how significant experimentation is when it comes to museums and technology,” Landau says, “especially when it comes to bringing younger generations through the door.”

A local tech entrepreneur is trying to curb the massive spike in deaths related to the opioid epidemic one text at a time.

The Bad Batch Alert app is made for heroin addicts and their loved ones and essentially notifies them of any bad batches of opioids in the area. When an abnormal amount of overdoses in a neighborhood is detected, a text is sent out alerting users that a bad batch is in the area.

“It’s similar to an Amber Alert,” says creator Mike LeGrand, who started up Code In Schools in order to spread computer science education around Baltimore.

With the help of six teens and one mentor from that program, they started up Bad Batch Alert in October. He says, “Loved ones might use it, because they often care more about the people in the grips of addiction, than the people themselves do.”

In order to receive an alert, you must provide a phone number, which could initially be a turnoff for some users who don’t want to be tracked. “The app is an SMS app, not something you download from the App Store,” says LeGrand. He offers assurance that this app is meant to help and not catch people in the act.

“All phone numbers are encrypted, so they can’t be tracked back,” he says. “Also keep in mind that signing up doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a user because a lot of friends and family of users will sign up in order to protect the user they know from dying.”

Whenever there’s an overdose, the local EMS is alerted and paramedics fill out the proper paperwork. After that, this information goes to the Baltimore City Health Department and, if there is an abnormal number of overdoses in an area, that information then goes over to the Bad Batch Alert app, which triggers an alert to go out to all of its subscribers.

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“A lot of these users are isolated, so them having access to this app could save their lives,” says LeGrand. More than 700 people a year die from opioid overdoses in Baltimore City, and a huge part of that is caused by Fentanyl, a powerful drug typically used as an anesthetic or pain medicine, being laced into batches of heroin.

According to health commissioner Dr. Leana Wen, the Health Department strives to recruit “members of Baltimore’s thriving technology and design communities to address local public health challenges.”

Dr. Wen explains that reaching out to local tech companies with health interests isn’t new to them. “Baltimore is known for public health and for tech and design,” she says. “We want to increase awareness of potentially dangerous substances and provide resources to help with treatment and recovery.”

The Bad Batch Alert team is happy with their growth, as the app hit 200 registered users this past July, and LeGrand mentions plans of these alerts eventually growing to be statewide.

“I took a leave of absence from my job to work on this product,” he says “and I don’t regret it.”

When I was pregnant, I couldn’t wait to put together my son’s baby book. I imagined sitting at our dining room table with a cup of mint tea, writing notes and gently pressing photos onto the high-quality paper pages. Lou would be sleeping next to me in his rocker and I’d smile at his tiny, tired form while referencing the calendar on my iPhone to be sure I was copying the correct date of his first smile/laugh/bath into this timeless keepsake.

Then I’d flash forward to his college years when he’d come home over winter break and we’d look through it together and have meaningful conversations spurred by the mere existence of this meticulously crafted book, created entirely out of love and acid-free archival glue.

Lou is now 8 months old and there is no baby book. The first weeks were a blur of C-section recovery and learning how to keep an infant alive. The next few months were spent actually enjoying this little person, and, by the time it occurred to us that he might be the first first-born child without a detailed account of his earliest days, we were kind of over the idea of corralling his memories into one place.

Instead, the History of Lou is scattered. Tangible morsels exist alongside those in the iCloud ether and the card reader in our DSLR. We have an unreasonable number of Lou artifacts—pictures, hospital bracelets, videos, notes scrawled to each other about the last time he ate and what his poop looked like—they just aren’t affixed to pages in a book.

Here are some quick, easy ways to document your baby that don’t involve endless trips to Michael’s or boring your friends to death:

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5 Year Diary
Babies are amazing, but they don’t hit milestones every single day. Traditional baby books are great because they prompt you to write about big things like the first tooth, word, and steps, but a lot of other tiny little things happen in between. I love the 5 Year Diary because it’s the perfect amount of space to write about the big stuff alongside the sweet little stuff. You get five lines, which is just enough room to jot down a few notes from the day, but not enough that there’s any pressure attached. If I fall behind, I’ll either skip a few days or my husband and I will challenge our sleep-deprived brains to remember what the hell happened last week.

And, not every entry is about him. Some days I focus more on our schedule, professional lives, or what’s going on in the world. Since each page will eventually have everything that happened on a given date for five years, it will be a unique snap shot of our lives for Lou to look through one day.

