Expedition White Shark
Version: 1.0
Price: $3.99
Platform: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad

Description: Expedition White Shark is designed to track adult white sharks in real time using GPS tags that have been attached to their fins. It allows you to see the same data that is being transmitted to scientists at the Marine Conservation Science Institute (MCSI).

Pros: Lots of photos, facts, and videos about sharks and shark tracking plus near real-time tracking of great white sharks. There is even a little game.

Cons: Separate apps for the iPhone and iPad. Software bugs cause erratic behavior and error messages.

Bottom Line: For anyone interested in shark research and conservation efforts, the $3.99 cost of this app goes a long way. For starters, there’s a ton of information in this app: facts, photos, videos and news about great white sharks. Though there’s even a little game in it, I don’t recommend buying the app for the game alone. Being a huge fan of sharks it was hard to be objective while writing this review but a few things did stand out as cons. The biggest one is that every time I clicked on something I got an error message that stated I wasn’t connected to the Internet. (I was connected.) The app continued to work fine as soon as I closed the error message, but it was an annoying bug nonetheless. I did experience some random crashing with the app, but after relaunching it would work fine. It would have been nice had this been a universal app that works on both the iPhone and iPad, as opposed to purchasing two separate apps for the devices. All in all though, it was money well used — I spent hours reading about the sharks they tagged, the photos, and videos detailing MCSI encounters and their research.

To purchase, go to Expedition White Shark.

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.