1 Second Everyday app
Continuing with the theme of quick, daily glimpses, the 1 Second Everyday app is just that. It pulls from the videos and photos on my phone, and once a week I go through the available footage and edit down my videos of choice.

At the end of this year, I’ll have a 366-second video of everything that happened in 2016, with minimal effort. I’ve already watched the compilation through June, and openly wept. It’s basically the opening credits of The Wonder Years.

iCloud photo sharing
Some itches need to be scratched, and for parents, sharing pictures of their kids is insatiable. And if you follow a parent on social media, it can be insufferable. iCloud picture sharing is a lovely, private space to share as many pictures of my baby as I want to people who (say they) actually want to see them.

Album followers can like pictures and comment, which makes it feel like Instagram without subjecting the random college friend I haven’t seen in 10 years to a roundtable discussion about how chunky Lou’s thighs are. (But omg, so chunky.)

Print Studio
I’m pretty terrible at sending thank-you cards, and having a baby has only exacerbated the issue. They’re always late, and therefore always begin with an apology, and therefore I always end up writing way too much to compensate. Discovering Print Studios has given my tardy, frantic thank you’s a chill pill. If someone has given us a gift, I make a note to snap a picture of Lou using and/or destroying it. Then, every month or so, I’ll upload photos to the app and await my package of actual, tangible pictures.

Tucking one of these bad boys into a late thank-you note alleviates some of the guilt because the gift giver gets a glimpse at how happy they’ve made my kid. Plus, I always print doubles to keep around the house or tack up in my office.

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So yes, we’ve got his memories in many different forms, and when he’s an adult and wants to know about his babyhood, he’ll have to be his own historical architect. But he won’t have to look hard to discover little pieces of his life mixed into ours: the CD Rob and I recorded with StoryCorps about becoming his parents; the tiny light blue cotton mitten I slipped in my purse to get me through my first day back at work; the sonogram picture that proved the little gummy-bear shape had a strong, beating heart and would grow into our son.

It might not all be in one place, but it’s all there.

When the Orioles need to fly a last-minute call-up from, say, Norfolk to Minneapolis, Kevin Buck, the team’s director of travel since 2009, employs his favorite travel apps to ensure the player is in the dugout by game time. The team charters flights well in advance for road games during the regular season, but player injuries and roster shifts often necessitate hastily summoned substitutes.

Fortunately, Buck has help at his fingertips. He uses Kayak’s app to book the 100 or so urgent flights he coordinates each season.

“It’s a really easy way to find flights quickly,” he says. And to get players from airport to ballpark, Buck likes Uber for reserving a private car. “It’s been a huge help,” he adds.

Apps make traveling easier. Think of them as a palm-sized travel agent, concierge, and savvy local available 24/7. Apps can find the cheapest flight, help you pack, hail a ride, and even reserve a parking spot. One in four travelers books trips via mobile device, according to industry studies, and mobile travel reservations are expected to at least triple in the next two years. Many travel apps are hard to use or a waste of space on your smartphone screen.

We’re here to help you sort through it all with this list of essential apps for a bon voyage. (Unless otherwise noted, downloads are free for the operating systems listed.)

Book ‘Em

HotelTonight: The gold standard for same-day hotel apps, HotelTonight’s user-friendly interface summons a vetted selection of deeply discounted rooms. Time-pressed travelers need just 10 seconds (three taps, one swipe) to make same-day reservations at fill-these-rooms markdowns. The app rates hotels (“hip,” “luxe,” “basic,” “charming”) and offers room descriptions. Favorite feature: express check-in. (Android, iOS, Windows Phone)

Kayak: Beloved by one-stop trip shoppers, Kayak has become the Swiss Army knife of search-and-reserve apps. Find good deals on flights, lodging, and car rentals, and use it to track flights, manage itineraries, and receive price alerts. Flight searches can be filtered to suit your tastes, for instance, in flight times (no red-eyes, please). Favorite feature: explore budget-based vacation options. (Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Amazon, Kindle Fire)

Hipmunk: The cool kids’ flight-and-hotel aggregator, Hipmunk is famous for its Agony and Ecstasy indexes. The former ranks flights by painfulness, flagging “ugh” factors like multiple layovers and sky-high prices; the latter rates accommodations by desirability, highlighting value and amenities. Travelers can then book through the app. Favorite feature: searches integrate with iPhone, Google and Microsoft calendars. (Android, iOS)

Booking.com: Extensively critiqued lodgings, discount rates, and a pay-later feature make this app a hit. Not all of Booking.com’s hotels, B&Bs, villas, and other properties let you lock in a rate sans credit card. But filters help users find the right room at the right price. Favorite feature: 24/7 customer helpline. (Android, iOS)

SeatGuru: Fed up with bruised knees and no laptop outlet? SeatGuru lets fliers consult 700-plus airline cabin maps to determine where they do (and don’t) want to sit. Designed to suit the pickiest passengers, this app offers seat-by-seat descriptions (width, legroom, reclinability, window alignment, and power availability), plus reviews by fellow fliers. Favorite feature: Guru-rated flight searches. (Android, iOS)

Get Ready

TripIt: The efficient traveler’s go-to app, TripIt organizes flight, hotel, rental car, and other confirmation numbers and reservation information into a unified itinerary available instantly on your mobile devices. Forward travel e-mails to your free TripIt account or have the app automatically cull items from your inbox. (Auto-importing is not available for all e-mail domains.) Favorite feature: supplies maps and weather forecasts. (Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Phone)

PackPoint: Part valet, part mom, this packing-list generator uses your travel information to customize your checklist. Tell PackPoint your gender, where you’re going and when, and what you’re going to do (fancy dinners, hiking). The app does the rest, suggesting clothing, gear and gadgets you can’t leave without. Favorite feature: syncs with TripIt to obtain personal travel info. (Android, iOS)

The Weather Channel: This popular app puts television’s favorite weather broadcast into your pocket or purse. Easy to navigate, TWC app supplies travelers not only with current conditions at their location, but hourly and 10-day forecasts, local airport, beach, and boating conditions, radar, UV indexes, and weather news. Also searchable for weather forecasts/conditions at your destination. Favorite feature: customizable weather alerts. (Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Phone, Amazon, Kindle Fire)

Yapta: Nothing sours a trip like discovering—too late—that you’ve overpaid for your flight. This price-tracking app alerts frugal fliers to airfare reductions so they can book with peace of mind or claim a refund/travel credit for booked flights. Yapta also tracks hotel prices, allowing users to reserve when the rate is right. Favorite feature: easy-to-use interface means you don’t need to log in for updates. (Android, iOS)

Have Tools, Will Travel

FlightAware: This omniscient flight tracking/airport status app keeps tabs on just about everything aviation. Track commercial and private flights worldwide by airline, flight number, or route. Consult airport arrival/departure boards. Monitor gate/terminal changes and weather. Get airport delay information and receive automatic alerts. Favorite feature: airport delay “misery map.” (Android, iOS, Windows Phone)

Google Maps: No other map app comes even close to competing with Google Maps. This ubiquitous tool offers voice-guided GPS navigation for drivers, pedestrians, transit riders, and cyclists, supplemented by conventional, street-view, terrain, satellite, and 3D images. Search nearby dining, shopping, and attractions to see reviews and hours, make calls for reservations, and let Google guide you there. Favorite feature: faster-route traffic alerts. (Android, iOS, Windows Phone)

OpenTable: Employ this mobile concierge to make dinner reservations anywhere. Search for restaurants by location or name, browse top and trendy dining spots, and then let OpenTable search for available dates and times. When you’ve chosen one, book it with one tap. The app instantly confirms the reservation and sends you a reminder in advance. Favorite feature: invite your dining companions. (Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Phone, Amazon, Kindle Fire)

Entrain: Smartphones readily adjust to new time zones; not so your body. Developed by University of Michigan researchers, this app develops a personalized lighting exposure agenda to help your circadian clock quickly adjust as you travel. Input travel plans, wake-up and bed times, and Entrain formulates optimal hourly light exposures. Favorite feature: metrics page graphs your body’s progress. (Android, iOS)

Instagram: Postcards for the 21st century, Instagram lets you take travel photos (and videos) with your smartphone, enhance and caption them, then share them instantly on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other social-media sites. The app’s filters make even ho-hum vacation pics look professional. Favorite feature: display photos on personal map. (Android, iOS, Windows Phone)

Get the Scoop

TripAdvisor: When TripAdvisor predicts Wildwood, NJ, will be the hottest under-the-radar destination in the country this year, believe it. (We swear, this is not a joke about Jersey.) The app provides access to more than 200 million reviews of hotels, restaurants, and attractions by travelers like you. Download its City Guides for top picks and maps of your intended destinations. Favorite feature: Guides can be accessed for offline use. (Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Nokia)

Yelp: Looking for a wine bar near your hotel? Yelp can find the closest, display customer reviews, and offer directions. This popular business-locating app integrates each establishment’s basic info with maps, photographs, ratings, reviews, menus, and more. Search by category, price, proximity, and rating. Favorite feature: messaging lets you query locals directly. (Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Amazon, Kindle Fire)

AroundMe: Do you really need two local-search apps? Maybe not, but devotees of AroundMe prefer this thoughtfully designed, graphic-oriented app to Yelp. Choose a category icon (e.g. banks, coffee shops, movie theaters), tap, and AroundMe swiftly lists options and pinpoints them on a map. Selecting one provides detailed information and reviews. Favorite feature: uses GPS to give you directions. (Android, iOS, Windows Phone)

GateGuru: This handy travel-day companion stores your flight info and provides live updates on delays, cancellations, and gate changes. But GateGuru’s genius is its local intelligence about airport amenities and maps, particularly those in your vicinity. Use it to find restaurant options and see how fellow fliers rate them. Favorite feature: in-app discount car rentals. (Android, iOS, Windows Phone)

Keep Rolling

Uber: The mobile way to hail a ride, Uber uses your phone’s GPS to locate the driver nearest you and dispatch your preferred conveyance: taxi, sedan, luxury vechile, or SUV. The app estimates pickup time (and fare), texts you when your ride arrives, and automatically charges your on-file credit card once you’ve reached your destination. Favorite feature: GPS monitoring of driver’s progress. (Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Phone)

Waze: This app provides real-time, driver-sourced traffic and navigation advice. Waze’s legion of local eyes on the road will alert you to traffic jams, road closures, and speed traps before you’re ensnarled. Also provides step-by-step navigation. Favorite feature: closest and/or cheapest gas station locator. (Android, iOS, Windows Phone)

iExit: Traveling I-95 with two kids clamoring to eat at Olive Garden? This app’s for you. Pinpointing your location/direction via GPS, it tells you what lies ahead exit by exit (up to 100 of them) so you can plan gas stops, bathroom breaks, meals, lodging, and other road-tripping necessities. Use for pre-planning or en route. Favorite feature: favorites list for quicker searches. (Android, iOS)

Specialty Travel

Airbnb: This private-lodgings app lets you research and reserve distinctive digs in dreamy locations. Users can communicate with their hosts, browse destinations, and imagine themselves slumbering in cottages, castles, windmills, and houseboats. Favorite feature: shareable Wish List. (Android, iOS, Windows Phone)

BringFido: Accommodating furry family members on your travels can be a hassle. BringFido is a dog-lover’s best pal for finding pooch-friendly hotels and attractions like dog parks, doggie beaches, and restaurants where Rover is welcome, too. Research airline and hotel pet policies, and see which hotels and attractions earn BringFido’s coveted 5-dog-bone rating. Favorite feature: pet travel helpline. (iOS)

Cruise Finder: This vacation-planning app searches more than 20 cruise lines, 220 ships, and some 12,000 itineraries worldwide. Filter by cruise line, destination, departure port or date and the app lists your options. Peruse stateroom descriptions and prices, deck plans, and amentiies. Favorite feature: track favorite cruises for price alerts. (Android, iOS)

Green Globe: An app for the carbon-conscious traveler, Green Globe features hotels, resorts, attractions, and cruise lines that meet its sustainable tourism standards for energy and water consumption, recycling, and all-around earth-friendliness. Such rigorous vetting limits your choices, but once you’ve found a certified green hotel room you’ll sleep with a lighter conscience. Favorite feature: app-enabled hotel booking. (Android, iOS)

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App Chat

Marian Marbury, founder, Adventures in Good Company, women’s guided travel. Recent Travel: Galapagos Islands, Mongolia. Next Destination: Morocco. Techie Tip: “I love Hipmunk’s Agony index. It will rate flights, in part, by how awful the connection is. It has a really nice graphical [flight] layover index.” Also Likes: Trivago (hotel meta-searches), SugarSync (cloud file-sharing).

Kevin Buck, director of travel, Baltimore Orioles. Recent Travel: Dominican Republic, Sarasota, FL. 2015 Dream Trip: the World Series. Techie Tip: “We try to get Uber on all our players’ phones so they can get a ride easily without having to pay cash.” Also Likes: FlightTrack 5 (flight tracking), WeatherBug (real-time weather).

Jan C. Miles, captain, tall ship Pride of Baltimore II. Recent Travel: Chesapeake Bay. 2015 Destination: East Coast, Maine to Carolinas. Techie Tip: “When you go from city to city with Pride, you’re looking for local knowledge. You get off the ship and you [want to know] how to get from here to there from a walking point of view.” Also Likes: Citymapper (urban transport), PassageWeather (marine forecasts).

Local Apps

Favorite apps to help you explore Charm City.

Parking Panda: reserved parking for the plan-ahead driver. (Android, iOS, Windows Phone)

Charm City Circulator: route map, service updates, mobile alerts, plus real-time bus tracking to forecast arrival times for the free shuttle service. (Android, iOS)

Explore Baltimore Heritage: GPS-guided city history featuring over 50 landmarks (with stories and photos) and 12 themed, self-guided tours. (Android, iOS)

NPS Chesapeake Explorer: National Park Service guide to parks, outdoor activities, trails (historic, scenic, water), and tours in the Land of Pleasant Living. (Android, iOS)

The tried and true way of saving spots with a chair may become a thing of the past, as Canton resident Eric Meyer has come up with a more innovative way to ensure residents a parking spot. After facing several parking woes himself (including tickets and an eventual boot), Meyer developed Haystack, an iOS and Android app that allows neighbors to alert each other to open spots. The catch? Spot takers pay $3 and spot leavers earn $2.25, putting a price on public parking.

“I don’t see Haystack as buying a spot,” says Meyer, 24. “It’s an exchange of information. It’s an option for users to pay $3 to save 40 minutes of their time circling for parking.”

The concept of Haystack is simple: Based on GPS, residents can see and match up with others in their neighborhood who are either looking for or leaving a parking spot. (The app has users input vehicle type, so it can even match like-sized vehicles.)

Since its launch at the end of May, Haystack has acquired thousands of users, some of whom, like Canton resident Rebecca Moschina, are big fans. “I have used it about five times in a month,” says Moschina. “It’s always been a quick, easy exchange.”

But the app has also drawn criticism, mainly for its monetization of public parking, as well as potential glitches like people “squatting” in spots for a profit.

“I imagine the city will get involved the same way San Francisco has gotten involved in similar parking apps,” says Mike Brenner, CEO and cofounder of tech incubator Betamore. “My prediction is they’ll pivot their product into something different but related,” like another transportation app.

For now, though, Haystack is helping users like Moschina during desperate times. “Of course, nobody wants to pay for parking,” she says. “But I use Haystack as a last resort.”

1. Transportation – Charm City Circulator

We already love this free way to get around downtown, but we were even more excited to download this app. There are route maps, news about service or route changes, and alerts for nearby points of interest. But our favorite feature is the “next bus” integration that pretty accurately gives an estimated arrival time for the CCC, which means less waiting and more circulating.

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2. Nightlife – BeerGivr

This local startup came up with a genius idea: buy people drinks through your phone. Working with PayPal, you send a text message to a friend (“Sorry I’m running late!” “Can’t make it, but Happy Birthday!”) and choose a drink. Then, the text and a QR code pops up on your friend’s phone. The bartender scans the code and, before you know it, there’s a drink in their hand.

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3. Fitness – Armour39

Not surprisingly, fitness behemoth Under Armour has come up with an easy way to monitor your workouts. The Armour39 (which is compatible with any Bluetooth heart-rate monitor) tracks heart rate, calorie burn, and real-time intensity. This app is ideal for runners who want to find that heart-rate sweet spot while training or anyone looking to see just how efficient that cardio workout can be.

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4. Entertainment – Wham City Lights

The proverbial lighter in the air at concerts has been replaced by smartphones. So Dan Deacon and the guys at Wham City have decided to do something to enhance that experience by creating an app that produces a light effect on your phone and syncs with every other phone in the room (which has the app open), so they flash simultaneously and change color in response to the music.

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5. Arts – Soundscape

The Hearing and Speech Agency came up with a truly unique way to appreciate the city with the Baltimore Soundscape Project. The idea is to create one huge “sound map” by asking users to record and upload what they are hearing around town. The result is a decibel map of various points in the city—everything from the hum of water taxis in Fells Point to cheering crowds at Camden Yards.

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6. Food – Real Food Farm

Real Food Farm, located in Clifton Park, has been bringing healthy, affordable food to Northeast Baltimore since 2009. Now, this app makes the food available to all. The app allows you to create a shopping list, purchase produce, browse healthy recipes, get the neighborhood farmers’ market schedule, and find out when a Real Food Farm truck is nearby. Think of it as an organic grocery store in your back pocket.

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FESTIVAL FUN

Last year, two of Baltimore’s most popular festivals, Artscape (July 18-20) and the Baltimore Book Festival (September 26-28) both created helpful apps featuring maps, schedules, and news.